PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Great Lives from History: American Women (3 volumes) ‡ 'HVFULSWLRQ of each women’s contributions or joins the Great Lives series, which provides in-depth occupation; critical essays on important men and women in all areas ‡ 6\QRSVLV of the individual’s historical or social of achievement, from around the world and throughout importance; history. Titles in this series, published 2004 to 2013, in- ‡ %LUWKGHDWKGDWHVandORFDWLRQVas available; clude The Ancient World, The Middle Ages, The Renais- ‡ $OWHUQDWLYH LGHQWL¿FDWLRQV, such as alternative sance & Early Modern Era, The 17th Century, The 18th spellings, pseudonyms, and nicknames; Century, The 19th Century, Notorious Lives, The 20th ‡ $UHDV RI DFKLHYHPHQW with which the pro¿led Century, Inventors & Inventions, African Americans, The woman is most closely identi¿ed. Incredibly Wealthy, Jewish Americans, Latinos, Scientists & Science, Asian & 3aci¿c Islander Americans, Musi- The body of each essay is divided into the following cians & Composers of the 20th Century, and Great Ath- three parts: letes. This new installment extends the series to 15 titles, 55 volumes, and more than 8,000 great lives. ‡ (DUO\ /LIH provides facts about upbringing and the environment in which the woman was reared. SCOPE OF COVERAGE When details are scarce, historical context is Great Lives from History: American Women features provided. 524 signed biographies, many of which have been pub- ‡ /LIH¶V:RUN, the heart of the essay, consists of a lished in earlier Great Lives titles. These have all been straightforward, generally chronological account of reviewed and brought up to date, and we’ve added 48 how the woman gained recognition in her chosen brand new biographies of great women. ¿eld, emphasi]ing the most signi¿cant achieve- The volume includes artists, business giants, religious ments in her life and career. and political leaders, scientists, inventors, philosophers, ‡ 6LJQL¿FDQFH provides an overview of the long- and social activists. Each essay has been written spe- range importance of the pro¿led woman’s accom- ci¿cally for this set, for which inclusion criteria includes plishments, and why studying her is important. historical signi¿cance, representation of a wide range of ¿elds of endeavor, relevance to classroom curricula, and Each essay includes )XUWKHU 5HDGLQJ, an annotated appeal to high school, undergraduate, and general readers. bibliography that provides a starting point for further research. ESSAY LENGTH AND FORMAT Each essay, 1,000 to 2,000 words in length, includes top SPECIAL FEATURES matter information: ‡ (GLWRU¶V ,QWURGXFWLRQ Offers an informative, detailed look at women in general, and speci¿c ‡ 1DPHby which the subject is best known, with women in a variety of areas, through several pronunciation guidelines as needed; lenses, and over hundreds of years. ix

American Women_Vol-I_FM.indd 9 4/5/16 8:16 PM PUBLISHER’S NOTE AMERICAN WOMEN

• Sidebars: +ighlight signi¿cant, high-point events • Category Index lists pro¿led women under 5 and accomplishments of the pro¿led women. areas of achievement, with many falling into mul- • Photographs: $pproximately 150 photographs tiple categories; punctuate the volumes. • Subject Index includes people, organi]ations, • Complete List of Contents: $n alphabetical list events, legislation, court cases, cultural move- of all of the individuals covered in this set appears ments, works, and concepts. in each volume. CONTRIBUTORS Back matter includes the following appendixes and in- 6alem 3ress would like to extend its appreciation to dexes of particular interest to those studying $merican Editor 0ary .. Trigg for her invaluable professional women: expertise and guidance and thoughtful introduction, and to all those involved in the development and production • Chronological List of Entries is arranged by of this work. &ontributors include scholars of history, year of birth; humanities, the sciences, and other relevant disciplines. • Filmography lists 1 notable ¿lms by and about Without these expert contributions, a project of this na- $merican women, as well as ¿lms about the ture would not be possible. Editor’s bio and list of con- $merican feminist movement and women’s history; tributors and their af¿liations appear at the end of the • Organizations and Societies lists 48 national re- third volume. sources related to $merican women’s scholarship and professional development; • Bibliography lists resources relevant to the study of $merican women, both general and speci¿c to the women covered in this book;

x

American Women_Vol-I_FM.indd 10 15/04/16 7:43 AM EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

