Light Your Handmade Lamp for Women's Suffrage

March 19 - Today's post contributed by Kerrie Logan Hollihan

Light Your Handmade Lamp for Women’s Suffrage

When I was in AP American history class at North Allegheny High School a long time ago, the guy who sat in front of me mentioned a couple lines in our textbook that showed up on one of our tests.  “The Grimkee sisters?” he said, shaking his head as if to say “Who could possibly care?”

 I agreed.  Who could possibly care about a couple of women who did some minor thing about abolition?

Later I did -- much later. Fast forward 40+ years, when I wrote about them in my book Rightfully Ours: How Women Won the Vote, which appears this year on the ALA Amelia Bloomer List. The sisters, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, daughters of a Southern judge and slave owner, hated the idea that anyone, including their father, could own other human beings. 

First Sarah, and later Angelina, took the drastic step of leaving home and moving north to Philadelphia. There they became Quaker women, free to speak openly during worship. The Southern sisters then took things further and went on tour to speak about abolition in public meetings. At this point, even their fellow Quakers frowned when the Grimké sisters spoke in public.  Other women -- Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone especially, also found their voices as abolitionists and only later began to work for women’s right to vote.

Rightfully Ours covers the lives of many American women -- some well-known, such as Anthony; others not quite as much: Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul; Carrie Chapman Catt and “footnotes” like the Grimké sisters. I was grateful when my editor suggested I write a history of the American suffrage movement -- CRP was looking for a book on the topic.

My previous book, Elizabeth I: the People’s Queen: Her Life & Times had taken me back to Tudor England, researching and writing the life of one, very strong woman who came to power almost by accident. This time, there was a host of women to study, and by the time I was ready to start writing, I’d read parts of at least 60 books just to feel familiar with these women and the world they inhabited.

Rightfully Ours is my fourth book with Chicago Review Press, and what makes these “For Kids” books a bit different is that we authors must develop at least 21 themed activities to enhance what we write.  Hence the “21 Activities” you’ll see on the cover of most of CRP’s broad-ranging series of books for middle grade readers. We develop these to appeal to a broad audience -- and I blog with my fellow “for Kids” authors Mary Kay Carson and Brandon Marie Miller at Hands-on-Books, where we talk about our books and offer downloadable activities.  (http://hands-on-books.blogspot.com)

In my books I like to include a few activities with a scientific touch. For Rightfully Ours there are several -- one on how to locate Polaris (the North Star), and another, Make a Five-Pointed Star with Just One Cut.

Today I’m sharing a favorite of mine.  In their early days, women like Anthony, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the Grimké sisters read by the light of whale oil lamps.  I fashioned an activity for Rightfully Ours so that my readers can make lamps of their own using not whale oil of course, but olive oil. It’s easy to make one using things you can find around the house and in craft stores -- and these little lamps really do work!

Kerrie Logan Hollihan writes award-winning nonfiction for young people. Her books have been honored by the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer List, Smithsonian magazine, the National Science Teachers Association, the Chicago Public Library, and the Junior Library Guild.

Hollihan channeled her “inner sixth grade girl who read Compton’s encyclopedia for fun” and started writing for kids in 2005. She’s the author of 38,000 word biography/activity books about Isaac Newton, Theodore Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth I, and the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S., as well as an early reader series on Latin American celebrations. Either way, Hollihan says, every word counts.

“Kids don’t get enough credit for being able to understand history as it actually happened. As I research and write, I think about how to explain the ‘whys’ of situations as well as the ‘whats.’

“History is filled with great yet fully human men and women with faults and foibles. When I write about famous people and their times, there are tough issues to address -- segregated America and religious persecution in England are topics I’ve explained to my readers.”

Hollihan, mother of two grown children, lives with her pilot husband Bill in Blue Ash, Ohio. 

Susan B. Anthony and Rachel Carson

March 31 - Today’s post provided by The Nonfiction Detectives

The Nonfiction Detectives have the honor of contributing to KidLit’s celebration of Women’s History Month. We write about two women, Susan B. Anthony, the first champion of women’s rights, and Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring triggered the environmental movement.

When I think about Women’s History Month, the name Susan B. Anthony pops into my mind right away.  It’s surprising how many children in elementary school are not aware of Anthony’s contributions to women’s history. We own a number of biographies of Susan B. Anthony in the library, but I rarely see boys and girls checking them out for school projects or for pleasure reading. I recently chatted with a group of students about Susan B. Anthony. Most could not tell me what she was known for or what she accomplished. Teachers and librarians take notice, it’s time to break out the Susan B. Anthony books and begin reading aloud to the youngest generation. Alexandra Wallner’s picture book biography, Susan B. Anthony, (Holiday House, 2012) provides young readers with an accessible story of Anthony’s life and accomplishments. In just 32 pages, Wallner describes Anthony’s childhood in Massachusetts, her advocacy for women in her father’s mill, and her work as a schoolteacher before joining forces with Elizabeth Cady Stanton to work on the women’s suffrage movement.

