Woman Who Faced Amazing Challenges & Succeeded

March 29 - Today's post contributed by Alyson Beecher

Woman Who Faced Amazing Challenges & Succeeded

by Alyson Beecher

If you were asked to name a woman in history who made a significant contribution and who also had a disability of some type, who would you name? Most people would probably name Helen Keller. However, I was curious about other women who had made or were making a difference and who also had some form of a disability. So, off to Google I went.

My simple search produced some familiar names and some names that were new to me. Helen Keller was obviously on the list but so was Harriet Tubman, and Frida Kahlo. Each of these women have numerous biographies written about them in both picture book and long-form. The famous photographer, Dorothea Lange is well known for her photography but lesser known for the limp she grew up with as a result of polio when she was a child. Wilma Mankiller, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, has a chapter in a picture book celebrating famous woman and her work with the Cherokee Nation, but did you know she also served in this position while having a rare form of muscular dystrophy? Really, just a chapter in a picture book?

However, I learned about some other woman who had made notable contributions to their communities and countries and yet, little were written about them.  Jhamak Ghimire who has severe cerebral palsy and considered the “Helen Keller of Nepal” has nothing written about her in the United States, except for her own work of poetry. Judy Neumann, and Harilyn Rousso have had significant careers and lives advocating for individuals with disabilities and yet despite their life's work would not be easily recognized by most teachers and children.

After serving on the Schneider Family Book Award Jury (a children’s and young adult book award committee of the American Library Association) for the past few years, I have read a lot of books featuring individuals with special needs. However, in the category for young children, with the exception of books about Helen Keller, there were no books portraying the lives of any of these other amazing woman and the work that they have done while also living with additional challenges. Do we have a book gap? I would certainly say yes.

Though this is not a comprehensive list by any means, I would like to highlight the lives of just a few of the incredible woman who embody the spirit and essence that surrounds Women’s History Month and who are also powerful role models for our young readers who may be empowered to dream beyond their special needs because of these amazing women.

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford; Illustrated by Kadir Nelson

Despite what I had read on Harriet Tubman in the past, it had primarily focused on her leadership and active role in assisting slaves to escape to freedom. Somehow, I had missed the fact that Tubman suffered from epilepsy along with severe headaches and narcolepsy as a result of a head injury she suffered when she was young at the hands of another slave’s overseer.

Frida by Jonah Winter; Illustrated by Ana Juan

Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales 

One of the things that have always struck me is how Frida Kahlo was able to utilize her pain and life experiences to produce so many amazing pieces of art. As a child, she contracted polio and was left with a limp, then at 18 she was in a serious bus accident, which left her in chronic pain. Kahlo lived a colorful live with her marriage to artist Diego Rivera and her political activism.

Dorothea Lange by Mike Venezia

As a child, Dorothea Lange contracted polio which left her with a limp due to a weakened right leg and foot. However, she did not let this or later health issues impede her work as a photographer and publisher. It was her goal to use her photography to bring attention to injustices, which she hoped would result in a change of action in people. Her depression era photography of rural hardship became her best known work.

Amelia to Zora: Twenty-six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee; Illustrated by Megan Halsey, Sean Addy 

Photo of Wilma Mankiller taken at the 2001 Cherokee National Holiday. Photo by Phil Konstantin

Wilma Mankiller was a lifetime activist and advocate for the rights of Native Americans and women. In 1985, she became the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation During her term as Principal Chief, she worked to improve health care, education and government for native americans. After a nearly fatal car crash, Mankiller was diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy.

Harilyn Rousso

Harilyn Rousso is not only a disability rights activist but also an activist for the rights of women with disabilities. Highly educated, Rousso has utilized her personal experiences, education, and passions to establish a number of organizations to address issues of gender and disability.

Judith Heumann, Photo from U.S. State Department

As a toddler, Judy Heumann developed polio which left her needing to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Heumann has spent her life advocating for the rights of those with disabilities. After college, she fought against New York State in court to be granted the right teach elementary school as an individual in a wheelchair. She later served as the Assistant Secretary of Special Education during the Clinton Administration. Currently, she works as an International Disability Rights Special Advisor advocating human rights legislation for children and adults with special needs.

"Jhamakawarded" by Madan Puraskar org . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jhamakawarded.jpg#/media/File:Jhamakawarded.jpg

Though Jhamak Ghimire may not be able to speak or use her hands due to cerebral palsy, she has still managed to write poetry and be recognized in her native land of Nepal as an award winning poet.

Helen’s Big World: The Life of Helen Keller by Doreen Rappaport; Illustrated by Matt Tavares

Of course, I couldn’t leave out Helen Keller. Likely of the most recognized influential women who also happened to have a disability, Keller showed that despite being both blind and deaf that you can learn and you can make a difference.

What strikes me about each of these women is how hard they must have worked. Each one of these women shows us what is possible despite our personal limitations. When I think of the headaches that Harriet Tubman experienced or the chronic pain of Frida Kahlo, I am in awe. Pain is hard and yet, neither of these women allowed it to stop them from accomplishing what they were meant to do.

Mankiller, Heumann, and Rousso dedicated their lives to advocating for others. When I look at the accomplishments of these women, I almost feel like an underachiever.  They have not allowed what might be seen by others as limitations to limit them.

Lange, Kahlo, and Ghimire have used their experiences to enhance their artistic expression. Ghimire is particularly inspiring in that her own country as well as her body would have left her without a voice and yet through her writing she has found that voice.

Next time, I find myself thinking I am unable to do something, I need to remind myself how much each of these women have contributed to their communities and even the world by what they were able to accomplish while facing incredible challenges.


