womenwonder: Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE

On August 18, 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified here the United States, giving women the right to vote, to add their opinion, voice and wisdom to our country's democratic process.  There were many brave women here and in Britain that fought for this right and as it is the 100th anniversary of women's right to vote and the year of a most crucial presidential election I intend to highlight many of these #womenwonders this month.  

"Courage calls to courage everywhere, and

 its voice cannot be denied."

Millicent Fawcett

As the United States entered World War I in 1917, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) encouraged its supporters to join in the war effort. The organization argued women deserved the vote because they were patriots, caregivers, and mothers. Women’s expertise in maintaining the home and family would improve politics and society.

The Nineteenth Amendment states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Congress passed the amendment in June 1919. The NAWSA and NWP suffragists lobbied local and state representatives to ensure its subsequent ratification by the states.

After the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920, female activists continued to use politics to reform society. NAWSA became the League of Women Voters.

http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/19-amendment

Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett GBE** (11 June 1847 – 5 August 1929) was an English political leader, activist, writer and feminist icon. Known as a campaigner for women's suffrage via legislative change, from 1897 until 1919 she led Britain's largest women's rights organisation, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).[1] She would write: "I cannot say I became a suffragist. I always was one, from the time I was old enough to think at all about the principles of Representative Government."[2] Fawcett also tried to improve women's chances of higher education, serving as a governor of Bedford College, London (now Royal Holloway), and a co-founder of Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1875.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Fawcett

** The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service

if you have received this post as an email

click below to visit the entire blog, blog link

or click here to join the dailydress project group on FB 

woman wonder: Elizabeth Blackwell

Elizabeth Blackwell:

Pioneer in medical and feminist history.

First woman in American to earn her medical degree.

Born near Bristol, England on February 3, 1821, Blackwell was the third of nine children of Hannah Lane and Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner, Quaker, and anti-slavery activist. Blackwell’s famous relatives included brother Henry, a well-known abolitionist and women’s suffrage supporter who married women’s rights activist Lucy Stone; Emily Blackwell, who followed her sister into medicine; and sister-in-law Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first ordained female minister in a mainstream Protestant denomination. 

In 1832, the Blackwell family moved to America, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1838, Samuel Blackwell died, leaving the family penniless during a national financial crisis. Elizabeth, her mother, and two older sisters worked in the predominantly female profession of teaching. 

Blackwell was inspired to pursue medicine by a dying friend who said her ordeal would have been better had she had a female physician. Most male physicians trained as apprentices to experienced doctors; there were few medical colleges and none that accepted women, though a few women also apprenticed and became unlicensed physicians. 

While teaching, Blackwell boarded with the families of two southern physicians who mentored her. In 1847, she returned to Philadelphia, hoping that Quaker friends could assist her entrance into medical school. Rejected everywhere she applied, she was ultimately admitted to Geneva College in rural New York, however, her acceptance letter was intended as a practical joke. 

Blackwell faced discrimination and obstacles in college: professors forced her to sit separately at lectures and often excluded her from labs; local townspeople shunned her as a “bad” woman for defying her gender role. Blackwell eventually earned the respect of professors and classmates, graduating first in her class in 1849. She continued her training at London and Paris hospitals, though doctors there relegated her to midwifery or nursing.  She began to emphasize preventative care and personal hygiene, recognizing that male doctors often caused epidemics by failing to wash their hands between patients.

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/elizabeth-blackwell

“It is not easy to be a pioneer - but oh, 

it is fascinating! 

I would not trade one moment, 

even the worst moment, 

for all the riches in the world.”

Elizabeth Blackwell

if you have received this post as an email

click below to visit the entire blog, blog link

or click here to join the dailydress project group on FB 

May this dress remind us of our inner guts and grit ... from woman wonder: Nellie Bly

Nellie Bly:

American journalist, daredevil, feminist, trailblazer, pioneer in the field of investigative journalism. Made a record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days. 

Pen name of Elizabeth Cochran Seaman

A definite #womenwonder 

26/100

Nellie Bly was the pen name of pioneer female journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochran. She remains notable for two feats: a record-breaking trip around the world in emulation of Jules Verne's character Phileas Fogg (Bly completed the trip in seventy-two days), and an exposé in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. In addition to her writing, she was also an industrialist and charity worker. Bly died of pneumonia at St. Mark's Hospital in New York City in 1922 aged 57. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4372012.Nellie_Bly

Elizabeth Cochran Seaman[1] (May 5, 1864[2] – January 27, 1922), better known by her pen name, Nellie Bly, was an American journalist. She was a pioneer in her field and launched a new kind of investigative journalism.[4] Bly was also a writer, inventor, and industrialist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly

“I said I could and I would. And I did.” 

Nellie Bly, Ten Days in a Mad-House

if you have received this post as an email

click below to visit the entire blog, blog link

or click here to join the dailydress project group on FB