I recently read the book aloud to a group of 8-10 year-olds, and the children were surprised to learn that women in the 1800s had few career choices. They thought it was unfair that women earned less pay than men when performing the same job. The students had a lot of comments and connections when learning that Anthony was arrested for voting in 1872. The children quickly made connections to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King being jailed for standing up for civil rights.

Susan B. Anthony: Fighter for Women’s Rights by Deborah Hopkinson (Simon Spotlight. 2005) is another picture book biography that could serve as a starting point for students unfamiliar with Anthony’s work for women’s rights. The leveled reader is part of the Ready-to-Read series and would work well as a both a read aloud and as a book for newly independent readers to read on their own.

RACHEL CARSON AND SILENT SPRING

If Susan B. Anthony had not been an advocate for women's equality, would Rachel Carson have had the opportunity to attend college? Luckily, she did because in 1962 Rachel Carson published her most important book, Silent Spring. It was published to applause and severe criticisms. Battling breast cancer, it took the courageous Carson four year to research and write. This important tome was written to alert people that insecticides were deadly to birds, insects, fish, other animals, our land, and also to people.  

In her picture book biography, Rachel Carson and Her Book that Changed the World, (Holiday House, 2012) author Laurie Lawlor and illustrator Laura Beingessner successfully conveys Carson’s determination and indomitable spirit. Most of the book’s 32 pages are devoted to Carson’s early life, her education, her family problems, and the frustration that men would not take her seriously as a scientist. Throughout her lifetime, Carson was a careful observer of nature and was saddened as trees were cut down to build homes and factories whose putrid smells and smoke clogged the air.

Carson also loved the sea and as a marine biologist would write extensively about the ocean. During the 1950’s Carson’s keen sense of observation noticed some disturbing trends. Rising sea temperatures, and more and more garbage being dumped in the ocean was having a disastrous affect on the web of life. The last three pages of this book are devoted to Carson’s work on Silent Spring.  “As early as 1945, Rachel had read about studies of declining bird populations across the country. Each year researchers reported fewer nesting and migrating birds. The more she investigated, the more alarmed she became.”  The chemicals created for use during World War II were being used haphazardly to kill insects on farms, in city parks, nature preserves, swimming pools, in neighborhoods, and even on crowded city streets.

It took great courage to stand up to the big chemical industry. People claim Silent Spring started the whole environmental movement. It certainly had an effect on those who have made it their life work to educate people about the dangers of pesticides and insecticides.

2012 is a presidential election year in the United States, and it’s the perfect time for teachers, librarians, and parents to introduce their children to courageous women, such as Susan B. Anthony and Rachel Carson. Picture books are an excellent way to teach about these brave and determined women.

Editor's Note:

Cathy Potter is K-5 school librarian in Falmouth, Maine. Cathy reviews apps for School Library Journal and currently serves on the Southern Maine Library District's Board of Directors. She served as a nonfiction picture book judge for the 2011 CYBILS awards and is currently a member of the Chickadee Award committee in Maine.

Louise Capizzo is a Youth Services Librarian at a public library in Scarborough, Maine. Louise has written reviews for Publisher's Weekly, AudioFile Magazine, and Kirkus Reviews and served on many committees including the Maine Cream of the Crop committee (2001-2009), the Maine Student Book Award Committee (2006-2010), the 2011 John Newbery Committee, and served as a judge for the 2011 CYBILS awards.

Together, Cathy and Louise are The Nonfiction Detectives.

Blue Thread, Five Sisters, and Woman Suffrage

March 24 - Today's post provided by Ruth Tenzer Feldman

"Daughters of Zelophehad." That's how you might research them. That's how they are known. But, just like every father's daughter, each of these five women has a name. Here's my English approximation of the Hebrew names as they written in the Bible: Tirtzah, Hoglah, Milcah, Noa, and Makhlah.

Were they real women in ancient history or archetypal characters of legend? Who knows? What ignites my imagination me is that these five found themselves on a banner in one of the first parades for woman suffrage in the United States.  

Picture Boone, Iowa, just before lunch hour on October 29, 1908. The women are gathered in front of the Universalist Church, the wind blowing dust in their faces as they walk behind a band.  Among them are two women ministers: Anna Howard Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and Eleanor Gordon, president of the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association and the parade's organizer.

According to her later recollections, Gordon was tired of the "dreary meetings" of local suffragists. "We listened to an earnest paper written by an earnest woman, read in an earnest manner, giving good and sufficient reasons why women were entitled to vote." She decided that: "Something must be done and done quickly or we shall learn to hate the whole business."

