Somehow the month had just too much going on for me to find the time to do my teacher work. Of course March invites us to think of the contribution of Women to history. An eloquent reason for why to teach Women's history I just read here. If you have daughters then you understand that their role models, their inspirations are not only the mothers that sacrifice and lead towards better days but also outstanding women that have transformed our lives. My daughter Sylvia at CalTech represents for me one of our children growing into the opportunities in science and math fields that are opening and broadening for women. I could place the figures, on salary, on those in positions of power to speak to notions of equiy but I'd rather choose some women that I found inspiring. There are so many, these are idiosyncratic. They inspired me. I will include at the end here places to see lots of others. I'm cutting and pasting around the web here. Trying to credit.....

Did women's lives inspire me? I grew up during the 60's....think of all I grew through in my life, the movements the civic changes, the social changes. Women held for me the greatest place I had in honoring life. They the ones that bear the pain and the burdens to bring all of us here and see us into loving arms. With the talents and intelligences to ensure our survival. Yes, I grew up in the shadow of women that dared to go where no one allowed them to even sit.....our story is the story of bravery, courage, endurance, strength and I hope love.

A is for

Diane Arbus, photographer 1923–71, American photographer, b. New York City. For nearly 20 years Arbus operated a successful fashion photography studio with her husband. She studied with Lisette Model and began, in the late 1950s, to make the intimate and powerful visual record of life on the freakish margins of society, for which she became renowned. Her empathetic acceptance of what she saw set her work apart and gave her access to the usually unapproachable: transvestites, dwarves, prostitutes, nudists, and the everyday ugly. She died a suicide at 48. One of the most acclaimed and influential American photographers of the latter 20th cent., Arbus was the sister of the poet Howard Nemerov.

Abbott, Berenice (ber"unēs') [key], 1898–1991, American photographer, b. Springfield, Ohio. Abbott turned from sculpture to photography in 1923. She was assistant to Man Ray in Paris (1923–25), where she made an extraordinary series of portraits of the artistic and literary celebrities of the 1920s. She began her great documentation of New York City in 1929; many of the best photographs were collected in her book Changing New York (1939). In 1958, she produced a stunningly beautiful set of photographs for a high-school physics text that some critics consider her finest work. She discovered the work of Eugène Atget in 1925 and labored successfully to secure him international recognition.

Arendt, Hannah (hän'ä är'unt) [key], 1906–75, German-American political theorist, b. Hanover, Germany, B.A. Königsberg, 1924, Ph.D. Heidelberg, 1928. She emigrated (1941) to the United States and was naturalized in 1950. Arendt was a lecturer and Guggenheim fellow, 1952–53; visiting professor at the Univ. of California at Berkeley, 1955; the first woman appointed to a full professorship at Princeton, 1959; and visiting professor of government at Columbia, 1960. From 1963 to 1967 she was professor at the Univ. of Chicago, and in 1967 she became university professor at the New School for Social Research.

With the publication of Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) her status as a major political thinker was firmly established. In this book she examined the major forms of 20th-century totalitarianism—National Socialism (Nazism) and Communism—and attempted to trace their origins in the anti-Semitism and imperialism of the 19th cent. Her second major American publication, The Human Condition (1958), likewise received wide acclaim. Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), her analysis of the Nazi war crimes based on observation of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, stirred considerable controversy and became known particularly for her concept of “the banality of evil.”

Arendt also served as research director of the Conference on Jewish Relations (1944–46) and executive director of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, New York City (1949–52). Her other writings include On Revolution (1963), Men in Dark Times (1968), On Violence (1969), and Crises of the Republic (1972).
See L. Kohler and H. Saner, ed., Hannah Arendt–Karl Jaspers: Correspondence, 1926–1969 (tr. by R. and R. Kimber, 1992), C. Brightman, ed., Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1975 (1995), E. Ettinger, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger (1995), D. Villa, Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political (1995), and R. Wolin, Heidegger's Children (2001); studies by S. J. Whitfield (1980) and L. Bradshaw (1989).

