A woman’s name on the Declaration of Independence

(Washington Post) This Fourth of July, look closely at one of those printed copies of the Declaration of Independence.
See it? The woman’s name at the bottom?
It’s right there. Mary Katherine Goddard. Continued

The Civil War in Dry Fork, WV: The Historic Ride of Jane Snyder

(Rural Librarian) There is a lot of history in Harman, West Virginia. Indians migrated through here and hunted here. Early settlers came here after the American Revolution, some as Tories defeated by the Colonials. Many settlers were Scotch-Irish, German, or Dutch. And then came the American Civil War. As all good West Virginians know, we were the only state created out of war because the entire state of Virginia was literally split on the issue of slavery. In many local areas, sentiments were mixed as to whom supported the Federal North, or who supported the Confederate South. Continued

Carrie S. Burnham

 

Have women citizens the right of suffrage under the Constitution of the United States and of this particular State of Pennsylvania?
 

With this simple question, Carrie S. Burnham began her argument, made before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on April 3 and April 4, 1873, for her right to vote. "It is not simply," Burhnam reasoned, "whether I shall be protected in the exercise of my inalienable right and duty of self-government, but whether a government, the mere agent of the people, …can deny to any portion of its intelligent, adult citizens participation therein and still hold them amenable to its laws…" Continued

Image: WOMAN SUFFRAGE (MISC. INDIVIDUAL SUFFRAGETTES), Library of Congress

Nancy Pelosi

(Wikipedia) ... Pelosi was born in Baltimore, Maryland. The youngest of six children, she was involved with politics from an early age. Her father, Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., was a U.S. Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore. Her brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, also a Democrat, was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971, when he declined to run for a second term. Pelosi graduated from Institute of Notre Dame, a Catholic all-girls high school in Baltimore, and from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in Washington, D.C. in 1962. Pelosi interned for Senator Daniel Brewster (D-Maryland) alongside future House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Continued 

 

The Girls of the Manhattan Project

 

(The Daily Beast) ... In The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, Denise Kiernan recreates, with cinematic vividness and clarity, the surreal Orwell-meets-Margaret Atwood environment of Oak Ridge as experienced by some of the women who were there: secretaries, technicians, a nurse, a statistician, a leak pipe inspector, a chemist, and a janitor. “Site X” began construction in late 1942, and was also known as the Clinton Engineering Works (CEW) and the Reservation. Staff members were recruited from all over the U.S., but particularly from nearby Southern states, and were offered higher than average wages, on-site housing and cafeterias, and free buses. Continued

Dollar Princesses: The American heiresses who inspired Downton Abbey

 

(thedailybeast) ... Yet these American girls paid a price for their strawberry leaves and coronets. Most had grown up in modern homes with every modern convenience: electric light, indoor plumbing, and central heating. After marriage, they found themselves chatelaines of houses where taking a bath involved a housemaid making five trips from the kitchen in the basement, carrying jugs of hot water to fill a hip bath. The stately homes of England were all too often dark, dingy, and terribly cold. Cornelia Martin, who married the Earl of 
Craven, complained to her mother, “The house is so cold that the only time I take my furs off is when I go to bed.” 
Mildred Sherman from Ohio, who became Lady Camoys, gave up going to dinner at country houses in the winter because she couldn’t face the cold in evening dress. Continued

E.D.E.N. Southworth

(librarycompany.org) Christened Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte at her dying father's request, the most popular woman novelist of her era used the acronym E.D.E.N. throughout her career. After graduating from her stepfather's academy in Washington, D.C., in 1835, she taught school for five years before marrying inventor Frederick Southworth and moving with him to Wisconsin. In 1844, when E.D.E.N. was pregnant with their second child, Frederick abandoned his family to seek fortune in South America. Faced with the task of raising and supporting her children alone, E.D.E.N. returned to Washington, D.C., to resume her teaching career. Continued

The short, glorious history of the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving

(Slate) This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving, a lost player in the history of political progressivism. Now largely buried in century-old newspapers, theirs is a heartwarming story that puts War back into the War on Christmas.
SPUG started with a bang at the Nov. 14, 1912 meeting of the Working Girls' Vacation Fund. Founded a year earlier to help Manhattan shop clerks set aside a little money each week, the fund had quickly grown to 6,000 members, with savings of $30,000. But those savings faced a jolly nemesis: Christmas. Continued

Annie Jump Cannon

(Wikipedia) - Annie Jump Cannon (December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures.
The daughter of shipbuilder and state senator Wilson Lee Cannon and his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Jump, Annie grew up in Dover, Delaware. Mary gave birth to two more daughters after Annie, in addition to the four stepchildren she inherited in the marriage. Annie's mother had a childhood interest in star-gazing, and she passed that interest along to her daughter. Continued 

Katharine Byron

(Wikipedia)  Katharine Edgar Byron (October 25, 1903 – December 28, 1976), a democrat, was a U.S. Congresswoman who represented the 6th congressional district of Maryland from May 27, 1941 to January 3, 1943. She was the first woman elected to Congress from Maryland. Continued

Louisa Ann Swain

(Wikipedia) - Louisa Ann Swain (1801, Norfolk, Virginia – January 25, 1880, Lutherville, Maryland) was the first woman to vote in a general election in the United States. She voted on September 6, 1870, in Laramie, Wyoming.
Born Louisa Gardner, she was the daughter of a sea captain who was lost at sea while she was a child. She and her mother moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where her mother died. Orphaned, Louisa went to Baltimore to live with an uncle, Ephraim Gardner. While in Baltimore, she met and, in 1821, married Stephen Swain, who operated a chair factory. Continued