Toward the back of the parade is the banner which forms the foundation of Blue Thread, my venture into young adult historical fiction/fantasy based on the woman suffrage campaign in Oregon in 1912. This close-up shows you a bit more.

The banner reads:

LIKE THE DAUGHTERS OF ZELOPHEHAD, WE ASK FOR OUR INHERITANCE

The Boone banner isn't an isolated reference. The woman suffrage movement embraced the story of these five sisters (which is how I see them).  For example, in the 1899 annual meeting of NAWSA, Carrie Chapman Catt included this in her proposed letter to Congress for a voting-rights amendment: "As the daughters of Zelophehad appealed to Moses and his great court for justice, so do the daughters of America appeal to you."

In Blue Thread, Miriam, my fictional girl from 1912, meets my fictional version of Tirtzah. The oldest of the five sisters (in my imagination), Tirtzah is betrothed and thus partially secure, but she explains: "Our father is dead. We have no brothers. My mother is powerless. We have no one and nothing. I will not let my sisters be taken into servitude." Tirtzah's fear is not unlike those of many women throughout the millennia. Without property or male protection they are vulnerable to destitution.

In the biblical narrative, all five women get their inheritance only if they agree to marry within their tribe. Not the way I would have liked the story to end, but still a step forward, still worthy of a place in a suffrage parade so many generations later.

The Boone parade happened twice; once in 1908, and once as a re-enactment in 2008. I don't know if someone carried a "daughters of Zelophehad" banner in the re-enactment, but I'd like to think that these five sisters are with us whenever we seek their inspiration as we step forward to pursue justice.  

Editor's Note:  Ruth Tenzer Feldman has a passion for history. She has written ten nonfiction books for children and young adults and is working on a sequel to Blue Thread that intertwines the civil rights/free speech moment of 1964 with the First Crusade (1096-1099). Read more at www.bluethreadbook.com and www.ruthtenzerfeldman.com.

"Failure Is Impossible": My Hero Susan B. Anthony

March 12 - Today's post provided by Claire Rudolf Murphy

“Failure Is Impossible”: My Hero Susan B. Anthony

(February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906)

Susan B. Anthony.
Digital ID: 490327.
 New York Public Library

            Tomorrow is the 106th anniversary of my beloved hero Susan B. Anthony. But “Aunt Susan” belongs to all Americans throughout our history who have believed that women deserve the same rights as men. The iconic symbol of American women’s 72-year fight for suffrage, Susan B. had been dead fourteen years when the nineteenth amendment finally passed in 1920, giving all American women the right to vote. She admits to many dark nights, but in the daylight she never gave up. Her most famous quote, “Failure is impossible,” was directed to discouraged young suffragists at the 1905 national NWSA (National Women’s Suffrage Association) convention.

            Susan wasn’t present at the first Women’s Rights’ Conference in 1848. She didn’t hear Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s famous speech “A Sentiment of Rights,” which ended with a demand for women’s right to vote. But when the two women met three years later at an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls, they became fast friends. http://www.rochester.edu/sba/womensfriendship.html



Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

            Over the years as I researched the history of women’s suffrage and Susan B.’s life, I have pondered how she survived the rigors of travel and campaigns on the road, all the rejections and defeats, the turncoat behavior of men in power. I now believe that it was the friendship of other women (and like-minded men) who kept her going, kept her from giving up in utter frustration. Stanton was indeed her soulmate. They soon began going door to door together, campaigning for a women’s property law in New York State. Stanton didn’t need to do much to convince Anthony to begin directing her efforts on women’s suffrage. A Quaker, Susan had been raised to believe in the equality of women. And she learned at an early age about inequality when her teacher would not let her and the other girls learn long division.

            In the 1860’s, Anthony began traveling for suffrage and soon had sisters in spirit across the land. One was Mary McHenry Keith from Berkeley, the first woman graduate of a California law school and the wife of the famous landscape painter, William Keith. My hands shook as I read correspondence between the two women while doing research in the Keith family papers at U.C. Berkeley, for my picture book Marching With Aunt Susan:Susan B. Anthony and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage, set during the 1896 California suffrage election.

             Mary McHenry Keith first met Anthony in1871 when Susan and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first visited California. Anthony and Stanton met state leaders and helped set up suffrage clubs, as they did on visits to many states. They also traveled to Yosemite Park with the Keiths, and their family friend, John Muir. Both men opposed suffrage. Eventually Anthony won over William Keith and in 1905 he painted her portrait. Anthony never changed Muir’s mind, but they were in total agreement about Yosemite. She described it as “a holy place” in a letter to her mother in 1871.

            When Anthony returned to California in 1895, in preparation for the 1896 suffrage vote, she traveled again to Yosemite. Later Muir helped make sure that one of the huge Sequoia trees in the Mariposa Grove in the national park was named after three of his giant heroes: Washington, Lincoln, and Anthony herself.

