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

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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

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May this dress remind us of our inner strength ... from woman wonder: Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy:

American novelist, satirist, critic, political activist, teacher and literary exectutor of the works of her close friend, Hannah Arendt.
A graduate of Vassar College, she was a vibrant member of intellectual New York City.  Counted as part of the Partisan Review circle and as a contributor to The Nation, The New Republic, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Review of Books, McCarthy honed her reputation as a shrewd critic.

An award winning author, penning essays, articles and fiction, McCarthy is best known for her novel, 'TheGroup'. "Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars." says Amazon.

Published in 1963 'The Group', it made it onto the New York Times Best Sellers List the same year and remained there for nearly two years, even though it came under much criticism for the topics that the characters dealt with and discussed.  McCarthy's talent as a writer also came under attack, "Norman Mailer, a man whose own writing did not shy away from graphic depictions of the sexual act, dismissed The Group in the New York Review of Books as "a trivial lady writer's novel"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/29/the-group-mary-mccarthy

"The Group" tells the stories of 8 women who graduate from Vassar College in 1933 and how this group of intellectual women deal with the still limiting roles of women.  "the Group" has influenced generations of women since it's publication (myself included). It has also influenced many women writers as shown below:

Its continuing relevance is one of the book's most extraordinary attributes. When Candace Bushnell was advised by an editor in the early 1990s to write "the modern-day version of The Group", she responded with Sex and the City, a collection of confessional essays about a group of female friends that spawned a multimillion-dollar TV series and film. "The Group reminds us that not much has really changed," writes Bushnell in the foreword to the new edition. "It's a book I prize, not only for its blistering satire, but for its technical elements, including McCarthy's brilliant use of the soliloquy, her pacing and razor-sharp descriptions."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/29/the-group-mary-mccarthy

I would recommend reading "The Group" if you can, or read anything by this woman wonder: Mary McCarthy

“We are the hero of our own story.” Mary McCarthy

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May this dress remind us to go on living ... from woman wonder: Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt:

Forefront political philosopher of the 20th century.  Born in Germany in 1906, she was an early critic of the rising Nazi party.  When Hilter took power  and she was imprisoned by the Gestapo for 8 days Arendt knew she had to leave her homeland.  First she settled in Paris where she helped young Jews emigrate to Palestine.  But when Germay invaded France Arendt again had to flee and she eventually landed in New York City, arriving May 22, 1941.
 
Once in the US the need to learn English was paramount, so Arendt spent 2 months in Winchester, MA with an Ameican family through the program, Self-Help for Refugees.

Portrait of Hannah Arendt with Mary McCarthy

When she returned to New York, Arendt resumed her writing, her political and social activism and eventually teaching. During her teaching career she consistantly declined tenure positions to guard her independence.  In 1950 Arendt became a US citizen.

Much of her work addressed totalitarianism, allure of power and evil, direct democracy, andauthority. She is famous for her phrase, "the banality of evil" which she introduced while reporting on Adolf Eichmann's trial for The New Yorker.  She is recognized as one of the all time great political thinkers and philosophers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt


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May this dress remind us to care for our small and fragile planet ... happy earth day!

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova 

(born 6 March 1937) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut, engineer, and current member of the Russian State Duma. She is the first woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. Tereshkova also became the first civilian to fly in space as she was only honorarily inducted into the Soviet Air Force in order to join the Cosmonaut Corps.

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

Once you've been in space, 

you appreciate how small and fragile 

the Earth is. 

Valentina Tereshkova

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May this dress give us the courage to change what we can not accept ...

a short bio and link to read more about:

Angela Yvonne Davis: 

American communist, political activist, academic, and writer who advocates for the oppressed

Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944)  emerged as a prominent counterculture activist in the 1960s working with the Communist Party USA, of which she was a member until 1991, and was briefly involved in the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights Movement.[4]

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

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. 

I am changing the things I cannot accept.” 

Angela Y. Davis

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May this dress remind us not to worry ....

a short bio and link to read more about:

Corrie ten Boom: Writer, watchmaker, shero*, lifesaver

Cornelia Arnolda Johanna "Corrie" ten Boom (15 April 1892 – 15 April 1983) was a Dutch watchmaker and later a writer who worked with her father Casper ten Boom, her sister Betsie ten Boom and other family members to help many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War IIby hiding them in her home. They were caught and she was arrested and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, is a biography that recounts the story of her family's efforts and how ten Boom found hope while imprisoned at the concentration camp.

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

*shero: a woman regarded as a herohttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shero

Worry does not empty 

tomorrow of its sorrow. 

It empties today of its strength. 

Corrie Ten Boom

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