Opha Mae Johnson

(Wikipedia) Opha Mae Johnson (February 13, 1900 – January 1976) was the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. She joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1918.
Johnson was a United States Marine in the late 1910s. She became the first woman to enlist in the Marine Corps on August 13, 1917, when she joined the Marine Corps Reserve during World War I. Johnson was the first of 305 women to enlist in the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve that day. Continued

When the Men Went to War

(NYTimes) When she learned that her husband, Lucius, had enlisted in the Union Army, Alice Chapin became distraught. She sobbed uncontrollably and pleaded with him, writing in a letter, “Now my dear husband let me tell you I do not verily believe I could live & bid you good bye to go in the Army how can you for a moment think of such a thing, can you leave me? can you leave our babes? no, no, no.”
Years later Lucius Chapin would recall that he had enlisted in early 1862 out of patriotism, but at the time he emphasized the economic benefits to his family, who lived in Putnam, County, Ind., between Indianapolis and Terre Haute. Chapin had tried a number of occupations by the early 1860s and made a successful living at none of them. Alice’s ill health, probably stemming from pregnancy and childbirth, had left them with large medical bills. Continued

Credible Amelia Earhart radio signals were ignored as bogus

(Discovery) Dozens of previously dismissed radio signals were actually credible transmissions from Amelia Earhart, according to a new study of the alleged post-loss signals from Earhart's plane. The transmissions started riding the air waves just hours after Earhart sent her last in-flight message.
The study, presented on Friday at a three day conference by researchers of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), sheds new light on what may have happened to the legendary aviator 75 years ago. The researchers plan to start a high-tech underwater search for pieces of her aircraft next July. Continued

The ‘Siren of the Shenandoah’

(NYTimes) ... Was Belle Boyd a heroine or a clever charlatan? A thrill-seeking opportunist or a brave Confederate patriot? The Civil War’s most overrated spy, or, as Carl Sandburg wrote, someone who “could have been legally convicted, shot at sunrise, and heard of no more?” Such rhetorical musings, while contributing to her myth, also miss the point of why it has endured; Belle Boyd isn’t remembered today for the efficacy of her spying, but for the way she went about it. Continued

Good Housekeeping

(LoC) Good Housekeeping made its debut on May 2, 1885. One of several popular women's magazines founded in the 1880s and 1890s, Good Housekeeping provided information about running a home, a broad range of literary offerings, and opportunities for reader input.
... Well-known writers who have contributed to the magazine include Somerset Maugham, Edwin Markham, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Frances Parkinson Keyes, and Evelyn Waugh. Following the death of Calvin Coolidge his widow, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, memorialized him in its pages. In an effort to stay close to its audience, many Good Housekeeping articles have been contributed by readers. Continued

Emma Goldman

(LoC) Emma Goldman, American anarchist and feminist, compelling advocate of free speech, the eight-hour work day, and birth control, was arrested in New York City on February 11, 1916, just prior to giving another public lecture on family planning. She was charged with violating the Comstock Act, an 1873 statute banning transportation of "obscene" matter through the mails or across state lines. At the time, federal courts interpreted the statute as prohibiting distribution of contraception information.
Goldman was born on June 27, 1869, in Kovno, a Russian city now part of Lithuania.Like most poor Russian Jews, Goldman's family suffered under the political oppression and anti-Semitism of imperial Russia. She fled Russia with her sister Helena in 1885, settled in Rochester, New York, and was briefly married to a fellow Russian immigrant. Goldman worked in a garment factory, and disillusioned with working conditions there, she joined the labor movement. Continued

'World's last' WWI veteran Florence Green dies aged 110

(BBC) A woman thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I has died aged 110.
Florence Green, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough.
She died in her sleep on Saturday night at Briar House care home, King's Lynn. Mrs Green had been due to celebrate her 111th birthday on 19 February. Continued

Piece of Martha Washington's dress on sale in Pa.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) A piece of one of Martha Washington's dresses is for sale.
The Raab Collection, a Philadelphia historic documents dealer, said Wednesday that it's selling the 5-inch-by-9-inch piece of silk brocade for $40,000. Other pieces of the same dress are at George Washington's home, Mount Vernon. Continued

Richmond’s Medical Miracle

(NYTimes) During the opening months of the Civil War, the streets of Richmond, Va., filled with bloodied bodies. The thousands of Confederate wounded were treated in a range of makeshift hospitals hastily established in hotels, factories and private homes. But by autumn, as hopes the conflict would be brief faded, it became clear a war of this magnitude required a modernized medical response.
That fall Samuel P. Moore, the Confederate surgeon general, secured both the facilities and the personnel to provide such a response at Chimborazo, a 40-acre plateau just east of the Confederate capital’s stately Church Hill neighborhood (the site got its name from Mount Chimborazo, an inactive volcano in Ecuador, famous at the time after being “discovered” by the German explorer-scientist Alexander von Humboldt). Occupying 150 buildings, it was one of the largest hospitals in the world, typically serving around 4,000 sick and wounded soldiers at a time. Continued

Photo: Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, a nurse/administrator at Chimborazo, who later wrote "A Southern Woman's Story: Life in Confederate Richmond," which is still in print.