            Anthony made friends and developed true believers wherever she traveled. She stayed in California for many months leading up to the October 1896 vote. At one rally of 5000 people in Woodward Pavilion in San Francisco, she said, “Abe Lincoln once said that ‘No man is good enough to govern another man without his consent.’ Now I say into you, No man is good enough to govern any women without her consent.“

            Susan sat down to the roar of applause and one of the young suffragists said, “The applause is for you, Miss Anthony." "Nonsense," Susan B. said. “It’s for the cause, the cause!”

            Later, the young writer and suffragist wrote, “Didn’t she know that she and the cause were one?”

            Thanks to the bar owners in San Francisco, afraid women would vote in the prohibition of alcohol, the suffrage amendment went down to defeat in October 1896. Later, Anthony wrote to Mary McHenry Keith about the election. “I don't care for myself. I am used to defeat. But these dear California women who have worked so hard, how can they bear it?” But then she cajoled, “But you must not give up.”

             Susan B. never did, even when devastated by Stanton’s death in 1902. Miss “Failure is Impossible” died on March 13th, 1906, in her hometown of Rochester, New York. She never gave up and inspires us still. Every cause, every woman needs a friend like that, don’t we?

Editor's Note:
"Claire Rudolf Murphy has loved history since she was a young girl; in fact she majored in it at Santa Clara University. Murphy is the author of fourteen books for children. A former middle and high school teacher, she is a member of the faculty of Hamline University's Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Washington."

If you'd like to win a copy of this book, along with an assortment of other books on women's history, please leave a comment below.  Each comment that you submit this month on this blog will give you an entry to win this prize pack of seven women's history picture books for your library, classroom, or personal collection!

A Place at the Campfire

March 6 - Today's post provided by Shana Corey

A Place at the Campfire

I’m so happy to be a part of KidLit Celebrates Women’s History Month! To me, kids lit and history‑and especially women’s history‑have always been a natural fit because kids’ books are where history first came alive for me. I colored maps and learned names and dates in school, but nothing made me see the story in history, nothing made me connect to it, the way books did.

I read Little House on the Prairie and learned about butter churning and writing slates and westward expansion. And I could see that endless ocean of prairie grass and feel how small it felt to be in that lonely covered wagon. I still can. I read All of A Kind Family and learned about tenements and settlement houses and, as one of the few Jewish kids in my suburban Southern school, I was suddenly able to connect my experience to the story of my great grandmother coming to this country on a boat, and to the bigger picture of Jewish and immigrant life in America. Reading those books made history feel real, and for the first time, I understood that it was continuous; that my family and I were a part of the story as much as Laura Ingalls Wilder, as much those five little girls on Sydney Taylor’s Lower East Side. And that meant what we did mattered because we were influencing where the story would go next. Goosebumps.



When I went to college, I took classes with names like “The social history of Women in the U.S. 1850-Present” and I discovered that the books I’d grown up on had actually given me a pretty solid grounding in what daily life had been like for some segments of American women at different times in history. But so many of the names I learned in my Women’s History classes were new! Why didn’t I know them? I wondered. Where were those stories?

As an adult, I write and edit books for kids myself, and most of the stories I tell are the stories of those women—the real life stories I wish I’d known about growing up. I also tend to write about moments of change, moments when someone rebels against what society considers acceptable and does something new. I’m drawn to those stories partly because I admire people who have the courage to make their own paths and partly because I think that experience‑facing an authority more powerful than you‑is something kids can relate to (heck, that’s what childhood is). But mostly, I tell those stories because I think those moments of change are where we can most clearly see how much we as human beings influence history, that’s where we can actually see one person‑or a group of people‑taking control of the world’s story and moving the plot in a new direction. I find that incredibly exhilarating and empowering.

My first book, You Forgot Your Skirt Amelia Bloomer!, is about one of those moments of change. It tells the story Amelia Bloomer, the 19^th Century feminist and fashion reformer. She’s the woman ‘bloomers’ are named after.

When I read this story to kids, they’re shocked that women couldn’t vote and weren’t supposed to work. But what really gets them is the clothes that women wore, because every kindergartner knows what it’s like to wear itchy, uncomfortable clothes and how frustrating it is to be told to wear something you don’t want to wear. And so for them, Amelia Bloomer and clothing become an accessible entry point into women’s history‑something that they can connect with.

Players in Pigtails is inspired by the All American Girls Professional Baseball League and a little known fact about the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. By focusing on tangible things kids might have personal experience with‑uncomfortable clothes in Amelia Bloomer or the joy that comes with doing something you love in Players in Pigtails, my hope is that kids will be able to put themselves in the place of the characters and really feel what it might have been like to live that history. Instead of focusing on the bigger picture‑the names and dates and sweeping trends, sometimes I think we can learn just as much by really connecting to and understanding one piece of that picture. And I can’t think of a better way to do that than through kids’ books.