The ¿eld of women’s history emerged in the 8nited women’s historians left behind led to the revitalizing of States at the turn of the twentieth century as a distinct the ¿eld in the late 1960s. product of scholar-activists who, inÀuenced by the ide- Tied to movements for social change, speci¿cally als of the Progressive Era, believed that studying wom- the reform-oriented Progressivism that Àourished in the en’s past would provide critical knowledge to help build country between 1890 and 1920 and the protest move- a future stamped by equitable relationships between ments of the 1960s and 190s, 8.S. women’s history can men and women. $s early as 18 9assar historian Lucy also be read in tandem with the history of feminism in Maynard Salmon published Domestic Service, an in- the 8nited States. $dvocates for women’s greater politi- depth study of household workers in the 8nited States. cal, social, and economic equality with men have turned Her student and protégée Caroline F. Ware went on to to the past not only to learn about previous injustices, write a Harvard Ph.D. dissertation in 1925 on women in but with the belief that integrating women into history cotton textile manufacturing, one of the earliest indus- would transform historical and present consciousness. tries to hire women, in 1ew England. They were two of Although contemporary historians of American femi- the ¿rst $merican historians to investigate the lives of nism are rethinking the “wave” construction of femi- women. nism, the initial (so-called “¿rst wave”) of feminism in In the early to mid twentieth century the historian this country began with the historic meeting at Seneca Mary Ritter Beard published important texts on wom- Falls, New York in 1848 which launched the woman’s en’s history. In 2n 8nderstanding Women (1931), Beard suffrage movement, and ended in 1920 with the suc- argued that women had always been active historical cessful passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the agents, whether as upper-class housewives in ancient 8.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to Greece; as soldiers in the Roman Empire; or settlers in vote. Chroniclers of this history emerged, including the New England wilderness. Beard’s 1933 anthology Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in their America through Women¶s Eyes brought together wom- seminal six-volume History of Women Suffrage, which en’s documents in a reader she hoped would demonstrate they launched in the 1880s. While scholars recognize that women had been an integral part of the development Stanton and Anthony’s rendition as politically inspired, of the 8nited States. She argued for women’s centrality it also reinforced the idea that the campaign for voting in history: “woman has always been acting and think- rights—which was white-dominated and at times racist ing, intuitively and rationally, for weal or for woe, at the and elitist—was the sole campaign women advocated center of life.” Beard’s 1946 volume Woman as )orce in in over seventy years. As historical actors included in History continued to reiterate her theme that, contrary Great Lives from History: American Women such as to popular belief, women had always played critically Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Emma Goldman, and important roles—both in the home and the broader soci- Rose Schneiderman illustrate, women advocated for ety—in history. $lthough at her death in 1958 the ¿eld multiple causes in these years, including racial equal- of women’s history was still only a nascent glimmer, ity, anti-lynching, labor rights, sexual freedom, Native the works and ideas that Beard and other pioneering American rights, and birth control. In the post-suffrage xi

