Born on August 27, 1796 in Hatfield, MA just a few miles from Northampton, Sophia Smith was the fourth of seven children -- and the first daughter -- of Joseph Smith, a prosperous farmer, and his wife, Lois White Smith. Few family records survive, so little is known about Sophia Smith's early years. Her journal, which she kept for the last nine years of her life, is primarily a record of her spiritual development but also includes discussions of events of the day, her trips, and the books she was reading. Like many girls of her era, Sophia was given a meager education, yet she read avidly and widely throughout her life. Such passion -- which included poetry and prose, newspapers and magazines of social, political and literary commentary -- not only portended her future contributions but may also have helped her endure the tragedies of adulthood. Of the seven Smith offspring, three died young and only Joseph Jr. married, producing no heirs. Sophia, her sister Harriet and brother Austin shared the family homestead, which still stands at 22 Main Street in Hatfield. Moreover, by the age of 40, Sophia had become quite deaf, and even the use of an ear trumpet did not counter the growing isolation that her hearing loss engendered in the years to follow. She underwent several operations to correct the problem, but these were all unsuccessful. Sophia's father, Joseph, was both prosperous and frugal. After his death, his son Austin shrewdly invested his inheritance in the New York stock market and often traveled there to watch the Smith assets grow. Back in Hatfield, Austin was reputed to be a miser devoid of community spirit. He argued at town meetings against the extravagance of public education and was said to pay board to his sisters to manage the household -- and then charged them a shilling for a ride in the family carriage. At least Austin seemed to come by his penurious ways honestly. His uncle, Oliver Smith, was also renowned in Hatfield for his parsimony. For instance, the elder Smith is said to have employed the village tailoress to turn his coats wrong side out and remake them. Then, when he died, he left a half-million dollars to charity. The Smith Charities is still in operation today, housed in a handsome brownstone building at 51 Main Street in Northampton. Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School, serving students throughout Hampshire County, is also the result of Oliver's benevolence. Harriet Smith's death in 1859, followed by Austin's in 1861, left Sophia wealthy but alone. Her story -- up until this point -- features few variations or opposing theories. It is only here, as she began to plan for the final dispensation of the Smith family fortune, that the tale becomes less clear. Deeply religious, Sophia turned to her pastor, John Morton Greene, as well as other advisers, to discuss her decision. Among the options considered were bequests to Amherst College (Reverend Greene's alma mater) and to the nearby Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which -- although not a full-fledged college -- was already educating young women. Initially, Sophia settled on a variety of projects, including a school for the deaf -- a logical choice in light of her own struggles with impaired hearing. Thus, Smith College may, at least in part, owe its very existence to the fact that John Clarke died before she did, endowing a school for the deaf (today the acclaimed Clarke School in Northampton) and prompting Sophia to abandon her plan. The "Last Will and Testament of Miss Sophia Smith" was not completed until March of 1870 -- only three months before she died but nine years (and many revisions) after her first meeting about the matter with John Greene. This final version supported "the establishment and maintenance of an Institution for the higher education of young women, with the design to furnish for my own sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our Colleges to young men." The will went on to state: "It is my opinion that by the education of women, what are called their 'wrongs' will be redressed, their wages adjusted, their weight of influence in reforming the evils of society will be greatly increased, as teachers, as writers, as mothers, as members of society, their power for good will be incalculably enlarged... "It is my wish that the institution be so conducted, that during all coming time it shall do the most good to the greatest number. I would have it a perennial blessing to the country and the world." Smith College was chartered in 1871 and opened in 1875. While most would agree that the college embodies the values and vision inherent in its earliest blueprint, some scholars question whether Sophia Smith herself conceived this pathbreaking plan or whether she merely endorsed an idea proposed by Reverend Greene. The wording of the will may likewise be Sophia's own -- or may not be. And while Sophia Smith has been described as yielding and submissive, there is evidence that her interest in women and their academic aspirations was genuine and long-standing. John M. Greene outlived his parishioner by 50 years and recorded the history of the development of the college as he remembered it. The trustees appointed in Sophia's will, including Greene, and the president they hired, L. Clark Seelye, built the college using Sophia's vision as its foundation, and the new institution grew rapidly to be one of the largest and most respected colleges for women in the world.
