March 13, 1967. Lady Bird travels to North Carolina as part of a three-day tour publicizing the impact of the Great Society’s educational components.
LBJ Library photos #C4710-20a and C4714-5A, public domain.
Jean M. Bright (b. 1915) served with the American Red Cross in New Guinea and Japan from 1944 to 1946. After the war, Jean earned a masters degree in English from Columbia University and taught at North Carolina A&T State University until 1978.
Photo via Jackson Library, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Bessie Bruington Burke (1891-1968), the first black principal of a Los Angeles public school.
According to the West Adams Heritage Association:
Her parents came from Kansas to Los Angeles by covered wagon in 1877, settling in what is now North Hollywood where Bessie was born. She graduated from Polytechnic High School in 1911 and attended college at Los Angeles State Normal School (now part of UCLA), graduating 7th in a class of 800. She earned her teaching credential in 1911. Her first teaching assignment was at Holmes Avenue school, where she was promoted to principal in 1918, the first African American principal in the Los Angeles school system. Her efforts to break the color bar were supported by the Forum, an African-American civic organization headquartered at the corner of Eighth and Wall Streets. For a number of years she was principal of the Virginia Road Elementary School at 2925 Virginia Road in West Adams. Burke served with a number of civic organizations including the YWCA, Native California Club, Wilfandel, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and the NAACP… She retired in 1955 after 44 years with the Los Angeles Board of Education.
Sandy Hook teacher Kaitlin Roig interviewed by Diane Sawyer.
Paper Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) longhouse, image via Alina’s Adventures. The project is from Easy Make & Learn Projects: Northeast Indians (Grades 3-5) and a pdf of the longhouse can be found here.
A longhouse was a narrow rectangular building which housed a large extended family or clan. Clans were matrilineal. When an Iroquois man married, he moved into the longhouse of his wife. Her clan membership was passed on to their children. The head of each longhouse was a woman, usually the oldest woman. These clan mothers oversaw farming, managed the distribution of food, and were responsible for ceremonial preparations. They also selected the men who represented the clan at tribal council and appointed the chief.
From the landmark civil rights case, Mendez v. Westminster, which desegregated California schools:
The equal protection of the laws’ pertaining to the public school system in California is not provided by furnishing in separate schools the same technical facilities, text books and courses of instruction to children of Mexican ancestry that are available to the other public school children regardless of their ancestry. A paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality. It must be open to all children by unified school association regardless of lineage.
From the decision of Judge Paul J. McCormick, from Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County, 1946.
The entire case is available online through the National Archives website. Go to http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/ enter ARC Identifier 294939. Read full transcripts from the case.
¡Celebración de la Herencia Hispana!
To pay tribute to the many generations of Hispanic Americans that have enriched our nation’s history, the National Archives at Riverside will be highlighting some of our holdings relating to Hispanic American history in our region (Southern California, Arizona, and Clark County, NV), including records relating to Private Land Claims, Immigration and Naturalization, military service and many more.
For more information about Hispanic Heritage Month, see http://hispanicheritagemonth.gov/
June 30, 1965. Lady Bird attends the ceremony for National Head Start Day. Head Start began as an 8-week summer program as part of LBJ’s War on Poverty. Since then, the program has expanded to include children of all ages and offers services all year. For more info, check out this page on the program’s history at the Office of Head Start’s website.
Front Row L-R: Timothy Shriver, Robert Shriver, Danny Kaye, Lady Bird Johnson, Mrs. Lou Maginn (Director of a HeadStart project in East Fairfield, Vermont), Sargent Shriver.
In 1897, local elementary school teachers created the Chicago Teachers’ Federation (CTF), the first teacher’s union in the country. Above: CTF leader Margaret Haley (center) and her supporters demanded the resignation of the city’s superintendent of education in 1913.
Want a copy of this photo?
> Visit our Rights and Reproductions Department and give them this number: DN-0061817
Cool Chicks from History Who Belong on Wikipedia
A lot of women’s history related pages are poorly sourced or non-existent on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is so many people’s go to source that it is a big oversight (and might have to do with the huge gender imbalance among Wikipedia editors).
Below is a list of entries I’ve found to be non-existent or lacking. I don’t have time to create or edit them myself, but editing Wikipedia pages is a pretty common school assignment and there may already be some Wikipedia editors among my followers. So I’m putting the suggestions out there.
This tumblr doesn’t meet Wikipedia sourcing standards, but I’ve linked to my own posts so you know what information can be found as a starting point. In other words, cutting and pasting my posts isn’t a way to improve Wikipedia so please don’t do it.
If you want to get into wiki editing, there is an overview here. If you have any problems or questions, Teahouse is peer support for new editors.
If you put together Wikipedia pages for any of the women listed, let me know when you’re done and I’ll post a link for my followers.
Lucy Gwynne Branham was a noteworthy US suffragette but doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. My post on Lucy in which I complain about her lack of a Wikipedia page.
Sharon Hedrick lacks a Wikipedia page despite several noteworthy firsts in wheelchair sports. My post about her.
Elsie Hill is mentioned on her husband’s entry, but lacks her own entry. My post on her suffrage activities. Elsie’s sister Helena was also a well known suffragette but lacks a Wikipedia entry. My post (with several sources linked though the photo is actually her daughter).