Angelou, Maya (mī'u ăn'julOO) [key], 1928–, African-American writer and performer, b. St. Louis, Mo. as Marguerite Johnson. She toured Europe and Africa in the musical Porgy and Bess (1954–55), then sang in New York City nightclubs, joined the Harlem Writers Guild, and took part in several off-Broadway productions, including Genet's The Blacks and her own Cabaret for Freedom (1960). During the 1960s she was active in the African-American political movement; she subsequently spent several years in Ghana as editor of the African Review. Her six autobiographical volumes (1970–2002), beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, have generally been well-received. She has also published several volumes of poetry, including And I Still Rise (1987). Angelou read her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the inauguration of President Clinton in 1993.

Abzug, Bella Savitsky (suvit'skē ăb'zoog) [key], 1920–98, U.S. politician, b. New York City. She helped found Women Strike for Peace (1961) and the reformist New Democratic Coalition (1968). Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York in 1970, she was a leader of the House antiwar movement and a vigorous proponent of women's rights. In 1976 she lost a Senate primary to Daniel P. Moynihan. In 1977 she left the House and lost the New York City mayoral primary to Edward I. Koch. Abzug also founded and headed the Women's Environment and Development Organization.
See her Bella! Ms. Abzug Goes to Washington (ed. by M. Ziegler, 1972) and Gender Gap 1984 (with M. Kelber, 1984).

Anthony, Susan Brownell, 1820–1906, American reformer and leader of the woman-suffrage movement, b. Adams, Mass.; daughter of Daniel Anthony, Quaker abolitionist. From the age of 17, when she was a teacher in rural New York state, she agitated for equal pay for women teachers, for coeducation, and for college training for girls. When the Sons of Temperance refused to admit women into their movement, she organized the first woman's temperance association, the Daughters of Temperance. At a temperance meeting in 1851 she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and from that time until Stanton's death in 1902 they were associated as the leaders of the woman's movement in the United States and were bound by a warm personal friendship. Susan B. Anthony lectured (1851–60) on women's rights and on abolition, and, with Stanton, secured the first laws in the New York state legislature guaranteeing to women rights over their children and control of property and wages. In 1863 she was a coorganizer of the Women's Loyal League to support Lincoln's government, especially his emancipation policy. After the Civil War she opposed granting suffrage to freedmen without also giving it to women, and many woman-suffrage sympathizers broke with her on this issue. She and Stanton organized (1869) the National Woman Suffrage Association. In 1890 this group united with the American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, of which Anthony was president from 1892 to 1900. In 1872 she led a group of women to the polls in Rochester, N.Y., to test the right of women to the franchise under the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. Her arrest, trial, and sentence to a fine (which she refused to pay) were a cause célèbre; other women followed her example until the case was decided against them by the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1869 she traveled and lectured throughout the United States and Europe, seeing the feminist movement gradually advance to respectability and political importance. The secret of her power, aside from her superior intellect and strong personality, was her unswerving singleness of purpose. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, she compiled Volumes I to III of the History of Woman Suffrage (1881–86), using a personal legacy to buy most of the first edition and present the volumes to colleges and universities in the United States and Europe. The History was completed by Ida Husted Harper (Vol. IV–VI, 1900–1922; Susan B. Anthony contributed to Vol. IV).
See The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, ed. by I. Husted (3 vol., 1908; repr. 1969); biographies by K. S. Anthony (1954) and R. C. Dorr (1928, repr. 1970).

Because of this scale a problem and awareness was brought to the health of my child.....essentially I think saving their life because it brought immediate attention to a real drop in temperature and I'll be forever in their debt.

Virginia Apgar

physician and anesthesiologist
Born: 6/7/1909
Birthplace: Westfield, New Jersey

Apgar is best known for developing the Apgar Score System (1952), which evaluates a newborn's health upon birth. The newborn's appearance (color), pulse, grimace (reflex irritability), activity (muscle tone), and respiration are assessed one minute and five minutes after birth; low scores signal possible health problems. The test has saved innumerable infants and caught potentially serious conditions.

Apgar, however, was not a trained pediatrician or obstetrician. Instead, she was an anesthesiologist who recognized the need for newborn screening. A Mount Holyoke graduate, Apgar was one of a few women to graduate in the 1930s from Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons (1933). She interned at Columbia's Presbyterian Hospital. After serving residencies in anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin and New York City's Bellevue Hospital, Apgar became the first board-certified woman anesthesiologist (1937). In 1938 she was appointed director of anesthesiology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center-the university's first female department head. In addition, she became Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons first professor of anesthesiology in 1949; at the same time she became the school's first female full professor).