My new book Here Come the Girl Scouts! The Amazing All-true Story of Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Low and Her Great Adventure is the story of Girl Scouts founder Daisy Low and the first Girl Scout troop back in 1912.

Girl Scouts have always been on my radar, because my mom is from Savannah, Georgia, the city where the Girl Scouts were founded, and I grew up knowing what a positive, important experience the Girl Scouts had been in her childhood.

When I learned that Girl Scouts would be having their 100^th anniversary this spring, I started wondering what the story was on Daisy Low. What had motivated her to start this organization that’s become so much a part of American girlhood? (At this writing, 50 MILLION American women have been Girl Scouts!)

So I began researching, and was completely inspired—both by Daisy Low and by the Girl Scouts themselves. By the time she was in her twenties Daisy had lost most of her hearing. She suffered through a difficult, painful marriage. But she not only survived these things, she went on to do the greatest work of her life—something that would empower a century and counting of women‑ at the age of 51, an age where woman are often written off in history.

And the work she did was truly groundbreaking. The Girl Scouts were early advocates of Conservationism, and even in 1912, they were all about encouraging girls to get outside and be active and exercise (the early Girl Scouts were big on basketball!) and to appreciate and take care of the natural world around them. They were “Green” before the term had been coined. (“Let us plant trees.” the first Girl Scout handbook urges.)

Daisy Low did this work very consciously—she’d learned from her own marriage, and was actively trying to inspire these girls and give them tools they could use in life. The first handbook tells the girls to be self sufficient, to be able to earn their own money, and that they can and should make a difference in the world

The early Girl Scouts were also remarkably inclusive. At a time when Jews weren't welcome in many places, the Girl Scouts were actively recruiting not just in private schools and churches, but in synagogues, and orphanages and factories and shops. In fact, the Girl Scouts lobbied the city of Savannah to put up lights around their basketball courts so that working girls could see to play in the evenings. Photographs from as early as 1921 show African American Girl Scouts, and within a few years there were also Chinese-American, Hispanic-American and Native American troops. Then in the 1950s, the Girl Scouts led the way again when they desegregated all troops.

I’ve told this story before, but I can’t write a post about woman’s history without telling it one more time. As part of my research I spoke to Girl Scout alums about their Girl Scouts experiences. One of the most thrilling moments of my career (of my life, actually) came the morning I turned on my computer and found an email from my personal hero, Gloria Steinem (Gloria Steinem!). She was a Girl Scout growing up and sent me a beautiful and powerful essay about what the Girl Scouts meant to her, ending with "We all have a place at the campfire. It was the Girl Scouts who taught me that first."

I think that perfectly sums up what Girl Scouts are about.

And I’d venture to say that we’re all a part of the story that’s being told around that campfire, too. The 1913 Girl Scout handbook says “the work of to-day is the history of tomorrow and we are its makers.” I think books are a great place for kids to begin to recognize that; to find their place at the campfire and discover how the fit into the story, and to understand that‑just like Daisy Low and Amelia Bloomer and Gloria Steinem and any number of women in history‑they have the power to pick up the pen and write the next chapter of the story themselves.

Editor's Note:
Shana Corey is an Executive Editor at Random House Kids Books and writes "girl power picture books."  You can find her on Twitter @shanacorey

Stopping by Seneca Falls

March 1 - Today's post provided by Lisa Taylor of Shelf-employed

In November, on a cold Thursday night spotted with wintry precipitation, my daughter and I packed up the family van and headed north on a “college road trip.” With Friday and Saturday college tours in Syracuse and Rochester, we had planned a busy weekend of driving and walking. The weather was cold and dreary. After spending the early part of Friday in Syracuse, we headed west on Route 90, en route to Rochester under a gray sky. 

We were speeding along at a good clip when I saw the sign, SENECA FALLS, NEXT EXIT.

Seneca Falls? I had no idea that we would be in the vicinity. I also had no idea how far off the road it might be, but there was the sign, calling to me. I yelled out, “Seneca Falls - next exit! Should we?” “Yes,” my daughter replied. “Do it.” There was no further discussion. And just like that, in less than the time it takes to drive a mile at 70 mph, we turned off the highway towards Seneca Falls, home of the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the site of the first Women’s Rights Convention. Two women from two generations, united in our desire to see the birthplace of the women’s movement in the United States, no further conversation necessary.

© L Taylor

 This is my photograph of the church, on that nondescript intersection in the small upstate New York town of Seneca Falls, where committed women made history and paved the way for future generations. I’m sure you can find better photos elsewhere on the Internet, but I like this photo because it’s mine, because it captures a moment that I shared with my daughter, my daughter, whose public school education taught her the importance of places like Seneca Falls. Before we left the National Park site, she purchased a copy of the Declaration of Sentiments - with her own money.