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Did you know that the name Isabella is one of the most popular names for kids born in 2012? Yep, it's true. Maybe there are some real women's history geeks out there who decided to name their daughter after the woman I am profiling today... (probably not, but it's a good thought, anyway) Isabella I ( 22 April 1451 – Medina del Campo, 26 November 1504), nicknamed the Catholic, was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband, Ferdinand II of Aragon, brought stability to the kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. After a struggle to claim her right to the throne, she reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, and pulled the kingdom out of the enormous debt her brother had left behind. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms. Isabella and Ferdinand are known for completing the Reconquista, ordering conversion or exile of their Muslim and Jewish subjects and financing Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage that led to the opening of the "New World". Isabella was born in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila to John II of Castile and Isabella of Portugal on April 22, 1451. She was the granddaughter of Henry III of Castile and Catherine of Lancaster. At the time of her birth, her older half brother Enrique (Henry) was in line for the throne before her. Enrique, referred to by the English version of his name, Henry, was 26 at that time and married, but he was childless. Her younger brother Alfonso was born two years later on 17 November 1453 and displaced her in the line of succession. When her father, John II of Castile, died in 1454, Henry became King Henry IV. Isabella and Alfonso were left in Henry's care. Her brother Alfonso, mother, and she then moved to Arévalo. These were times of turmoil for Isabella. Isabella lived with her brother and her mother in a castle in poor conditions, where they also suffered from a shortage of money. Although her father arranged in his will for his children to be financially well taken care of, her half-brother Henry did not comply with their father's wishes, either from a desire to keep his half-siblings restricted or from ineptitude.[3] Even though the living conditions were lackluster, under the careful eye of her mother, Isabella was instructed in lessons of practical piety and in the deep reverence for religion. When King Henry's wife, Queen Joan of Portugal, was about to give birth, Isabella and her brother were summoned to court (Segovia) and taken away from their mother to be under more control and direct supervision by the king and finish their educations. Alfonso was put under the care of a tutor while Isabella became part of the Queen's household. Conditions of Isabella's life improved in Segovia. She always had food and clothing and lived in a castle that was adorned with gold and silver. Isabella's basic education consisted of reading, spelling, writing, grammar, mathematics, art, chess, dancing, embroidery, music, and religious instruction. She and her ladies-in-waiting entertained themselves with art, embroidery, and music. She lived a relaxed lifestyle, but she rarely left Segovia as Henry forbade her from doing so. Her brother was keeping her from the political turmoils going on in the kingdom, though Isabella had full knowledge of what was going on and her role in the feuds.The noblemen who were anxious for power confronted the King, demanding that his younger half brother Infante Alfonso be named his successor. They even went as far as to ask Alfonso to seize the throne. The nobles, now in control of Alfonso and claiming him to be the true heir, clashed with Henry's forces at the Second Battle of Olmedo in 1467. The battle was a draw. Henry agreed to make Alfonso his heir, provided Alfonso would marry his daughter, Joanna. Soon after Alfonso was named Prince of Asturias, the title given to the heir of Castile and Leon, he died, likely of the plague. The nobles who had supported him suspected poisoning. As she had been named in her brother's will as his successor, the nobles asked Isabella to take his place as champion of the rebellion. However, support for the rebels had begun to wane, and Isabella preferred a negotiated settlement to continuing the war. She met with Henry and, at Toros de Guisando, they reached a compromise: the war would stop, Henry would name Isabella his heir instead of Joanna, and Isabella would not marry without Henry's consent but he would not be able to force her to marry against her will. Isabella's side came out with most of what they desired, though they did not go so far as to officially depose Henry: they were not powerful enough to do so, and Isabella did not want to jeopardize the principle of fair inherited succession, since it was upon this idea that she had based her argument for legitimacy as heir. It was under her reign that the expulsion of the Jews from Spain occurred, and the Roman Catholic Inquistion in Spain was instituted. There is so much more history and information on her. You could read wikipedia alone for hours, and that's not even beginning a foray into real history. If you're a european/spanish, and/or colonial US history fan, you should know about her. She definitely changed history. Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933) is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut. After successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show, Burnett moved to Los Angeles and began an eleven-year run on The Carol Burnett Show which was aired on CBS television from 1967 to 1978. With roots in vaudeville, The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show which combined comedy sketches, song, and dance. The comedy sketches included film parodies and character pieces. Burnett created many characters during the show's television run. Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Ina Louise (née Creighton), a publicity writer for movie studios, and Joseph Thomas Burnett, a movie theater manager. Both of her parents suffered from alcoholism, and at a young age she was left with her grandmother, Mabel Eudora White. Her parents divorced in the late 1930s, and Burnett and her grandmother moved to an apartment near her mother’s in an impoverished area of Hollywood. There, they stayed in a boarding house with her younger half-sister Chrissy. When Burnett was in the second grade, she briefly invented an imaginary twin sister named Karen, with Shirley Temple-like dimples. Motivated to further the pretense, Burnett recalled fondly that she "fooled the other boarders in the rooming house where we lived by frantically switching clothes and dashing in and out of the house by the fire escape and the front door. Then I became exhausted and Karen mysteriously vanished." For a while, she worked as an usherette at what is now the Hollywood Pacific Theatre (the forecourt of which is now the location of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; see the section in the theatre's article for more information). After graduating from Hollywood High School in 1951, Burnett won a scholarship to UCLA, where she initially planned on studying journalism. During her first year of college, Burnett switched her focus to theater arts and English, with the goal of becoming a playwright. She found she had to take an acting course to enter the playwright program; "I wasn't really ready to do the acting thing, but I had no choice."[5] She followed a sudden impulse in her first performance; "Don't ask me why, but when we were in front of the audience, I suddenly decided I was going to stretch out all my words and my first line came out 'I'm baaaaaaaack!'" The audience response moved her deeply: They laughed and it felt great. All of a sudden, after so much coldness and emptiness in my life, I knew the sensation of all that warmth wrapping around me. I had always been a quiet, shy, sad sort of girl and then everything changed for me. You spend the rest of your life hoping you'll hear a laugh that great again. During this time, Burnett performed in several university productions, garnering recognition for her comedic and musical abilities. Her mother disapproved of her acting ambitions: She wanted me to be a writer. She said you can always write, no matter what you look like. When I was growing up she told me to be a little lady, and a couple of times I got a whack for crossing my eyes or making funny faces. Of course, she never, I never, dreamed I would ever perform. The young Burnett, always insecure about her looks, described her reaction to her mother's advice of "You can always write, no matter what you look like", in her 1986 memoir One More Time: "God, that hurt!"In 1954, during her junior year, a professor invited Burnett and some other students to perform at a black-tie party. A man and his wife approached her afterward, as she was putting cookies in her purse to take home to her grandmother. Instead of reprimanding her, the man complimented Burnett's performance and asked about her future plans. When he discovered that she wanted to go try her luck with musical comedy in New York, but did not have enough money, he offered her and her boyfriend Don Saroyan each a $1000 interest-free loan on the spot. The conditions were that it was to be paid back in five years, his name was never to be revealed, and if she became a success, she would help others attain their dreams. Burnett took him up on his offer. She and Saroyan left college and moved to New York to pursue acting careers. That same year, Burnett's father died of causes related to his alcoholism. After spending her first year in New York working as a hat-check girl and failing to land acting jobs, Burnett along with other girls living at The Rehearsal Club, a boarding house for women seriously pursuing an acting career, put on The Rehearsal Club Revue on March 3, 1955. They mailed invitations to agents, who showed up along with stars like Celeste Holm and Marlene Dietrich, and this opened doors for several of the girls. Burnett was cast in a minor role on The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show in 1955. She played the girlfriend of a ventriloquist’s dummy on the popular children’s program. This role led to her starring role opposite Buddy Hackett in the