Category Archives: Feminism

National Women’s Hall of Fame

National Women’s Hall of Fame

National Women's Hall of Fame
National Women’s Hall of Fame logo
Formed on February 20, 1969

Happy Anniversary

It’s never too late to learn something new. Today we will start with a matching quiz. In the left column are the names of the outstanding women who were  the National Women’s Hall of Fame Class of 2021. The right column lists accomplishments.

Can you match? I could not!

Patricia Bath A…an entrepreneur, banker, advocate, and member of the Blackfeet Nation who fought tirelessly for government accountability and for Native Americans to have control over their own financial future
Elouise Cobell B… ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian, and academic. She was an early pioneer of laser cataract surgery
Kimberlé Crenshaw C...educational innovator, race relations and feminist activist, author, and public speaker, best known for her seminal 1989 article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”
Peggy Mcintosh D...academic, media theorist, author, performance artist, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and programmer. Best known for her groundbreaking 1987 essay, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttransexual Manifesto,” Stone is considered a founder of the academic discipline of transgender studies.
Judith Plaskow E… pathologist and pioneer in the study of immune responses to infectious diseases at the turn of the 20th century. Over the course of her research career, she worked on developing vaccines, treatments, and  diagnostic tests for many diseases, including  diphtheria,  rabies, scarlet fever, smallpox, influenza, and meningitis.
Loretta Ross F… theologian, author, and activist known for being the first Jewish feminist theologian. She earned her doctorate from Yale University in 1975 and spent over three decades teaching Religious Studies at Manhattan College
Sandy Stone G… pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism, and the law.
Anna Wessels Williams H...academic, feminist, and activist for reproductive justice, especially among women of color. Driven by her personal experiences as a survivor of rape and nonconsensual sterilization, Ross has dedicated her extensive career in academia and activism to reframing reproductive rights within a broader context of human rights.

National Women’s Hall of Fame

Seneca Falls

National Women's Hall of Fame
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott

A group of men and women founded the National Women’s Hall of Fame on  February 20, 1969 in Seneca Falls, New York. where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, two renowned leaders of the US suffragette movement, organized the first Women’s Right Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848.

National Women's Hall of Fame

Showcasing great women

National Women's Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame’s mission is, “Showcasing great women…Inspiring all!”

According to its site: National Women’s Hall of Fame is open on the 1st floor of the historic Seneca Knitting Mill on the Seneca-Cayuga branch of the Erie Canal in Seneca Falls, New York. Our introductory exhibits are designed to show the world our vision for the future exhibits when we complete additional renovations of the Mill, celebrate Inductees, and showcase stimulating stories of past and present hard-won achievements.

Included in the introductory exhibits is a new Hall of Fame display listing our Inductees and their areas of accomplishment that visitors can browse. There is a section called “Why Here?” highlighting why all of this history happened in Seneca Falls. We tell the story of the Seneca Knitting Mill and the women who worked there. We invite visitors to delve into the history of what happens when women innovate or lead with an interactive exhibit that challenges widely-held assumptions. Visitors can “weave” themselves into the story in a participatory exhibit, and we ask visitors for their own stories of women who have inspired them. The exhibits encourage visitors to engage in creating our future and to understand the possibility of a world where women are equal partners in leadership.

National Women’s Hall of Fame

Here is an informative 2-minute introduction about the Hall by a few of the women who are members, watch the following:

National Women’s Hall of Fame

Who’s who?

2023 Inductees

Patricia Era Bath (1942 – 2019) was an American ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian, and academic. She was an early pioneer of laser cataract surgery and was the first Black woman physician to receive a medical patent, which she received in 1986, for the Laserphaco Probe and technique, which performed all steps of cataract removal.   

She became the first woman member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, the first woman to lead a post-graduate training program in ophthalmology, and she was the first woman elected to the honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center. Bath was the first Black person to serve as a resident in ophthalmology at New York University and was also the first Black woman to serve on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center. She became the first Black woman physician to receive a patent for a medical purpose and would go on to earn a total of five patents during her lifetime. Bath is also recognized for her founding of the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, a nonprofit located in Washington, D.C.  

Elouise Pepion Cobell (1945 – 2011) (“Yellow Bird Woman”) was an entrepreneur, banker, advocate, and member of the Blackfeet Nation who fought tirelessly for government accountability and for Native Americans to have control over their own financial future. Cobell was first appointed as the treasurer for the Blackfeet Nation, and went on to found the Blackfeet National Bank, now part of the Native American Bank, the first national bank located on a Native American reservation and established by a Tribe in the United States. In 2001, 20 tribal nations and Alaska Native corporations joined in the newly launched Native American Bank. Today, 31 tribes participate in the Bank which has assets of $128 million and provides financing across Indian country. In 1997, Cobell was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work in support of tribal banking self-determination and financial literacy education. 

