Women’s History Month

While researching the Mad About March post I found the National Women’s History Project site. On this site I found biographies of great women who’ve contributed to history and the advances women have made. I was inspired as I read along and wanted to share these wonderful women and their accomplishments with the world so I e-mailed and asked to please publish a few biographies each week here on Soapboxville. The nice people at the National Women’s History Project kindly agreed to allow it.

For even more bios visit the National Women’s History Project at http://www.nwhp.org.

Virginia Apgar (1909-1974)
Physician, Anesthesiologist
Apgar graduated in 1933 from Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1949, she became the first full professor of anesthesiology at Columbia. In 1952, she developed the internationally adopted Apgar Score System which measures a newborn infant’s heart rate, respiration, muscle tone, reflexes and color. She joined the National Foundation—March of Dimes in 1959, and in 1967, she became director of basic research for the Foundation.

Mary Arlene Appelhof ( 1936 –2005 )
Biologist, Worm Farmer, Educator, Publisher, and Environmentalist
Michigan
Mary Appelhof advocated using the lowly earthworm to recycle food waste into usable fertilizer. In the early 1970s she turned her basement worm container into a career designing composting bins, marketing worms, and authoring Worms Eat My Garbage. As “Worm Woman,” she introduced thousands of schoolchildren and home gardeners to the fascinating, environmentally-significant activity of vermicomposting. http://www.wormwoman.com/acatalog/index.html
http://www.emilycompost.com/mary_appelhof.htm

Roswitha Augusta
Entrepreneur, Filmmaker
Roswitha Augusta, is an entrepreneur, naturalist, and environmental filmmaker. In 1980, she established Augusta Properties, an apartment management company. Her profound love of nature prompted her to learn filmmaking and produce the award winning documentary, Preserving the Future, about the conflict between preserving our environment and urbanization. Additionally, she hosts a cable television program about local environmental issues.

Stephanie Avery (b. 1975)
Director of Special Projects, YWCA of the Lower Cape Fear and Leave No Trace Master Educator
North Carolina
Ms. Avery developed ECO CAMPS on YWCA property. She personally built nature trails through the wetlands using the best practices of “Leave No Trace,” spearheaded the identification of the flora and fauna, and created a tent classroom. She continues her work in conducting workshops and running ongoing ECO CAMPS and striving to help the community form habits to protect and preserve the environment.

Judith F. Baca (1946-)
Artist
Determined to give all people a voice in public art and urban culture, Baca organized over 1,000 young people in Los Angeles to create more than 250 murals citywide. Starting in 1974, her massive works have brought together young people from different ethnic neighborhoods to explore their cultural histories and make connections to their lives today. Since 1987, Baca has been creating an enormous portable mural called the “World Wall” to promote global peace.

Ella Baker (1903–1986)
Political Activist
Baker worked steadily for 50 years to gain civil and voting rights for blacks. As Field Secretary and later Director of Branches for the NAACP, from 1938–1946, she traveled extensively in the segregated South, often at great peril. Baker helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1958, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964.

Clara Barton (1821- 1912)
Nurse, American Red Cross Founder
Barton began her humanitarian work in the Civil War when she collected and delivered supplies and nursed wounded Union soldiers. She was called the “Angel of the Battlefield.” In 1869, she learned about the work of the International Red Cross, founded in 1863 in Geneva. Barton helped convince the United States to sign the Geneva treaty in 1882, and in 1893, she became president of the American Red Cross. For 22 years, Barton led its disaster relief work.

Mollie Beattie (1947 – 1996)
Forester, Conservationist and Government Official
Vermont
Mollie Beattie was the first woman to head the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces wildlife laws and administers the Endangered Species Act. Beattie oversaw the successful reintroduction of the gray wolf into northern Rocky Mountains. To recognize her extraordinary work in the field of conservation, Congress named a wilderness area in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in her honor.

Catharine Beecher (1800-1852)
Author, Educator
Beecher was a dedicated advocate of education for women. Beecher founded the Hartford Female Seminary in 1827 and later opened schools in western towns to train women to be teachers and strong mothers. Her 1869 book, The American Woman’s Home, gave basic information on child rearing, housekeeping, and cooking. She endorsed exercise, non-restrictive clothes, fresh air, and good food to develop healthy women able to raise educated citizens.

Rebecca Bell (b.1953)
Environmental Education Specialist
Maryland
Rebecca Bell has provided outstanding leadership in embedding environmental issues into the Maryland State curriculum for all public schools. Honored as the Maryland Middle School Science Teacher of the Year, Ms. Bell was selected in 2008 to participate in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Teacher at Sea program to help scientists monitor changing ecosystem. Rebecca also serves on the Governor’s Climate Change Commission.