short-lived sitcom Stanley from 1956 to 1957.After Stanley, Burnett found herself unemployed for a short time. She eventually bounced back a few months later as a highly popular performer on the New York circuit of cabarets and night clubs, most notably for a hit parody number called "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" (Dulles was Secretary of State at the time). In 1957, Burnett performed this number on both The Tonight Show, hosted by Jack Paar, and The Ed Sullivan Show. Burnett also worked as a regular on one of television's earliest game shows, Pantomime Quiz, during this time. In 1957, just as Burnett was achieving her first small successes, her mother died.Burnett and Larry Blyden from The Garry Moore Show, 1960.Burnett's first true taste of success came with her appearance on Broadway in the 1959 musical Once Upon a Mattress. The same year, she became a regular player on The Garry Moore Show, a job that lasted until 1962. She won an Emmy that year for her "Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series" on the show. Burnett portrayed a number of characters, most memorably the put-upon cleaning woman who would later become her signature alter-ego. With her success on the Moore show, Burnett finally rose to headliner status and appeared in the 1962 special Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall, co-starring her friend Julie Andrews. The show was produced by Bob Banner, directed by Joe Hamilton, and written by Mike Nichols and Ken Welch. Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Music. Burnett also guest-starred on a number of shows during this time, including The Twilight Zone episode "Cavender is Coming" and a recurring role as a tough female Marine in Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.. Burnett became good friends with the latter show's star, Jim Nabors, who would later be her first guest every season on her variety show. In 1963, Lucille Ball became a friend and mentor to Burnett, and after having the younger performer guest star on The Lucy Show a number of times, Ball reportedly offered Burnett her own sitcom called "Here's Agnes", to be produced by Desilu Productions. Burnett declined the offer, however, deciding instead to put together a variety show. The two remained close friends until Ball's death in 1989. Ball sent flowers every year on her birthday. When Burnett awoke on the day of her 56th birthday in 1989, she discovered via the morning news that Ball had died. Later that afternoon, flowers arrived at Burnett's house with the note "Happy Birthday, Kid. Love, Lucy." In 1964, Burnett was cast opposite Caterina Valente and Bob Newhart on the variety show The Entertainers which ran for only one season. She also starred in the Broadway musical Fade Out - Fade In, but was forced to quit after sustaining a neck injury in a taxi accident. The show’s producers sued the actress for breach of contract, but the suit was later dropped. There is so much more, but this is plenty for a blog post. I have always found Carol Bu Today marks the anniversary of the beginning of the National Woman's Suffrage Association. It seems fitting to highlight some of the women that were part of the giant movement that eventually led to women's right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a women's rights activist, feminist, editor, and writer.(Although she wouldn't have called herself a feminist then.) Born on November 12, 1815, in Johnstown, New York. The daughter of a lawyer who made no secret of his preference for another son, she early showed her desire to excel in intellectual and other "male" spheres. She graduated from the Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary in 1832 and then was drawn to the abolitionist, temperance, and women's rights movements through visits to the home of her cousin, the reformer Gerrit Smith. In 1840 Elizabeth Cady Stanton married a reformer Henry Stanton (omitting “obey” from the marriage oath), and they went at once to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where she joined other women in objecting to their exclusion from the assembly. On returning to the United States, Elizabeth and Henry had seven children while he studied and practiced law, and eventually they settled in Seneca Falls, New York. With Lucretia Mott and several other women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton held the famous Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848. At this meeting, the attendees drew up its “Declaration of Sentiments” and took the lead in proposing that women be granted the right to vote. She continued to write and lecture on women's rights and other reforms of the day. After meeting Susan B Anthony in the early 1850s, she was one of the leaders in promoting women's rights in general (such as divorce) and the right to vote in particular. During the Civil War Elizabeth Cady Stanton concentrated her efforts on abolishing slavery, but afterwards she became even more outspoken in promoting women suffrage. In 1868, she worked with Susan B. Anthony on the Revolution, a militant weekly paper. The two then formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. Stanton was the NWSA’s first president - a position she held until 1890. At that