Alyson Beecher is an educator, book geek and literacy advocate with over 20 years of experience in education.  Currently, she is the K-8 Literacy Specialist for the Pasadena Unified School District in Pasadena, CA.  Alyson has served as the Chair of the ALA 2015 Schneider Family Book Award Jury and was an Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction second round judge for the CYBILS. She can be found on twitter @alybee930 or through her blog www.kidlitfrenzy.com

Imogen: The Mother of Modernism and Three Boys

March 12 - Today's post contributed by Amy Novesky

IMOGEN
By Amy Novesky

When I submitted a manuscript for a picture book about Imogen Cunningham, most editors said, “Who?” and politely declined my story. Despite having a name fit for a Shakespearean heroine, Imogen was too obscure, they said; nobody knew who she was. Even more reason I was inspired to publish a book about one of the greatest twentieth century photographers.

Imogen declared she wanted to be a photographer when she was just a teen. Her father, who’d encouraged in his little girl a love of literature and art, didn’t understand why she’d choose such a dirty profession, but he built her a darkroom, atop the wild Queen Anne hill they called home, lit by a candle in a red box.

Imogen’s first camera was a 4-by-5-inch format camera with a rapid rectilinear lens she received from a mail-order correspondence school.

The first in her family to go to college, Imogen attended nearby University of Washington. She was advised that she should study science if she wanted to be a photographer, and since no art classes were offered, she majored in the next best thing; Imogen graduated with a degree in Chemistry.

After studying abroad in Europe, Imogen returned home and opened up her very own studio in the city. She was the only photographer in the Society of Seattle Artists. She took portraits and told her subjects to think of the nicest thing they knew. When she was not in her studio, she and her artistic friends and new husband, etcher Roi Partridge, spent hours in the wilderness, wearing costumes or nothing at all, and staging gorgeous, ethereal, soft-focus photographs, for which she would become known. Her first one-person exhibition was held at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.

Imogen was an early champion of women in the arts and sciences. In 1913 she published "Photography as a Profession for Women,” an article urging women to develop careers. At that time, there weren’t many professional women photographers. Women were expected to focus on children and the home. Fewer still did both.

Just as Imogen’s career was blossoming, she became a mother. She and Roi had a baby boy named Gryffyd, and nearly two years later, two more—the twins, Rondal and Padraic. She closed her studio. She moved to California. House bound, Imogen had her hands full taking care of her sons. One hand in the dishpan, the other in the darkroom. There was barely enough money for film after food was bought, and three hungry boys to cook for at dawn and dusk, when the light was just right.

Imogen did focus on her children and her home—she photographed them!

“CLICK. The twins picking foxglove buds.
Her older son’s wonder at a handful of nasturtiums.

CLICK. One boy holding a mouse, another a bird.
A snake in a bucket. They didn’t have an ordinary pet.

CLICK. Freckled ears and feathered headdresses.
Glowing birthday cakes. Her three growing boys.

Imogen found a little beauty in everything.”

And for one precious hour every afternoon, while the boys napped, Imogen focused on her photography. When one mischievous twin interrupted, Imogen put him to work. She set him up on an apple box to pluck prints out of the chemical baths when they were done. (Rondal would grow up to be a renowned photographer himself). Then, under the soft glow of a red bulb, her five year old beside her, Imogen would watch as the images she’d captured—her boys, her blossoms—slowly emerged on paper.

Working from home allowed Imogen to be with her family, and photographing them led Imogen to photograph plants and flowers—most notably her signature magnolia blossoms—for which she is best known. She would become one of the finest modern photographers of the 20th century, alongside such luminaries as Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange, and, with a family in tow. No easy feat. She would inspire gallery owner John Stevenson to crown her, “The mother of modernism and three boys.”

My newest picture book, IMOGEN: THE MOTHER OF MODERNISM AND THREE BOYS, illustrated by Lisa Congdon, and published last fall by Cameron + Company, focuses on Imogen’s early life as a mother and a budding photographer. I have always loved Imogen’s sharp-focus images of magnolias, modern dancers and her famous “Unmade Bed,” which I like to interpret as the bed of a mother who didn’t have time to make it, and who gratefully falls into at day’s end. (In truth, it was taken in the 50s, long after Imogen’s kids were grown). But it was Imogen’s photographs of her three freckled boys that most inspired my book. As an author and a mother, I am fascinated by artists who are mothers, who make art with kids in the background and foreground, as Imogen did.

As I write this entry for KidLit’s venerable Women’s History Month blog, I am house bound, myself, with a sick child curled at my side and an incontinent dog at my feet. The house is a mess. There are beds to be made, laundry to be folded, dishes to be cleaned. There are manuscripts to be edited, books to be written, ideas to be dreamed. Imogen might have needed science to become a photographer, but being a photographer and a mother was an art.

Amy Novesky is an award-winning children’s book editor and author. Her picture books include ELEPHANT PRINCE, about the god Ganesh; ME, FRIDA, about Frida Kahlo in San Francisco; GEORGIA IN HAWAII, about Georgia O’Keeffe’s travels in the Hawaiian Islands; IMOGEN: THE MOTHER OF MODERNISM AND THREE BOYS, about photographer Imogen Cunningham, and the forthcoming MISTER AND LADY DAY, about Billie Holiday and her beloved dogs. www.amynovesky.com

To learn more about Imogen Cunningham, and to see examples of her photographs, please see www.imogencunningham.com

Excerpts from IMOGEN © 2012 Cameron + Company
Author photograph © 2011 ND Koster