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years, feminist historians like Mary Beard and Eleanor Women’s Studies. A critical mass of committed scholars Flexner kept the budding ¿eld of women’s history alive in these ¿elds grew, as the ¿eld of women’s history also and moved it forward. expanded rapidly, achieving an undeniable presence in It was in the late 1960s, with the emergence of the academy. Feminist journals like Signs, )rontiers, “second-wave” feminism, that the ¿eld of women’s and )eminist Studies were founded; from seventeen history revived and really took off. A new generation courses on women offered in 8.S. colleges and univer- of scholars envisioned themselves as scholar-activists, sities in 1969, classes in Women’s Studies expanded dedicated to uncovering where women came from his- rapidly, to over two hundred in 193. Increasingly since torically, in the hopes of “constructing usable pasts” the 1980s, women of color and antiracist white femi- that could inform women’s liberation. History provided nists have called for women’s histories that are multi- answers to pressing present-day social issues, and the cultural and transnational, and examine the inequalities recovery of women’s lives, struggles, and achieve- between women of multiple races, ethnicities and na- ments could offer inspiration and courage. The seminal tionalities, moving beyond a black/white, national bi- women’s historian Gerda Lerner taught that one wrote nary. Currently both women’s history and women’s and history to save one’s own life, even one’s own sanity. gender studies are growth ¿elds, offering doctorates and She believed that women’s history was a “primary tool legitimate professional paths to academic careers. All of for women’s emancipation.” She was one of the ¿rst to this was unheard of in 1960. investigate the lives of women in the abolition move- In the decades since, historians have created and ment, in her path breaking 196 The Grimke Sisters re¿ned frameworks that have guided the writing of 8.S. from South Carolina: Rebels against Slavery. Lerner women’s history. One framework emphasizes that gen- traveled through the South, visiting African-American der is a product of society and culture, not just biology. churches, homes, schools, and voluntary associations Connecting the social construction of gender to wom- to gather the documents that make up %lack Women in en’s status was an important insight historians gained White America (192). “>This@ book,” as Linda .erber, from path breaking anthropologists like Margaret Mead. Alice .essler-Harris, and .athryn .ish Sklar have not- A second framework suggests that historians cannot ed, “still offers a warning against the assumption that simply divide social life into public and private spheres any people are voiceless.” because the interconnection between the two is compli- The ¿eld of social history, which also rose in the cated and dynamic. The third framework draws on the 1960s, in its focus on everyday life and the experi- concept of intersectionality ¿rst coined by scholar .im- ences of “ordinary” people also inÀuenced the think- berle Williams Crenshaw. The idea of intersectionality ing of women’s historians who not only concentrated demonstrates that women have multiple identities that on recovering the lives of exceptional women, but on are rooted in race, class, sexuality, and religion, as well unearthing and studying the lives of women who were as gender, and that these are interconnected and cannot housewives, mothers, slaves, factory workers, domestic be examined separately from one another. servants, victims of violence, and immigrants. Ques- Although writing women into the historical record tioning what counts as historically signi¿cant, histori- has transformed and changed over time, early women’s ans of women have called for the inclusion of women historians dedicated themselves to retrieving histori- at the same time that they have tried to understand what cal women, unearthing their records, and recounting allows and maintains power for certain groups of men. their lives. As .erber, .essler-Harris, and Sklar have They also have been attentive to the ways that, in Mari written, “In the ¿rst stage historians would be like Dio- Jo Buhle and her colleagues’ words, “differences of genes with a lantern, wandering through the past, seek- race, ethnicity, class, age, region, and religion are part ing literal evidence of women’s historical existence.” of a dynamic history of hierarchy and inequality within Historians of women produced important biographical families, communities, and nation.” dictionaries, including the watershed Notable Ameri- The civil rights movements of the 1960s and 190s can Women—initially sponsored by Radcliffe College were also inÀuential in changing the intellectual land- beginning in the 1950s—in 191 and 1980. This series scape of higher education in the 8nited States, both by has continued, with subsequent volumes published in insisting on more diverse student bodies, but also in the 1986 and 2005. As Susan Ware, editor of the ¿fth and creation of new interdisciplinary programs and depart- most recent volume (which includes women who died ments including Black, Chicano, Asian American, and between 196 and 1999) wrote of the appearance of xii

