March 2007
H i L ife
Vol. 81/Issue 5
2305 East Main League City, Texas 77573
Women’s History Month: Honoring those who shape our country Tori Wycoff When students today are taught of the history of the country and world, both heroic men and women are studied. This, however, was not always the case. Prior to 1970, women’s history was rarely studied and there were barely any women historians. But in 1978, Sonoma County, California designated a “Women’s History Week” which included March 8, which is International Women’s Day. This sparked senators from Utah and Maryland to establish a National Women’s History week. In 1987 was expanded to National Women’s History Month and is celebrated throughout the month of March. America and the world would not be what it is today if it was not for women and their impact on society. There are many well-known women that are often spoken of in school such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosa Parks, but some really amazing women have impacted the world and are not household names. These women include Waris Dirie and Kathy Eldon. Thus, with this being National Women’s History Month, it is necessary to document the lives and impact of twenty remarkable women, some well-known and others who are relatively unknown by the general population.
Maya Angelou at the International Radio and TV Awards. Corbis. 2007. unitedstreaming. 30 March, 2007 <http://www.unitedstreaming.com/>
Ten Well-Known Women Susan B. Anthony was raised as a Quaker and at the age of 29 she became involved in abolitionism and temperance. She focused on woman suffrage, and she helped found the American Equal Rights Association in 1866. She, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association. Anthony tried to cast a test vote in New York to make a point that the constitution already permitted women to vote, but she was found guilty. Anthony did so much for the plight of women that her image was chosen to be put on a dollar coin and became the first woman to be seen on United States currency. Marie Curie was the first well-known woman scientist in the modern world. She was the first woman to earn a Ph. D. in science in Europe and the first woman professor at Sorbonne. She won the Nobel Prize in 1903 for Physics and 1911 for Chemistry. With her husband, Pierre, she discovered polonium and radium and in 1902 Marie Curie isolated pure radium. Later in life, Curie contracted leukemia from her work with radioactive substances. Her journals cannot be read due to their high levels of radioactivity. Anne Frank was a young girl in Germany that lived during the Holocaust. She received a journal from her father for her thirteenth birthday and documented the life of a Jew hiding from the Nazis during World War II. She was sent to a concentration camp where she died, but her journals were later published and now give the world a view of a life full of hiding and secrecy from a personal level. Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of Franklin Roosevelt, thus making her the First Lady of the United States. She had a great sensitivity to all underprivileged people regardless of race. She broke the precedent and held press conferences and traveled all over the world to give lectures. When her husband died, she became an American spokesman in the United Nations. Mother Teresa was a nun that traveled the world to aid people in need. She started her own order called “The Missionairies of Charity” which provided love and care for those people that no one was prepared to look after. Her society has spread all over the world and they provide help to the
poorest people and undertake relief work in the wake of natural catastrophes. Mother Teresa received the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and the Nehru Prize for her promotion of peace. Coretta Scott King took an active role in the civil rights movement while in college and joined her school’s chapter of the NAACP. She married Martin Luther King, Jr. and helped him in his search for equality. After her husband was killed, Mrs. King built a center named after him to carry on his legacy. She also wrote a biography about their lives together. Amelia Earhart is often remembered as the woman pilot who was lost at sea. She was also, however, a nurse’s aide and a social worker. She saved her money and bought a plane and quickly fell in love with flying. IN 1935 she became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Hawaii to California and she wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. She took off on July 2, 1937 and was followed by a ship named the Itasca which eventually lost contact with her. The government spent four million dollars and searched 250,000 square miles but she was never found. Maya Angelou is an author, poet, historian,
songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist. She became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1959 at the request of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Angelou became he first black woman director in Hollywood and was nominated for a Tony award twice. Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist, social reform and racial justice advocate. She is known for her actions on December 1, 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. This started a bus boycott that lasted for 381 days and ended the segregation on buses in Montgomery. Althea Gibson was a member of the Harlem Cosmopolitan Tennis Club and won the American Tennis Association’s singles tournament then years in a row. In 1956 she entered the Forest Hills national grass court championship and was the first African American player of either sex to be allowed to enter. She was also the first African American to enter the tournament at Wimbledon and she won the French Open in 1956. Read more on page 7
Washington Nationals third baseman Ryan Coach Jim Mallory takes his 500th win with Creative Visions Foundation needs your help to Zimmerman (11) throws to first base against quiet dignity this 2006-2007 season at the Best help Ryan Gosling treat some injured children from Florida Marlins Dontrelle Wilis during the first High School in Texas. Uganda. inning of the season opener for the Nationals in Washington, DC April 2, 2007 (CHUCK KENNEDY/ MCT).
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