time the organization merged with another suffrage group to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Stanton served as the president of the new organization for two years. As a part of her work on behalf of women’s rights, Elizabeth Cady Stanton often traveled to give lectures and speeches. She called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. Stanton also worked with Anthony on the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage (1881–6). Matilda Joslyn Gage also worked with the pair on parts of the project. Besides chronicling the history of the suffrage movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton took on the role religion played in the struggle for equal rights for women. She had long argued that the Bible and organized religion played in denying women their full rights. With her daughter, Harriet Stanton Blatch, she published a critique, The Woman's Bible, which was published in two volumes. The first volume appeared in 1895 and the second in 1898. This brought considerable protest not only from expected religious quarters but from many in the woman suffrage movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died on October 26, 1902. More so than many other women in that movement, she was able and willing to speak out on a wide spectrum of issues - from the primacy of legislatures over the courts and constitution, to women's right to ride bicycles.This is the quickest overview of her and her work. There is so much more, especially interesting to me is the friendship between Stanton and Anthony, how Anthony never married and devoted her whole life to the struggle for women's rights. The stories of their friendship could fill a book all on its own. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
Dorothy Bernard (25 June 1890 – 14 December 1955) was an American actress of the silent era, and was one of the very first female film stars. She appeared in 87 films between 1908 and 1956.She was born Nora Dorothy Bernard in Port Elizabeth, South Africa to William H Bernard and Roy Elizabeth Ayrd. Her father was from Auckland, New Zealand, and her mother was born in Sligo, Ireland. Although her birth date is listed as July 25, 1890 in many biographies, her death certificate and U.S. passport both state her birth date as June 25, 1890. An only child, she spent her formative years in Portland, Oregon where her father, William H. Bernard (1864–1915), worked as a stock company manager and was a well-respected actor. As a child actress, Bernard appeared in several plays in Portland under "Dot Bernard" in the Baker Theater Company. Her stepmother, actress Nan Ramsey, also appeared in several productions. In 1905, her family moved to Los Angeles, California, and her father accepted a position to manage the Balasco theater. She was married to fellow actor, A.H. Van Buren (1879–1965), on July 5, 1909 in Washington D.C., and they had a daughter named Marjorie "Midge" Van Buren born on June 30, 1910 in Jamaica, New York. Films she appeared in: A Flash of Light (1910) Ramona (1910) The Two Paths (1911) His Trust Fulfilled (1911) His Trust (1911) For His Son (1912) A Sister's Love (1912) A String of Pearls (1912) The Girl and Her Trust (1912) The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch (1912) One Is Business, the Other Crime (1912) An Outcast Among Outcasts (1912) The House of Darkness (1913) The Sheriff's Baby (1913) Near to Earth (1913)A Chance Deception (1913) Today's post is sort of an obituary, sort of a celebration of life. Beloved Ada Maria passed away today from cancer. As a Hispanic theologian, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz was an innovator of Hispanic theology in general and specifically of Mujerista theology. Isasi-Díaz also was founder and co-director of the Hispanic Institute of Theology at Drew University. Before I let you know more about her, I have to say that she was one of a handful of women working in the niche of feminist Liberation Theology. Her Mujerista theology is compelling, brave work. A list of her books is here. She definitely helped me understand how we are all connected in the struggle of gender and class and race and sexuality. She was born and raised in La Habana, Cuba. The third of six sisters and two brothers, she received all of her primary and secondary school education at Merici Academy, a school ran by the nuns of the Order of St. Ursula. While she was growing up her father worked in different sugar mills in three different provinces of Cuba and that gave her an opportunity to spend summers away from the capital and to experience widely her country and its people. Brought up in a practicing Catholic home, early on she began to have and nourish a concern for the poor and the oppressed and a love of religious practices. At the same time, particularly from her mother, she learned the importance of struggling (la lucha) for what one believes without ever giving up. She left Cuba and became a political refugee in 1960. She first lived in the USA where she entered the convent (the Order of St. Ursula), and went to college earning a B.A. in European History from The College of New Rochelle in New York. In January 1967 she arrived in Lima, Peru as a missionary and lived there for three years. This