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the ¿rst three volumes in 191: “At the time, most bio- this book are women of color (108 African Americans, graphical dictionaries and general reference books, like 35 Latinas, 30 Asian Americans, 5 Indian Americans, the historical profession in general, almost completely and 4 Native Americans). When space is limited, whose excluded the achievements of women.” This founda- lives and legacies matter most is a vexing question. As tional contribution provided many of the scholarly and historian Valerie Matsumoto has noted, “Perhaps schol- factual essentials for the rise of women’s history as an ars should be reminded that we, no less than those we important and accepted ¿eld. The 1993 publication of study, are actors in history, making choices that affect %lack Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia the lives of others.” These choices are never easy. further testi¿ed to the vitality, and importance, of bio- One advantage of a biographical dictionary is that graphical dictionaries that return to the historical stage it offers the opportunity to consider important historical those who have been relegated to the wings, or disap- events and movements through the lens of biography peared entirely. Great Lives from History: American and in this case, through biographies of women. Indi- Women continues in this tradition, reminding us again vidual lives can illuminate larger historical patterns, and of the signi¿cance of women’s biographies as well as as Mary Beard contended in America through Women¶s women’s inclusion in the historical narrative of the Eyes, history looks different when seen through the country. eyes—and interpreted through the lives—of women. Women’s biography is sometimes described as Although diverse women have had widely divergent “compensatory” history—highlighting the few excep- opportunities and experiences, American women path tional women who have stood out for their distinctive ac- breakers have commonalities as well. They have chal- complishments as measured by men and male achieve- lenged gender expectations; asked for or demanded in- ments. Although it is true that remarkable women do not creased public opportunities in citizenship, education, epitomize the lives of the majority of women, we learn the labor market, democracy, as well as more egalitar- a great deal from their maneuvering, courage, ingenu- ian private relations in marriage, sexuality, and/or the ity, and dogged perseverance through the landmines that family. Women’s accomplishments have often been masculine institutions and structures have often laid for placed within the context of their family lives. Mar- them. Their achievements can also illustrate various di- ried women, mothers, single women, self-proclaimed mensions of power, as well as the ways in which women lesbians, and divorced women—all much more than have been agents of change rather than passive victims men—have carried the burden of “balancing” personal of stereotyped ideas or unjust conditions. relationships, reproduction, caregiving, and domestic These three volumes highlight women’s contri- labor with their lives as wage earners, professionals, butions in a plethora of ¿elds: women portrayed here and public people. include singers, suffragists, politicians, scholars, civil A sprint from the seventeenth to the twenty-¿rst rights activists, ¿lm stars, leaders of women’s voluntary century allows us to consider American women’s lives associations, education trailblazers, writers, inventors, in a broad and changing historical context. In Puritan businesswomen, scientists, saints, artists, and more. The New England of the seventeenth century, religion sus- essays by necessity only scratch the surface of the lives tained women as they faced a dangerous New World. of intriguing and complicated women whose experi- Although husbands were the heads of households, ences are worthy of further study and examination. The women were key in teaching their children about reli- volumes chronicle a three-hundred-and-¿fty yearlong gion. While women were not considered the spiritual history, which ranges from the 1th to the 21st centu- equals of men, they were loyal members of Puritan ries, but the entries are more heavily weighted towards churches. Yet they were not to question the teachings of the 20th century, and include an impressive number of male church leaders. When Anne Hutchison held meet- women who are still alive. These three volumes com- ings in which she stated her belief that local ministers bine essays from previous volumes in the Great Lives were straying from Puritan theology in their sermons, from History series, many of which are updated, with she was tried by both the General Court in 163 and by new essays written speci¿cally for this book. Inclusion an ecclesiastical court in 1638, and was expelled from criteria included the woman’s inÀuence on her times or Massachusetts Bay Colony. She was told, “You have ¿eld; the path breaking nature of her work; and the con- stept out of your place, you have rather bine a Husband tribution to the narrative of 8S women’s history that I than a Wife and a preacher than a Hearer; and a Magis- believed her biography told. One-third of the women in trate than a Subject.” xiii