On June 10, 1996, Cobell and the Native American Rights Fund filed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior for the mismanagement of Indian Trust Funds owed to over 300,000 individual tribal members. The lawsuit alleged that the Bureau of Indian Affairs mismanaged and abused the Indian Trust Funds for over a century, resulting in high poverty rates for Native Americans. Elouise Cobell was not only the lead plaintiff on Cobell v. Salazar, but also raised money for the lawsuit, donating part of her MacArthur Genius Grant to the cause. After 13 years of arduous court battles, the federal government settled for $3.4 billion. It was 16-years by the time Congress ratified the settlement.  

Kimberlé W. Crenshaw is a pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism, and the law. She currently holds positions with Columbia Law School and the University of California, Los Angeles.   

Peggy McIntosh is an educational innovator, race relations and feminist activist, author, and public speaker, best known for her seminal 1989 article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” She derived her understanding of white privilege from observing parallels with male privilege, and her work has been instrumental in introducing the dimension of privilege, or unearned power, into discussions of gender, race, sexuality, and colonialism.

Judith Plaskow is an American theologian, author, and activist known for being the first Jewish feminist theologian. She earned her doctorate from Yale University in 1975 and spent over three decades teaching Religious Studies at Manhattan College. Plaskow launched the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion in 1985 and served as the journal’s editor for its first 10 years and from 2012 to 2016. Plaskow also helped found B’not Esh, a Jewish feminist spirituality collective and served as president of the American Academy of Religion. 

Loretta J. Ross is a Black academic, feminist, and activist for reproductive justice, especially among women of color. Driven by her personal experiences as a survivor of rape and nonconsensual sterilization, Ross has dedicated her extensive career in academia and activism to reframing reproductive rights within a broader context of human rights. Over her decades of grassroots organizing and national strategic leadership, Ross has centered the voices and well-being of women of color.  

Allucquére Rosanne Stone, also known as Sandy Stone, is an academic, media theorist, author, performance artist, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and programmer. Best known for her groundbreaking 1987 essay, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttransexual Manifesto,” Stone is considered a founder of the academic discipline of transgender studies.  She is currently Associate Professor Emerita and Founding Director of the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory (ACTLab) at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also the Wolfgang Kohler Professor of Media and Performance at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Fellow of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, and Banff Centre Senior Artist. 

Anna Wessels Williams (1863-1954) was an American pathologist and pioneer in the study of immune responses to infectious diseases at the turn of the 20th century. Over the course of her research career, she worked on developing vaccines, treatments, and  diagnostic tests for many diseases, including  diphtheria,  rabies, scarlet fever, smallpox, influenza, and meningitis. Notably, Williams worked at the New York City Department of Health’s diagnostic laboratory specifically on projects that tackled  diphtheria. In her first year at the lab, she isolated a strain of the diphtheria bacillus which could be used to produce the antitoxin for diphtheria in large quantities. This fundamental discovery increased the availability of the antitoxin and cut production costs, which was crucial to controlling the devastating disease.  Within a year of Williams’ discovery, the antitoxin was being shipped to doctors in the United States. 

 

National Women’s Hall of Fame

Women’s Liberation Movement Redstockings

Women’s Liberation Movement Redstockings

Women's Liberation Movement Redstockings
from Redstockings site

When people speak of “the 60s” they are typically speaking of the individuals and groups who marked that often counter-cultural decade: Martin Luther King, Jr. JFK. The Beatles. Bob Dylan. Malcolm X. Muhammad Ali.  Vietnam War. LBJ. Nixon. Black Panthers. Peace movement. Woodstock. NOW. Stonewall.

And if one had to pick one year of the 60s that was more 60-ish than any other, 1968 would be high on the list.

The Tet Offensive in January. The publication of ” Soul on Ice” by Eldridge Cleaver in February. My Lai Massacre in March. King assassination in April. Poor People’s Campaign  in May. Robert Kennedy assassination in June. American Indian Movement  founded in July. Riots during Democratic Convention in Chicago in August. Miss America protest in September. Tommie Smith and John Carlos protest at Olympics during medal ceremony in October.  Shirley Chisholm first Black woman elected to Congress in November.  And in December, Apollo 8 completed the first manned orbit of the moon.

A pretty good representation of “those” 60s.

Women’s Liberation Movement Redstockings

Miss America

Let’s go back to that Miss America protest in September. It was organized by the New York Radical Women and during the protest women threw pots, false eyelashes, mops, and other items into a trash can. Despite the lore, they did not burn bras. The protesters also successfully unfurled a large “Women’s Liberation” banner  inside the contest hall. (One wonders what President Donald Trump would have to say about either happening today?)

Women's Liberation Movement Redstockings
1968 Miss America protest in Atlantic City (photo from Redstockings)
Women’s Liberation Movement Redstockings

Redstockings

On January 31, 1969, Ellen Willis and Shulamith Firestone formed  the group Redstockings after the breakup of New York Radical Women. According to their site“Redstockings” was a name taken in 1969 …to represent the union of two traditions: the “bluestocking” label disparagingly pinned on feminists of earlier centuries–and “red” for revolution.

Women's Liberation Movement Redstockings
Redstocking stamp
Women’s Liberation Movement Redstockings

Changes

The group has gone through several changes since its founding, but its mission remains the same. From the beginning of its 1969 manifesto:

After centuries of individual and preliminary political struggle, women are uniting to achieve their final liberation from male supremacy.  Redstockings is dedicated to building this unity and winning our freedom.  