She left Columbia in 1959 to lead the National Foundation-March of Dimes, where she raised awareness-and funds-for birth-defects research. In 1994, Apgar was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp.

Died: 8/7/1974
Fact Monster/Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

B is for

Ball, Lucille, 1911–89, American actress and producer, b. Celoron, N.Y. At first promoted by Hollywood as another glamorous movie star, Ball was often cast as a spunky sidekick in second features. In 1951, as one of the first movie stars to headline a television series, she scored a spectacular success with the comedy I Love Lucy, costarring her first husband, Desi Arnaz. For six seasons she was the most popular female star of the small screen, which was an ideal showcase for her comic energy, flair for slapstick, and gift for vocal mimicry. She went on to star in two subsequent but less successful sitcoms, the last of which ended in 1974. Ball also headed Desilu Productions (1962–67) and Lucille Ball Productions (1967–89). Her films include Stage Door (1937) and Mame (1974).

See biography by S. Kanfer, Ball of Fire (2003).

Anne Bancroft

Name at birth: Anna Maria Louise Italiano, Tony, Emmy and Oscar winner Anne Bancroft is best known for her portrayal of Mrs. Robinson, the older woman who seduces young Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) in the film The Graduate (1967). A performer from an early age, she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Actors Studio in New York and landed her first professional gig on television in 1950. In 1952 she headed to Hollywood as a contract player, but returned to New York after a disappointing string of roles in low-budget movies. In 1958 she played opposite Henry Fonda in Two for the Seesaw and won her first Tony Award. The next year she won another Tony for her portrayal of Helen Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, in the play The Miracle Worker. She returned to Hollywood for the film version of the play (1962) and won an Oscar for Best Actress. After that Bancroft was nominated for an Oscar four more times, for The Pumpkin Eater (1965), The Graduate, The Turning Point (1977, with Shirley MacLaine) and Agnes of God (1985, with Jane Fonda). She is also a multiple Emmy nominee, winning the award in 1970 (Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man) and again in 1999 (Deep in My Heart). Elegant and intelligent, Bancroft was frequently cast in roles requiring gravitas and sophistication, including David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980, with Anthony Hopkins), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987, also with Hopkins) and G.I. Jane (1997, with Demi Moore).

Extra credit: In 1978 she was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir... Bancroft was married to comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks from 1964 until her death.

Brooks, Gwendolyn Elizabeth, 1917–2000, American poet, b. Topeka, Kans. She grew up in the slums of Chicago and lived in that city until her death. Brooks's poems, technically accomplished and written in a variety of forms including quatrains, free verse, ballads, and sonnets, deal with the experience of being black and often of being female in America. She attracted critical attention with her first volume, A Street in Bronzeville (1945). Brooks went on to win the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Annie Allen (1949), becoming the first black woman to win this award. Her verse was collected in The World of Gwendolyn Brooks (1970), which also includes an earlier novelette, Maud Martha (1953). Her work took on a more radical tone beginning with In the Mecca (1968); the subsequent poems in Riot (1970) are written in street dialects. Her other writings include Primer for Blacks (1980) and To Disembark (1981).

See her autobiographies, Report from Part One (1972) and Report from Part Two (1995).

Buck, Pearl Sydenstricker (sī'dunstrik"ur) [key], 1892–1973, American author, b. Hillsboro, W.Va., grad. Randolph-Macon Women's College, 1914. Pearl Buck was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature. Until 1924 she lived principally in China, where she, her parents, and her first husband, John Lossing Buck, were missionaries. She is famous for vivid, compassionate novels about life in China. The Good Earth (1931; Pulitzer Prize), considered her finest work, describes a Chinese peasant's rise to wealth and brilliantly conveys a sense of the daily life of ordinary Chinese people. Among her other novels of China are East Wind: West Wind (1930), Dragon Seed (1942), Imperial Woman (1956), and Mandala (1971). In 1935, she married her publisher Richard J. Walsh, president of the John Day Company. In 1949 she founded Welcome House, which provided care for the children of Asian women and American soldiers; the Pearl Buck Foundation of Philadelphia, to which she consigned most of her royalties, aids in the adoption of Amerasian children. Her more than 85 books include works for children, plays, biographies, and works of nonfiction, such as China As I See It (1970).