Cora Dow has no Wikipedia page, but was important enough in her day for Howard Taft to eulogize her. My post.
Ruth Elder lacks a Wikipedia page, despite a career in both film and aviation. My post.
Verna Erikson doesn’t have a Wikipedia page in either English or Finnish, but was an icon of White Finland (white being a political movement). My post.
Lucy Tayiah Eads has no Wikipedia page, but she is briefly mention on the Kaw People page. My post.
Marie Bottineau Baldwin only has a stub. My post.
Ida A. Bengtson only has a stub, but she is mentioned on the page for Clostridium botulinum. My post.
Kang Tongbi has an entry in Chinese, no entry in English. My post.
Moh Yoon-sook only has a stub on the English language version of Wikipedia. Her Korean wiki entry is much more developed. My post on her which uses a different Anglicization.
Lis Hartel has only a stub in both English and Danish. My post.
Juana de la Cruz has a much more detailed entry in Spanish than in English. My post.
The entry on the Women’s Land Army of America (Farmerettes) needs some serious expansion. My Farmerette post. (I have a few other drafts if anyone decides to tackle this one)
Jeanne Hachette has a more detailed entry in French than English. Reblogged post from French History.
Princess Stephanie of Belgium has a Wikipedia page, but it fails to mention that was an inventor. My post, with link to a NYT article about her patent.
List of women firsts could use some serious work, such as listing all the the first female Nobel Prize winners.
Many International Women of Courage Award winners lack Wikipedia pages.
Google Doodle celebrating the 142nd anniversary of Maria Montessori’s birth, August 31, 2012.
Maria Montessori was an Italian physician best known for her philosophy of education. She began her career working with developmentally disabled children. In 1900, Maria was appointed co-director of a new institute for training teachers of developmentally disabled children. She went on to study psychology and anthropology, becoming a lecturer at the University of Rome.
Interested in applying her pedagogical methods to a wider range of students, Maria founded a school for young working class Roman children in 1906. The school, called Casa dei Bambini, implemented a number of ideas that would become hallmarks of Montessori education, such as child sized furniture and a range of hands on activities.
Within just a few years, Montessori education spread. Four more Casa dei Bambini schools were opened in Italy in the next two years. In less than 10 years, Montessori schools were open in Switzerland, France, Sweden, Spain, the UK, the US, and Canada. Today there are an estimated 20,000 Montessori schools worldwide. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are among the graduates of Montessori schools.
Cross-stitch sampler by Anne Thomas, Wales, 1864.
This needlework sampler, which includes two verses in Welsh and one in English, was stitched by Anne Thomas of Wales. Anne’s daughters Mary and Elizabeth came to Wisconsin in the 1890s, joining other relatives who had previously settled in the Waukesha area. The first Welsh immigrants to Wisconsin arrived in 1840.
via: Waukesha County Museum by way of Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database
read more: Sadie Rowlands Price, “The Welsh of Waukesha County,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 26:3 (1943)
Belle Sherwin, President of the National League of Women Voters, holding a silver cup to be awarded to the state League showing the greatest increase in voting between 1920 and 1924.
I recently posted an image of Cleveland’s woman suffrage headquarters. An eagle eyed follower wondered whether the Belle Sherwin in that picture was any relation to the the paint company Sherwin-Williams which is headquartered in Cleveland. Turns out, Belle Sherwin is the daughter of Sherwin-Williams co-founder Henry Sherwin and his wife Frances Smith. Belle was an important figure in Cleveland and played a substantial role in several national and international organizations.
A short list of Belle’s accomplishments:
-Graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley
-Taught school in Boston and Connecticut
-Organized the Cleveland Consumers’ League
-Served on the board of the Visiting Nurse Association of Cleveland
-Served on the board of the National Urban League, a civil right organization
-President of the Woman Suffrage Party of Greater Cleveland
-Vice President, then President of the National League of Women Voters
-Led the US delegations at the 1926 and 1928 congresses for the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship
-Appointed by FDR to the Consumers’ Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration and to the Federal Advisory Council of the US Employment Service
-Vice President of the National Municipal League
-Vice President for North America of the Inter-American Union of Women
-Received honorary degrees from Case Western Reserve, Denison, and Oberlin
First Lady Abigail Powers Fillmore began teaching at a country school house in Cayuga County, NY when she was 16 years old. In the winter of 1818 a self taught teenager named Millard Fillmore enrolled her class. They were engaged a year later, although the wedding was delayed until 1826. For three years of their courtship, they were 150 miles apart as Millard trained to be a lawyer. As Millard explained, she was “eight years my sweetheart, twenty seven years my wife.”
Abigail taught for two years after their wedding, making her the first First Lady to hold a job after marriage. She retired from teaching after the birth of her first child Millard Powers Fillmore.
Abigail was a proponent of libraries and founded the first public library in Sempronius, New York. As First Lady, she worked to create a permanent library in the White House. Prior to the Fillmore administration, US presidents had brought their own books to the White House, retrieving them once they left office. Through her husband, Abigail obtained a special appropriation from Congress to create a small library on the second floor of the White House which still exists today.