experience has marked her for life. She often says that it was there that the poor taught her the gospel message of justice. It was there that she learned to respect and admire the religious understandings and practices of the poor and the oppressed and the importance of their everyday struggles, of lo cotidiano. It was there that she realized the centrality of solidarity with the poor and the oppressed in the struggle for justice. She returned to the USA December of 1969 and taught high-school for several years in Louisiana and lived in Spain for 16 months. Upon return to the USA, she settled in Rochester, New York. Thanksgiving weekend 1975 she became a feminist. It was at the first Women's Ordination Conference in Detroit, Michigan that she began to realize that oppression was caused not only by poverty but also is the result of sexism. For seven years she worked indefatigably in the women's movement focusing on women's oppression in churches, religion and theology. During this time she began to understand the interconnections of sexism, ethnic prejudice-racism, and economic oppression-classism. In 1983 she began to pursue a Master of Divinity Degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she also completed a PhD with a concentration in Christian Ethics in 1990. Her studies and involvement in the feminist theological movement made her see the need to begin to develop a theology from the perspective of Latinas in the USA. Thus she became an activist-theologian and began to elaborate Mujerista Theology. In 1991 she began teaching at the Theological and Graduate Schools of Drew University. Immensely enriched by opportunities to speak with women all around the USA as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, she continued to elaborate Mujerista Theology. She did so in dialogue with other women-centered theologies and liberation theologies which have emerged all around the world. Throughout her life she stayed very close to her family and was very grateful for its on-going support even when they did not agree with her views. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer about a month ago. Today, she has left us to join the spirit world. Helen Barrett was born on July 31, 1861 in Kingsville, Ohio. She was the oldest of three children born to Adoniram Judson and Emily Barrows Barrett. Both of her parents were teachers. As a child her father moved the family to Rochester, New York so that he might attend the Rochester Theological Seminary. Upon his graduation in 1876, he became pastor of the Lake Avenue Baptist Church, in Rochester, a position he held until his death in 1889. Helen Barrett graduated from Wellesley College in 1884 and became a teacher, first at the Rochester Free Academy and then for two years at the Wellesley Preparatory School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She then returned to Rochester, where she married William A. Montgomery, a businessman, on September 6, 1887. Mr. Montgomery’s business, North East Electric Company, would later become the Rochester Products Division of General Motors. During the early years of her marriage, Helen Barrett Montgomery and her husband adopted a daughter, Edith. Montgomery also organized a women’s Bible class at the Lake Avenue Baptist Church, which she taught for forty-four years. In 1892, the same church licensed her to preach. During the 1890s, Montgomery was involved in a number of efforts on behalf of women’s rights. In 1893, she and Susan B. Anthony formed the Woman’s Educational and Industrial Union of Rochester (WEIU), and Montgomery became its first president. Modeled on similar associations in Buffalo and Boston, the WEIU served poor women and children in the City. It established a legal aid center, public playgrounds, a "Noon Rest" house for working girls, and safe milk stations for mothers. These "stations" later evolved into public health centers. Montgomery, a teacher before and after her marriage, also became a spokesperson for educational reform in the 1890s, and tied this interest to her work on behalf of women’s rights. When she served as the president of the New York State Federation of Women’s Clubs (1896 - 1897), she was known for her public addresses on education issues. In 1898, she joined with Anthony in order to raise funds to open the University of Rochester to women students, a venture that finally succeeded in 1900. In 1899, as a result of the efforts of the women’s rights movement, the WEIU, and the Good Government movement, she was elected to the Rochester School Board, the first woman ever elected to public office in the City. Montgomery served on the Board for ten years, during which time she was instrumental in effecting the implementation of many Progressive reforms -- including the introduction of kindergartens, vocational training and health education. During this time, she also helped to pioneer the use of schools as community social centers in poorer neighborhoods, starting with Public School No. 14 in Rochester in 1907. Throughout her tenure on the school board, Montgomery maintained close ties to Susan B. Anthony and the suffrage movement as a member of the Women’s Political Equality Club of Rochester. Shortly after Anthony’s death in 1906, Montgomery served