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Hutchison’s friend Anne Bradstreet, both a daugh- President Thomas Jefferson, who is believed to have ter and a wife of a Massachusetts governor, was a poet had a long-term relationship and six children by him, all reluctant to publish her poetry and kept her personal born into slavery. They met and most likely began the re- works private, although one book, The Tenth Muse lationship in 184, when the widower Jefferson was 44 Lately Sprung 8p in America, made its way into print and Envoy to France, and 14-year old Hemings accom- in 1650. Bradstreet gave birth to eight children in ten panied his daughter Polly to France. Her contemporary years. Many of her poems addressed the gendered roles Phillis Wheatley, also a slave, had been born in Africa of women, critiquing the seventeenth century view that in 153 but sold into slavery as a child. John and Susan- women were inferior to men, expected only to cook, nah Wheatley, a devout couple in Boston purchased her, clean, take care of children, and attend to their husbands. and recognizing her quick intellect taught her to read in Other seventeenth century women described here English, Latin and Greek. She began to write poetry as include Rebecca Nurse, who was executed for witch- a teenager, and in the midst of the Revolutionary fer- craft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, a time when vor of 1, the Wheatleys granted Phillis her freedom. the colony of Massachusetts was seized with hysteria Phillis Wheatley sought an audience for her poetry, both over witchcraft. Although Nurse was a well-respected as a slave and as a penurious freedwoman. She aimed member of the community and a mother and grand- to speak to a broad community, but also wrote with a mother, she was hanged at age seventy-one. Saint .atei clear sense of herself as an African sold into slavery. Tekakwitha is a Catholic saint who was an Algonquin- Her verses championed freedom for the colonies as well Mohawk laywoman. She contracted smallpox in an as freedom for African-American slaves. epidemic and was scarred, converted to Roman Catholi- The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century cism at nineteen, and took a vow of chastity. When she transformed the 8nited States economy, as the family died at age 24 in 1680, minutes later witnesses said her relationships of the colonial period, rooted in shared scars vanished and she was radiant. She is the ¿rst Na- economic as well as social activities, steadily eroded tive American to be canonized in the Roman Catholic in the market economy. Women wage earners offered Church, and some historians view her as a victim of co- cheap labor in the burgeoning factories, while a rising lonialism. middle-class crafted a cult of domesticity that associ- In eighteenth century America cities were growing, ated women’s virtue with the home, and child rearing. women participated actively in local businesses, and This enshrinement of domesticity did not extend to slave consumer products brought both comfort and increas- women, many in the South, who had no legal control of ing social inequality. Women of all classes and races their bodies, children, or families. Working within these faced changing inheritance patterns, diminished access restrictions, enslaved women created social networks as to the courts, and low wages. Slavery met the demand best they could to protect their families, demonstrating for labor in cities and on farms, and slaves were vital to agency and ingenuity. Others were audacious and took the growing market economy. In 15 colonial dissatis- on unorthodox roles. Ellen Craft and her husband Wil- faction with British rule began to manifest, and turned liam were slaves from Macon, Georgia who escaped to to armed conÀict. Members of the Second Continental the North in December 1848 traveling openly by train Congress meeting in Philadelphia issued the Declara- and steamboat. She posed as a white male planter, and tion of Independence in July 16. That spring Abigail he as her servant. Their daring escape was widely pub- Adams, wife of John Adams, disputed with her husband licized, as abolitionists featured them in public lectures as he debated with his colleagues about the construction to end the institution and in 1860 the Crafts published of their new government. She instructed him, “Remem- an account of their Àight, Running a Thousand Miles ber, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular for )reedom or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are deter- from Slavery. While soldiers on both sides fought in mined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves the Civil War, women like Harriet Tubman and Harriet bound by any laws in which we have no voice or rep- Beecher Stowe played important roles, escaped slave resentation.” Tubman as an espionage agent for the federal govern- Other eighteenth century women included in Great ment (she was later hailed as a war hero), and Stowe as Lives from History: American Women offer a differ- an abolitionist and author of 8ncle Tom¶s Cabin (1852). ent vantage point about life in the 8nited States at the Loreta Janeta Velazquez was a Cuban-born woman who time. Sally Hemings was a mixed-race slave owned by cross-dressed as a male Confederate soldier, enlisting xiv