While researching the Mad About March post I found the National Women’s History Project site. On this site I found biographies of great women who’ve contributed to history and the advances women have made. I was inspired as I read along and wanted to share these wonderful women and their accomplishments with the world so I e-mailed and asked to please publish a few biographies each day here on Soapboxville. The nice people at the National Women’s History Project kindly agreed to allow it.

For even more bios visit the National Women’s History Project at http://www.nwhp.org.

Wendy Abrams (b. 1965)
Founder and President of Cool Globes
Illinois USA
Wendy Abrams founded Cool Globes, a non-profit organization established to raise awareness of global warming, and to inspire individuals and community leaders to embrace solutions. She also demonstrates her commitment to a healthy environment a member of the National Council of Environmental Defense, the National Board of the Union of Concerned Scientists and the National Resources Defense Council C4 Action Fund.
http://www.coolglobes.com/
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=36351

Bella Abzug (1920-1998 )
Congresswoman, Women’s Rights Activist
Abzug was a founder and national legislative director of Women Strike for Peace from 1961 to 1970. She served 3 terms in Congress (1970-1976) where she worked to end the Vietnam War and the draft. She was presiding officer at the first government sponsored women’s conference at Houston in 1977. In 1990, she co-founded the International Women’s Environment and Development Organization to provide visibility and support for working women.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818)
Women Rights Advocate
As a self-educated woman, Adams held well-informed strong political beliefs. In over two thousand letters written to her husband John, to family and friends, and to government officials, she articulately expressed her ideas on the American Revolution, the new nation, the American family, foreign courts, and war. Well respected, her opinions were influential in government affairs before, during, and after her husband’s term as president.

Rebecca Adamson (1950-)
Native American Advocate
A member of the Cherokee nation, in 1980 Adamson founded the First Nations Development Institute. This group has established new standards of accountability regarding federal responsibility and reservation land reform and has an operating budget of about three million dollars. Adamson has aided indigenous peoples in Australia and Africa also and has received many awards for mobilizing and unifying people to solve common problems.

Jane Addams (1860–1935)
Social Worker
Addams founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889, America’s first settlement house providing English language classes, childcare, health education, and recreational programs for poor immigrant families. From 1919 until her death, Addams was president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, the first American woman so honored, for her unending dedication to the causes of peace and social justice.

Marian Anderson (1902-1993)
Singer
Anderson was denied permission to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. by the Daughters of the American Revolution—because she was black. Undaunted, she sang at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939, to an audience of 75,000. With a voice that “comes once in a century,” Anderson was the first black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955. Her talent and quiet determination opened doors for other black classical performers.

Mary Anderson (1872–1964)
Labor Activist
Anderson’s keen negotiating skills and labor activism, especially on behalf of working women, won her an appointment in 1920 as the first director of the Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor. During her 24 years there, she played a major role in winning federal minimum wage and maximum hour laws for women. After retiring in 1944, Anderson continued to advocate on behalf of working women.

Ethel Percy Andrus (1884–1967)
Elder Rights Activist
Andrus was the founder of the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) in 1947 and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in 1958. As its first president, Andrus pioneered nursing home reform legislation, often testified before Congress on issues of concern to senior citizens, and challenged mandatory retirement laws. She showed Americans of all ages that older people can and do live productive, useful, and purposeful lives.

Maya Angelou (1928-)
Author/Poet
Angelou is a novelist, poet, professional stage and screen writer, dancer, editor, lecturer, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Most notable among her publications are autobiographical novels starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1970, which helped establish the memoir as a popular genre. In 1993, Angelou recited an original poem at President Clinton’s inauguration, confirming her status as “a people’s poet.”

Lupe Anguiano (b. 1929)
Protector of the Earth and Activist for the Poor
Defying any single category of cause or action, Lupe Anguiano, an educator, has always worked for the equality of all people. She is a passionate environment volunteer, helping to protect “Mother Earth” from global warming and other destructive environmental hazards. In 1949, she joined Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters.  As a nun, she worked for fifteen years to improve the social, educational, and economic conditions of poor people throughout the United States. Anguiano was also a United Farm Workers’ Volunteer, working directly under the direction of Cesar Chavez in Delano, California. She led the successfully grape boycott in the entire State of Michigan in 1965.

Susan B. Anthony (1820- 1906)
Women’s Rights Activist, Suffragist
Susan B. Anthony began her life-long campaign for woman suffrage when she met Stanton in 1852. They organized the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Anthony edited its newspaper, traveled extensively, organizing and lecturing. When committed people work for justice, she said, “Failure is Impossible.” The Nineteenth Amendment, passed in 1920, has been called the “Anthony Amendment” in tribute to the tireless work of this great crusader.