See her autobiography, My Several Worlds (1954); biography by T. F. Harris (2 vol., 1969–71).

Barton, Clara, 1821–1912, American humanitarian, organizer of the American Red Cross, b. North Oxford (now Oxford), Mass. She taught school (1839–54) and clerked in the U.S. Patent Office before the outbreak of the Civil War. She then established a service of supplies for soldiers and nursed in army camps and on the battlefields. She was called the Angel of the Battlefield. In 1865 President Lincoln appointed her to search for missing prisoners; the records she compiled also served to identify thousands of the dead at Andersonville Prison. In Europe for a conference at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (1870), she went to work behind the German lines for the International Red Cross. She returned to the United States in 1873 and in 1881 organized the American National Red Cross, which she headed until 1904. She worked successfully for the President's signature to the Geneva treaty for the care of war wounded (1882) and emphasized Red Cross work in catastrophes other than war. Among her writings are several books on the Red Cross.

See biographies by I. Ross (1956) and W. E. Barton (1969); S. B. Oates, A Woman of Valor (1994).

Bergman, Ingrid (bûrg'mun) [key], 1915–82, Swedish actress, b. Stockholm. Specializing in portrayals of strong, dignified, and sophisticated women, Bergman was acclaimed for her performance in Joan of Lorraine (1946) both on stage and on screen (1949). Her most notable films include Intermezzo (1939), Casablanca (1942), Notorious (1946), Stromboli (1950) and, with director Ingmar Bergman, Autumn Sonata (1978). She won Academy Awards for Gaslight (1944), Anastasia (1956), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974). She also won an Emmy Award (1982) for her portrayal of Golda Meir in a made-for-television film Golda. Bergman was married to Roberto Rossellini.

See her autobiography (1980) and L. J. Quirk, Films of Ingrid Bergman (1970).

Burnett, Carol (burnet') [key], 1936–, American television performer, b. San Antonio, Tex. Beginning her show-business life as a singer, she soon turned to comedy. After starring in the off-Broadway play Once upon a Mattress (1959), Burnett achieved success on television as a regular on The Garry Moore Show (1959–62). Then, at a time when variety shows were disappearing, her own Carol Burnett Show (1967–79) with its regular group of players performing comedy sketches and musical numbers, proved highly successful and won five Emmy Awards. She also starred in a number of successful television specials. Her made-for-television movies include Friendly Fire (1979). Burnett has also appeared in such feature films as Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), The Four Seasons (1981), Annie (1982), and Noises Off (1992). She has returned to the stage many times, recently in the Broadway productions of Moon over Buffalo (1995) and Putting It Together (1999), a Stephen Sondheim revue.

See her One More Time: A Memoir (1986); biography by J. R. Taraborrelli (1988).

Blow, Susan Elizabeth, 1843–1916, American educator, b. St. Louis. After study in New York City under a disciple of Froebel, she opened in Carondelet (now in St. Louis) the first successful public kindergarten (1873) and a training school for kindergarten teachers (1874). Among her books are Symbolic Education (1894), Educational Issues in the Kindergarten (1908), and a translation of Froebel's Mutter- und Kose-Lieder (called Mother Play) in two volumes (1895).

Bridgman, Laura, 1829–89, the first blind and deaf person to be successfully educated, b. Hanover, N.H. Under the guidance of Dr. S. G. Howe, of the Perkins School for the Blind, she learned to read and write and to sew, eventually becoming a sewing teacher at the school, where she remained until her death. As a girl and young woman, Bridgman was famous, her life and education described in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Her fame was later eclipsed by that of Helen Keller.

See biography by L. E. Richards (1928); E. Freeberg, The Education of Laura Bridgman (2001); E. Gitter, The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman (2001).

C is for

A Day In the Life

"Her-stories," Woman's History ABC

Anne Bancroft

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An Egg Named Jim

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The "Ides" Eggs of March, your song...

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