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in the Confederate States Army in 1861. She fought in an internment camp in Manzanar, California, 200 miles several famous battles, including Bull Run, but was dis- northeast of Los Angeles. She later became an activist, charged when military of¿cials discovered her gender. educator and writer who joined with others to create the In the decades after the Civil War, social reformers Manzanar National Historic Site, and institutionalized like Jane Addams and Lillian Wald helped to shape the an annual pilgrimage to the former camp location. Progressive era public agenda as truly national leaders. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Settlement house heads and social workers, they epito- a pivotal movement in our nation’s history, also shone mize the ways in which social reform and social welfare a light on racial injustice in the 8nited States. Women became important sites of women’s work and activism played important roles in the civil rights movement, in the years between 1880 and 1920. At the same time, but their leadership is often overlooked in favor of many Euro-American women journeyed to the Western male leaders. Daisy Bates, who led the desegregation states after the Civil War where cattle driving, freight- of Little Rock, Arkansas’s high school in 195, Mis- ing, lumbering, and mining grew. A few women sym- sissippi’s Fannie Lou Hamer, singer Odetta Holmes— bolized the imagery of the Wild West: Annie Oakley who has been called “the voice of the civil rights move- was one of them, a sharp-shooter who traveled with ment”—join Ella Baker and Mahalia Jackson to paint Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show from 1885 to 1900. a portrait of the multiple and central roles that women In the twentieth century, women, collectively and played. The sexism women faced in both the civil rights individually, continued to challenge and subvert gen- movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement moti- der expectations. The twentieth century is notable for vated some of them to turn to women’s rights. Some, the expansion of opportunities for women in almost like Pauli Murray, served as a bridge between the civil all aspects of American public life. Whether motivated rights movement and the feminist movement of the by gender, race, class-consciousness or all three, many mid-1960s. NAACP Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall women linked their struggles with a broader agenda for called Murray’s 1950 book States¶ Laws on Race and social change. At the same time, others explored the idea Color the “bible” of the civil rights movement. Mur- of individualism—the desire to be treated as human be- ray went on to serve on the 1961 Presidential Commis- ings, rather than gendered beings. The New Woman of sion on the Status of Women, and was a co-founder of the 1910s and 1920s who called for sexual freedom and the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. autonomy invoked ideas of individuality, and included Other civil rights movements of the time also addressed poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, dancer Isadora Duncan, racial and ethnic inequities and injustices in American and blues singer Ma Rainey. society, and included those advocating for the rights Race and ethnicity often trumped gender in its his- of Chicanos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. torical importance in limiting opportunity and freedom. Leaders in those movements are represented here by At the outbreak of World War II, President Franklin D. Martha P. Cotera, Dolores Huerta, Wilma Mankiller, Roosevelt issued Executive Order #9066 in early 1942, Grace Lee Boggs, Yuri .ochiyama and others. Some ordering all Japanese Americans to be rounded up and of these activists began women’s movements and con- sent to live in internment camps. A number of women tributed in important ways to the rebirth of feminism in in Great Lives from History: American Women were in- these years. terned, protested the internments, or documented them Despite the challenges, areas of achievement for in literature or art. .nown for her wire sculpture, public women in the twentieth century were many, and in- commissions, and activism in art and education, Ruth clude politics: Republicans Margaret Chase Smith and Asawa was an American artist who died in 2013. She Millicent Fenwick and Democrats Bella Abzug, Ger- was one of some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry aldine Ferraro, and Shirley Chisholm, are included in living in the Western 8.S. who were removed from their these volumes. Religious activism attracted a number of homes. A teenager at the time, she learned to draw in the women—the Catholic Church underwent huge chang- internment camp, and ultimately used her art in pursuit es over the course of the century, and women’s voices of social justice. Masumi Hayashi was a photographer were clear in calling for further reform, well represented known for beautiful and powerful panoramic collages, in the lives of Mary Joseph Rogers, who founded the and created a series of photographs on remnants of the Maryknoll Sisters in 1912, and activist Dorothy Day, a internment camps. Sue .untimo Embrey was a child leader in the Catholic Worker Movement beginning in when her Los Angeles family was uprooted and sent to the 1930s. xv