© L Taylor

We are empowered by education. The books, the writers, and the women that we will feature this month are helping to educate a new generation, bringing women’s history to life in a way that textbooks do not. Seneca Falls is where the modern women’s movement began, and in our own small way, we hope to continue it here. For the next 30 days, be enlightened, be educated, be moved.

This year’s Women’s History Month theme is "Women’s Education - Women’s Empowerment."

Pass it on.

Though less well-known than her dear friend, Susan B. Anthony, I find the life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton to be particularly inspiring.  One cannot help but wonder at this 19th century superwoman - leading the charge for women's suffrage while simultaneously maintaining a successful 47-year marriage, and raising seven children!  Author Tanya Lee Stone chronicles the life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton for young readers in Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote. (Holt 2008)

Note:
Lisa Taylor is a youth services librarian in New Jersey.  She is a member of NJLA, ALA, and ALSC.

Nonfiction about Amazing Women

March 27 - Today's post provided by Waking Brain Cells

Nonfiction about Amazing Women

Children’s nonfiction is a great place to take a look at women who should be part of our history books but so often are overlooked and forgotten.  Here are four books that each child, girl or boy, should know about to have a more complete understanding of the role of women in history and today:

Almost Astronauts by Tanya Lee Stone

Published in 2009, Stone’s book about the Mercury 13 women won the 2010 Sibert Medal and was also nominated for a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.  It is the story of women who tried to be astronauts before females were allowed in the NASA program.  It is the story of women denied their right to be astronauts despite exceeding the mastery of the men in the program.  It is the story of women of strength and character who have been forgotten by history.

Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee, illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy

This 2005 title celebrates 26 women who changed the world.  Appropriate for younger children than the other books on this list, this picture book gives short pieces of information on these amazing women.  Included in the title are Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Nawal El Sadaarvi, and Zora Neale Hurston.  The women represent a wide range of ethnicities and each has a quote included as well.  The illustrations add a beauty to the book, celebrating the women in a moving way.

Lives of Extraordinary Women: Rulers, Rebels (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt.

Published in 2000, Krull’s book about 20 extraordinary women in history is part of her very entertaining series on historical figures.  This book celebrates women like Cleopatra, Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt.  Nicely, it includes women around the world.  If you like humor mixed with your nonfiction, Krull is the author for you!

With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote by Ann Bausum

Published in 2004, this book is a visually powerful history of the fight for women’s right to vote in the United States.  The book follows the evolution of the suffrage movement, telling the story of the courageous women who fought for the right to vote against all odds.  It is a story of courage despite imprisonment, of the strength to protest despite derision, and of the passion for voting that so many of us have forgotten today.  These are women who should be listed with other heroes in our country and whom are often forgotten.

Editor's Note:

Authors Tanya Lee Stone, Kathleen Krull and Ann Bausum have each graciously contributed posts here this month. 

Waking Brain Cells is the new online home of longtime blogger, Tasha Saecker. If you have been wondering about her new location, wonder no more - you can find her at Waking Brain Cells.

An interview with Linda Brewster, author of Rose O'Neill: The Girl Who Loved to Draw and Giveaway!

March 19 - Today's post provided by Paula Morrow, Editor and Publisher, Boxing Day Books, and Linda Brewster, author of ROSE O'NEILL: THE GIRL WHO LOVED TO DRAW
The publisher has kindly donated a copy of this book to be sent to a lucky reader
(see below for how to enter)  

What sparks artistic genius?

The childhood of Rose O’Neill (1874-1944) was impoverished in terms of wealth, yet it was rich to the point of overflowing in art, literature, music, and imagination. Armed with very little formal education, no formal art training, and her portfolio, O’Neill made her way to New York City at the age of 18. In a short time, she became the first female illustrator at PUCK magazine, the first woman cartoonist in America, and eventually the highest paid illustrator of her time. In 2008, Rose was honored by the National Women’s History Project.

Linda Brewster

Author Linda Brewster, herself an artist, was born the year Rose O’Neill died. Brewster grew up in the Missouri Ozarks near the O’Neill homestead, knew the O’Neill family, and has devoted her life to the study of Rose’s life and art. Here are Linda’s thoughtful responses to a conversation about Rose O’Neill:

PM: You have indicated that O’Neill’s vagabond childhood inspired you to write Rose O’Neill, The Girl Who Loved to Draw.

Brewster: If you look at the childhood of any great person, it will reveal their earliest thought and choices. The path they chose may not be a straight line and may take many twists and turns, but their greatness will point backward to where they began. Some people get a later start than others, but for the most part, their talents, interests and motivations show in their childhood. This was certainly true of Rose O’Neill.

PM: What elements of Rose’s early life played the greatest part in creating the focused and successful woman that she became?