I had never heard of Redstockings, which is likely my own indictment. Perhaps you have not either.

Perhaps we will now.

References: Redstockings site 

And…

Women’s Liberation Movement Redstockings

Lucy Burns Force Fed

Lucy Burns Force Fed

Lucy Burns Force Fed
Lucy Burns

Lucy Burns Suffragist

On November 21, 1913 the court fined suffragist Lucy Burns $1 for chalking the sidewalk in front of the White House (NYT article). The name Lucy Burns was not one that was a familiar name to me until I dug deeper into why the 1960s were what they were.

She was born on July 28, 1879 to an Irish Catholic family in Brooklyn, New York. While studying in Europe, Burns became involved in the British suffragist movement.

Lucy Burns Force Fed

London

Alice Paul

In London, on November 11, 1909, police arrested Alice Paul, a fellow American, for throwing stones through a window at the Guildhall while the Lord Mayor’s banquet was in progress. Inside the hall, Burns found Winston Churchill, waved a tiny banner in his face, and asked him, “How can you dine here while women are starving in prison?”

Four years later, in April 1913, back in the United States Alice Paul and Lucy Burns founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage . In 1916, Burns helped organize the National Woman’s Party.  She advocated the cause of “votes for women,” she organized, lobbied, wrote, edited, traveled, marched, spoke, rallied and picketed.

1917 was a pivotal year in the suffragist movement. Women continued to demonstrate in front of the White House trying to get President Wilson to change his view on the right of women to vote.

On June 20, 1917, targeting the Russian envoys visiting President Wilson, Burns and Dora Lewis held a large banner in front of the White House that stated: “To the Russian envoys: We the women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million American women are denied the right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national enfranchisement…Tell our government it must liberate its people before it can claim free Russia as an ally.”

Lucy Burns Force Fed

Continued protests/Repeated arrests

An angry crowd destroyed the banner, but despite the crowds’ attacks, Burns arrived two days later with Katharine Morey carrying a similar banner; police arrested them for obstructing traffic.

Occoqual Workhouse torture revealed

 

Burns wrote that going to prison for picketing would be “the last whack of a hammer…” (she served more time in jail than any other suffragists in America). Authorities arrested her in June 1917 and sentenced her to 3 days; arrested again in September, 1917, Sentenced to 60 days. Again in October 1917, she declared their status as political prisoners and Burns and 13 other suffragists, initiated a hunger strike at Occoquan Workhouse to protest the unjust treatment of Alice Paul. Her strike lasted almost three weeks.

Lucy Burns Force Fed

Force Fed

On November 21, 1917, officials began force-feeding the hunger strikers. Unable to pry open Burns’s mouth, officials insert glass tube up her nostril, causing significant bleeding and pain.

Lucy Burns Force Fed

Responding to increasing public pressure and the likely overturning of prisoners’ convictions on appeal, on November 27 and 28, government authorities ordered unconditional release of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and 20 other suffrage prisoners.

Lucy Burns Force Fed

Jail for Freedom pin

And on December 6 – 9, 1917, at the Conference of National Women’s Party officers and National Advisory Council in Washington, D.C., the suffrage prisoners were each presented with a special commemorative “Jailed for Freedom” pin.

Lucy Burns Force Fed

Exhausted

From the Sewall Belmont site: In 1920, exhausted from constant campaigning, Lucy declared at a meeting that she would fight no more and said, “…we have done all this for women, and we have sacrificed everything we possessed for them.” She was not present when Paul unfurled the victory banner at headquarters.

Burns spent the rest of her life in Brooklyn, caring for her family and working with the Catholic Church. One of the bravest and most militant members of the National Woman’s Party, Lucy Burns’ articulate speeches, supreme leadership and brilliant strategizing greatly contributed to the achievement of woman suffrage.

Lucy Burns Institute

And the Lucy Burns Institute is  located in Middleton, Wisconsin. It was founded in December 2006 and sponsors Ballotpedia:the digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections. Our goal is to inform people about politics by providing accurate and objective information about politics at all levels of government. We are firmly committed to neutrality in our content.It continues her struggle.”

From the Institute’s site: The Institute is named in honor of Lucy Burns, a suffragette who helped to organize the National Woman’s Party in 1916. In her work to advocate the cause of “votes for women,” she organized, lobbied, wrote, edited, traveled, marched, spoke, rallied and picketed. When she was eventually arrested for her activities, she led a hunger strike in prison and was ultimately force-fed. She knew that being able to participate in a democracy by voting was an essential way to express our human dignity. For this goal, she was willing to fight and suffer.

Lucy Burns Museum

In 2018, the Workhouse Arts Center completed renovation of a 10,000 square foot barracks building on campus to house the Lucy Burns Museum. The museum is open and in an installation of professional history exhibits telling the story of the 91 years of prison history and the story of the suffragists who were imprisoned here in 1917 for picketing the White House for women’s right to vote.

The clip below is a piece of a speech that Emma Watson gave at the UN in 2014. The past is prologue.
Lucy Burns Force Fed