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Women have always made important contributions of Freedom by President Obama in 2014. Barbara Mc- to literature and the arts, and their impact is clearly rec- Clintock won the 1983 Nobel Prize in physiology or ognizable in these volumes. The lives and writings of medicine for her work on genes and genetic recombi- well-established novelists, playwrights, and essayists nation in corn. like Mary McCarthy, Lillian Hellman, Edna Ferber, Similarly, in business, although facing hostility and Pearl S. Buck are described. Harlem Renaissance from corporate culture, women throughout the century writers of the 1920s are represented generously here, made inroads into what had been traditionally consid- with entries on Marita Bonner, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, ered a male occupation. Madame C. J. Walker, Estee Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson, and others, while Lauder, and Helena Rubenstein all built fortunes and later twentieth century African-American authors Octa- large companies in the beauty and fragrance lines. via Butler, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and Nobel Women academics also broke barriers, whether in psy- Prize winner Toni Morrison, all have entries in these chology like .aren Horney, in English literature like pages. Many living writers are included in these vol- Carolyn Heilbrun, or Ruth Benedict in Anthropology. umes as well, among them Louise Erdrich, Jhumpa La- Often having to prove themselves twice as good as men, hiri, Louise Gluck, Jamaica .incaid, .imiko Hahn, and they persevered and have left behind a rich legacy of Barbara .ingsolver. scholarship and transformative ideas. The twentieth century also witnessed a shift toward Although challenges remain, ¿fteen years into the popular culture in modern American life. As the century twenty-¿rst century, women continue to make impor- progressed, Americans had more time for leisure—they tant inroads into numerous professions and are playing eagerly followed ¿elds like sports, popular music, en- history-shaping roles in a multitude of ways. The living tertainment, and the movies, all areas where women women in these volumes represent a myriad of ¿elds were both represented and visible. Acting luminaries of in which they are leading, creating, and—as church the twentieth century included the silent ¿lm star Lillian elders admonished Anne Hutchison in 1638--“stepting Gish; 1930s and 1940s idols Bette Davis and Marlene out of >their@ places.” They include two sitting 8.S. Su- Dietrich; and those who broke race and ethnic barriers preme Court judges (Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia like Ruby Dee and Nancy .wan. Great musicians and Sotomayor); former Senator, Secretary of State, and singers Marian Anderson, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, presidential contender Hilary Clinton; and feminist icon Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Etta James, and Lena Horne Gloria Steinem, to highlight only a few. demonstrate women’s formative contributions to jazz, My twenty-two-year old niece pointed out to me blues, and rock and roll. Whether Judy Chicago in art, recently that, in a nationally televised 2015 Republi- Annie Liebowitz in photography, or Beyoncé .nolls in can presidential debate, when asked which woman the music, women’s contributions to the arts have been, and eleven candidates would place on the new ten dollar continue to be, enormous. Sports and athletics is another bill being rolled out in 2020, collectively they came realm of female achievement: Babe Didrikson in golf, up with very few names, all of them safe picks. Three basketball, and track and ¿eld; tennis champion Martina named civil rights legend Rosa Parks, and the others Navratolova; and Florence Grif¿th-Joyner in track and named Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Adams, and Red ¿eld are just a few of the athletes whose biographies and Cross founder Clara Barton. Others pointed to their life achievements are chronicled here. mothers, wives, daughters, or no one. Two cited non- In the professions, women also made impor- 8.S. women: former British Prime Minister Margaret tant contributions in the twentieth century, but faced Thatcher and Albanian-born missionary to the poor even greater barriers. Women in science and medi- Mother Teresa. If for no other reason than this, it is im- cine confronted systemic, widespread discrimination, portant that historians continue producing accessible but persisted to go on to path breaking discoveries biographical dictionaries of women, so that all of us— and inventions. .atherine Burr Blodgett was the ¿rst including those running for the 8.S. presidency—are woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics, from the 8niver- both conversant in, and appreciative of, the enormous sity of Cambridge in 1926, and as a research scientist contributions that women have made to American his- at General Electric invented low-reÀection “invisible” tory, and continue to make in our contemporary histori- glass. Mildred Dresselhaus, known as the “queen of cal moment. carbon science,” became the ¿rst female institute pro- fessor at MIT and was awarded the Presidential Medal Mary .. Trigg xvi