Brewster: Rose O’Neill’s mother was a remarkable person. Alice O’Neill was raised as a “lady” in a house with servants. She was well-educated and studied piano and voice. During the Edwardian period, ladies didn’t have jobs or even think of careers. They sat at home doing needlework and hosting their husband’s parties. William Patrick O’Neill, Rose’s father, had a love of the literary arts. He spent his inheritance on a bookstore and art gallery. But he lacked knowledge of business management and within a few years he lost everything. When the family had to move from Pennsylvania to Nebraska to start over, Alice was the backbone. She learned to cook and care for a house without help. She home schooled her children while teaching piano to earn money for the family. Alice never told Rose she couldn’t be an artist or that she had to be a lady. Instead, Alice encouraged Rose to follow her dreams. This gave Rose the independence she needed to follow her heart.

Rose's first published cartoon 

PM: How can youngsters of today relate to and learn from Rose O’Neill?

Brewster: Young readers today can relate to Rose O’Neill as a mentor. All children, at one time or another, feel they don’t have the power to change or improve their situations. Rose O’Neill came from a family with few resources. She wore hand-me-down clothes, hand-me-down shoes, and was bullied for her poor appearance by children who had much more. But in spite of that, she discovered in herself what really interested her most—drawing. She loved drawing people and spent most of her free time studying how to draw. There were no art teachers, but because she was self-motivated, she found resources in her father’s book collection and in the public library. Rose O’Neill shows children that they do have the power to change and improve themselves if they focus, study, and seek people who can help.

PM: Ultimately, it seems O’Neill’s accomplishments as artist, illustrator, poet, novelist and sculptor were overshadowed by her greatest financial success. Today, she is celebrated as the creator of Kewpie, the whimsical character that first appeared as a comic strip on the pages of Ladies Home Journal in 1909, and in 1914 became a doll. To this day, members of the International Rose O’Neill Club gather every year in Branson, Missouri, to celebrate “Kewpiesta.” O’Neill’s art is still displayed in several museums, but she is known primarily as “the Kewpie lady.”

Brewster: While Kewpie brought her a fortune, it also brought her tremendous pain and distraction from her work. Rose was generous to a fault. She didn’t know how to say no. People lived like parasites in her homes and at her expense for years. Her fame, as a result of the doll, brought her a great deal of concern about unpaid bills that weren’t all her own. Fortunately, the Kewpies didn’t come along until she had been working for two decades, so she left thousands of drawings and paintings that demonstrate her great talent.

Self-portrait with Kewpies

PM: As an artist, O’Neill had many clients, but as a woman, her constituency was other women, and she fought fiercely for their rights.

Brewster: Rose O’Neill was born and lived as a liberated woman. She didn’t have to work at it because it came instinctively, due to the confidence she had in her own abilities. She used her fame to draw crowds to rallies and parades in which she marched. She created posters, fliers, programs, and ads depicting babies saying, “Votes For Our Mothers!” Even after the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, she continued to work against unfair treatment of women and minorities. O’Neill, who fancied flowing, loose-fitting garments, even became symbolic of the effort to free women from that most restrictive affront—the corset!

One of Rose's many magazine covers

PM: O’Neill was successful in many fields, as illustrator, artist, poet, author, sculptor, and women’s suffrage activist long before “feminist” became a word. What would you consider O’Neill’s greatest contribution?

Brewster: Rose O’Neill’s greatest single contribution was to go fearlessly into her profession, approaching editors and art directors with her work. She had no introductions or help; she boldly stepped through those doors alone. By being one of the first women to open the doors of the all-male establishments, and by showing that she could do the work, she made it possible for other women to follow.

Rose O’Neill died of a stroke at age 69. She is buried next to a crystal-clear mountain stream at the homestead she named Bonniebrook, in the hills of Taney County, Missouri. A museum there pays tribute to a lifetime of imagination, generosity, and creativity . . . lots and lot of creativity!

To win a copy of this book for your home, school, or public library:

Illustrator, poet, fine artist, children's author, sculptor, novelist, suffragist, and more...Rose made admirable contributions in many fields.  What other woman do you admire for her accomplishments in several different fields?  Leave a comment below with your answer and your e-mail; a winner will be chosen by a random number generator on March 31.

On March 4, Remember the "Grand Picket" for Voting Rights

March 4 - Today's post provided by Ann Bausum

On March 4, Remember the Grand Picket for Voting Rights

Suffrage pickets marching around the White House-- March 4, 1917

The finale to the 72-year-long fight for women’s voting rights occurred during the two-term Presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Women mounted a fierce campaign against his reelection in 1916 after he had neglected their calls for support of woman suffrage during his first administration. Wilson’s victory pushed the most radical of the suffragists—a group that became known as the National Woman’s Party—to mount a campaign of civil disobedience in protest.