as the second vice-chairman on of the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Association, a Rochester committee established to ensure that Anthony’s pioneering work for women’s rights was properly recognized. Montgomery became increasingly involved in the women’s missionary movement, as she grew older. In this work too, her activities were often closely linked to furthering the rights of women. In 1910, she published Western Women in Eastern Lands (1910), a study that surveyed the status of women in Asia. The study also examined women’s mission boards, women missionaries, and women’s right to control their own mission funds and programs in Asia. In 1910 - 1911, Montgomery embarked on a national tour promoting Protestant women’s mission work, and through her efforts helped to raise $1 million dollars, much of which went to establish Christian women’s colleges in Asia. In 1913, at the request of the Federation of Women’s Boards of Foreign Missions, she traveled around the world in order to survey and report on missions. Her report, The King’s Highway, was published in 1915 and sold more than 160,000 copies. Montgomery also served as the president of the Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (1914 - 1924). In this position, she sought to increase access to education and health care for women and children. In 1915 she, along with two other prominent women of faith, founded the World Wide Guild, the purpose of which was to encourage young women to pursue missionary work. She presided over the National Federation of Women’s Boards of Foreign Missions (1917 - 1918), and in 1921 became the first woman to be elected president of the Northern Baptist Convention. In 1924, Montgomery published The Centenary Translation of the New Testament. In this translation, the first by a woman scholar, she sought to make the Greek New Testament more accessible to the "ordinary reader" by using "everyday" language. Montgomery ensured that her good works would continue after her death. Her will left over $450,000 to more than 80 institutions, including colleges, churches, missions and hospitals. Montgomery died at the home of her daughter Edith (Mrs. George F. Simson) in Summit, New Jersey on October 19, 1934 at the age of 73. Farmers, and all those who support family farms, farm markets, and CSA's, this one's for you!! As a milk and vegetable farmer, Svetlana Maksimova knows firsthand about the challenges facing fellow farmers living around the Russian city of Tver, 250 km northwest of Moscow. "The issue is that farmers have no access to markets as it’s controlled by big companies," Maksimova said. To tackle the problem, Maksimova has set up special distribution centres, making it easier and cheaper for farmers to get their produce to customers. She has also organised local food fairs where farmers can showcase their organic produce such as potatoes, cabbages and apples, as well as more informal food markets with farmers selling vegetables from their car boots. Amid the economic and political turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Maksimova managed to build a milk and vegetable farm in 1997. She then formed a union of 500 local smallholder farmers, based on her belief that if farmers work together they can achieve better results and yield more influence. Last year, the farmers union nominated Maksimova to run for political office and she became an elected official in the Russian parliament, from where she continues to lobby for the rights of small farmers in the Tver region. Maksimova's daughter is following her mother's footsteps and has taken over the running of the family farm. Ok, I'm probably cheating by posting a link only. However, the Washington Post has a great article on Barbara Annette Robbins here . It's a great story, complete with primary resources such as letters home to her parents, and it's chock full of mystery and CIA what if stories.
Speaking of the CIA and stories, have you seen Ashley Judd on the new show Missing? I kinda love it. Anyway, have fun reading about Barbara Robbins-- Irena Sendler is an unfamiliar name to most people, but this remarkable woman defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a health worker, she sneaked the children out between 1942 and 1943 to safe hiding places and found non-Jewish families to adopt them. Today the old woman, gentle and courageous, is living a modest existence in her Warsaw apartment - an unsung heroine. Her achievement went largely unnoticed for many years. Then the story was uncovered by four young students at Uniontown High School, in Kansas, who were the winners of the 2000 Kansas state National History Day competition by writing a play Life in a Jar about the heroic actions of Irena Sendler. The girls - Elizabeth Cambers, Megan Stewart, Sabrina Coons and Janice Underwood - have since gained international recognition, along with their teacher, Norman Conard. The presentation, seen in many venues in the United States and popularized by National Public Radio, C-SPAN and CBS, has brought Irena Sendler's story to a wider public. The students continue their prize-winning dramatic presentation Life in a Jar. Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in Otwock, a town some 15 miles southeast of Warsaw. She was greatly influenced by her father who was one of the first Polish Socialists. As a doctor his patients were mostly poor Jews. At the time of the Nazi in, Irena was a Senior Administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department, which operated the canteens in every district of the city. Previously, the canteens provided meals, financial aid, and other services for orphans, the elderly, the poor and the destitute. Now, through Irena, the canteens also provided clothing, medicine and money for the Jews. They were registered under fictitious Christian names, and to prevent inspections, the Jewish families were reported as being afflicted with such highly infectious diseases as typhus and tuberculosis. But in 1942, the Nazis herded hundreds of thousands of Jews into a 16-block area that came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto. The Ghetto was sealed and the Jewish families ended up behind its walls, only to await certain death. Irena Sendler was so appalled by the conditions that she joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, organized by the Polish underground resistance movement, as one of its first recruits and directed the efforts to rescue Jewish children. To be able to enter the Ghetto legally, Irena managed to be issued a pass from Warsaws Epidemic Control Department and she visited the Ghetto daily, reestablished contacts and brought food, medicines and clothing. But 5,000 people were dying a month from starvation and disease in the Ghetto, and she decided to help the Jewish children to get out. For Irena Sendler, a young mother herself, persuading parents to part with their children was in itself a horrendous task. Finding families willing to shelter the children, and thereby willing to risk their life if the Nazis ever found out, was also not easy. Irena Sendler, who wore a star armband as a sign of her solidarity to Jews, began smuggling children out in an ambulance. She recruited at least one person from each of the ten centers of the Social Welfare Department. With their help, she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Irena Sendler successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities. Some children were taken out in gunnysacks or body bags. Some were buried inside loads of goods. A mechanic took a baby out in his toolbox. Some kids were carried out in potato sacks, others were placed in coffins, some entered a church in the Ghetto which had two entrances. One entrance opened into the Ghetto, the other opened into the Aryan side of Warsaw. They entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians. "Can you guarantee they will live?" Irena later recalled the distraught parents asking. But she could only guarantee they would die if they stayed. "In my dreams," she said, "I still hear the cries when they left their parents." Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Irena also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," she said. The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the children's original names and their new identities. She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard, across the street from German barracks, hoping she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past. In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children ... But the Nazis became aware of Irena's activities, and on October 20, 1943 she was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, who broke her feet and legs. She ended up in the Pawiak Prison, but no one could break her spirit. Though she was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children, she withstood the torture, refusing to betray either her associates or any of the Jewish children in hiding. Sentenced to death, Irena was saved at the last minute when Zegota members bribed one of the Germans to halt the execution. She escaped from prison but for the rest of the war she was pursued by the Gestapo. After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families and to reunite them with relatives scattered across Europe. But most lost their families during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps. The children had known her only by her code name Jolanta. But years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. "A man, a painter, telephoned me," said Sendler, "`I remember your face,' he said. `It was you who took me out of the ghetto.' I had many calls like that!" Irena Sendler did not think of herself as a hero. She claimed no credit for her actions. "I could have done more," she said. "This regret will follow me to my death." She has been honored by international Jewish organizations - in 1965 she accorded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem organization in Jerusalem and in 1991 she was made an honorary citizen of Israel. Irena Sendler was awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of White Eagle in Warsaw Monday Nov. 10, 2003. This lovely, courageous woman was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Her courage enabled not only the survival of 2,500 Jewish children but also of the generations of their descendants. She passed away on May 12, 2008, at the age of 98. |
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