The woman began their efforts on January 10, 1917, by mounting daily pickets in front of the White House. Volunteers stood for hours in all weather holding protest signs with messages such as “Mr. President, what will you do for woman suffrage?” and “How long must women wait for liberty?”

Picketing the White House at Wilson's second
inauguration, March 4, 1917

To mark the occasion of the President’s second inauguration (which in those days took place in early March), the National Woman’s Party organized what it called the “grand picket.” A thousand women gathered from all over the country to march on the White House carrying a resolution that urged President Wilson to act on the cause of woman suffrage during his second term of office.

In spite of horrible weather, the event proceeded as planned on inauguration day, March 4, 1917. Women lined up in single file, fighting a stiff wind to hold aloft their protest banners as an icy rain drenched their clothes. Two bands accompanied the procession and played hymns, marches, and protest songs. Thousands of spectators lined their route around the perimeter of the presidential mansion, as did a double row of police officers. Federal workers unsympathetic to the cause watched in amusement as the women passed their office windows.

The procession stopped at all of the residency’s three main entry gates only to find each in turn had been locked with orders to deny all access by the protesters. Guards, obeying instructions, refused to accept the petition and carry it inside. One more sympathetic guard offered to receive the document at a service entrance, but the women elected not to leave their official plea at “the gate where Mrs. Wilson’s clothes and other packages are left.”

The marchers, who ranged in age from 20 to 84, persisted in their parade around the White House, hoping to attract the President’s attention. They lapped the fenced grounds four times over the course of two hours in spite of battering rain and wind. Late in the afternoon participants watched in dismay as President and Mrs. Wilson departed the White House in a chauffeured car, proving that Wilson had deliberately ignored their attempts to contact him.

“This one single incident probably did more than any other to make women sacrifice themselves” later on, wrote suffragist Doris Stevens in her memoir of the voting rights fight, Jailed for Freedom. “Even something as thin as diplomacy on the part of President Wilson might have saved him many restless hours to follow, but he did not take the trouble to exercise even that,” Stevens observed.

Miss Alice Paul, New Jersey,
 National Chairman,
Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage;
Member, Ex-Officio,
 National Executive Committee, Woman's Party

Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn.
 Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Members of the National Woman’s Party, under the leadership of Alice Paul, would go on to picket in front of the White House throughout much of President Wilson’s second term. Such efforts became controversial after the United States joined the First World War in April, 1917. Wartime pickets attracted hecklers who physically attacked them as unpatriotic. Capitol police arrested the women, and hundreds went to  jail instead of paying fines they viewed as unjust. Many began hunger strikes to protest their confinement. Prison officials retaliated with forced feedings during an escalating battle of wills.



Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
Speaker at Continental Hall



Wilson eventually caved under pressure from these activists and members of the more moderate National American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Carrie Chapman Catt. In early 1919 he began to urge Congress to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. Following years of failed attempts, the 19th Amendment finally passed the House of Representatives and the Senate that spring.

A fierce ratification fight followed in state legislatures, leading to the amendment’s enactment into law on August 26, 1920—just in time for women to vote nationwide in that fall’s presidential election.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bausum, Ann. With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2004.

Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1996 edition, 2000 printing.

Ford, Linda G. Iron-Jawed Angels: The Suffrage Militancy of the National Woman’s Party, 1912-1920. Lanham, Maryland: University of America Press, 1991. See pages 133-34 for specific details regarding the “grand picket.”

Stevens, Doris. Jailed for Freedom. New York, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1920. See pages 75-79 for specific details regarding the “grand picket.”

ON-LINE RESOURCES:

For more information about blog post author Ann Bausum’s book for young readers: With Courage and Cloth, visit http://www.annbausum.com/courage.html

To learn about her other books of social justice history for young people, visit: http://www.annbausum.com/index.html

For more information about the National Woman’s Party, visit: http://www.sewallbelmont.org/

Watch “Iron Jawed Angels” ( 2004) the HBO dramatization of the closing fight for woman’s suffrage, starring Hilary Swank as National Woman’s Party leader Alice Paul. See this link for details: http://iron-jawed-angels.com/

For the transcript of an extensive interview recorded with Alice Paul during 1972-73 click this link: http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt6f59n89c/

See additional images about the 20th-century woman suffrage fight at the on-line American Memory exhibit at the Library of Congress of photos from its National Woman’s Party collection. Use this link:  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/

Photo credits for all images:

Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

See this link for more information on rights:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/rights.html

Editor's Note:
Ann Bausum writes books about U.S. history for readers young and old, ages 10 and up. Her books help upper elementary, middle school, and high school students discover the drama and significance behind stories from history that may barely be presented in their textbooks. Her goal as an author is to make history relevant, engaging, and alive. Visit her website to find out more about her, her award-winning books, and the process of writing nonfiction.