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REFERENCES .leinberg, S. Jay, Eileen Boris, and Vicki L. Ruiz, The Buhle, Mari Jo, Teresa Murphy, and Jane Gerhard, 3ractice of 8.S. Women¶s History: Narratives, In- Women and the Making of America (8pper Saddle tersections, and Dialogues (New Brunswick, NJ River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009). and London: Rutgers 8niversity Press, 200). Hewitt, Nancy A, ed., No 3ermanent Waves: Recasting Trigg, Mary .., )eminism as Life¶s Work: )our Modern Histories of 8.S. )eminism (New Brunswick, NJ American Women through Two World Wars (New and London: Rutgers 8niversity Press, 2010). Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers 8niversity Hine, Darlene Clark. “The Making of %lack Women in Press, 2014). America: An Historical Encyclopedia, in .erber et. Ware, Susan and Stacey Braukman, eds., Introduction al, 8.S. History as Women¶s History, 335-34. to Notable American Women: A %iographical Dic- .erber, Linda .., Alice .essler-Harris, and .athryn tionary, 9olume : Completing the Twentieth Cen- .ish Sklar, eds., 8.S. History as Women¶s History: tury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard 8niversity Press, New )eminist Essays (Chapel Hill London: The 2005). 8niversity of North Carolina Press, 1995).

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SUSAN B. ANTHONY Feminist and social reformer A gifted and tireless worker for feminist causes, An- admirers, in her opinion, equaled her father in character thony was for ¿ve decades the preeminent voice and or conviction. inspiration of the woman suffrage movement.

Born: February 15, 1820 Died: March 13, 1906 Area of Achievement: Women’s rights, social reform

EARLY LIFE Susan Brownell Anthony was the second child of Dan- iel and Lucy Read Anthony. Her mother, a sullen, with- drawn woman, grudgingly accepted her domestic role as housewife and mother of six. Susan loved but pitied her mother and learned from her more what to avoid than what to emulate. Her father, in contrast, always loomed large in his daughter’s eyes. A radical Quaker, Daniel Anthony was liberal in creed and illiberal toward those who tolerated the social evils that he so adamantly de- spised. Strong-willed and independent of mind, Daniel Anthony taught his children to be ¿rm in their convic- tions and to demonstrate their love for God by working for human betterment. As an owner of a small cotton mill, Daniel Anthony Susan B. Anthony. (Library of Congress) had the means to provide for his daughter’s education. A precocious child, Anthony took full advantage of her Like her father, Anthony was a reformer who opportunities, ¿rst attending the village school and later yearned for a society free from the evils of slavery and receiving private instruction from a tutor hired by her alcoholism. An idealist but not a dreamer, Anthony father. At the age of seventeen, Anthony left with her worked actively in these reform efforts, serving during older sister Guelma for a Quaker boarding school in her twenties as president of the Canajoharie Daugh- Philadelphia. Anthony’s seminary training, however, ters of Temperance. In 1849, at her father’s request, was cut short by the Panic of 1837. With mounting Anthony resigned from teaching to take over manage- business debts, Daniel Anthony was forced to auction ment of the family farm near Rochester. This reloca- his cotton mill, homestead, furniture, and even personal tion enabled Daniel Anthony to devote his full atten- belongings, and to relocate as a dirt farmer on a small tion to a new business venture (an insurance agency tract of land outside Rochester, New York. that eventually made him prosperous again). The move In response to the family crisis, Susan Anthony left also allowed Anthony to commit herself more fully to boarding school, secured a teaching position, and be- reform activity. gan sending half of her two-dollar weekly salary home to the family. For the next decade, Anthony remained LIFE’S WORK in the classroom, instructing her pupils in the three While still a teacher in Canajoharie, Anthony read a R’s, even as she augmented her own education with newspaper account of a meeting in nearby Seneca Falls- extensive reading and study. Intelligent yet unpreten- Woman’s Rights Convention (1848), where a group of tious, Anthony matured into an athletic, tall, and slen- sixty-eight women and thirty-two men issued a Decla- der woman with thick brown hair and warm blue eyes. ration of Women’s Rights. This declaration demanded Hardly the ugly, unsexed “battle-ax” her future enemies free education, equality of economic opportunity, free portrayed her to be, Anthony was courted by several speech, the right to participate in public affairs, and the suitors and remained single largely because none of her right to vote. As a schoolteacher making only one-third 38

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the salary of her male colleagues, Anthony sympathized For Anthony and her associates, the decade of the with many of these demands for equal rights. Her Quak- 1860’s was eventful but largely disappointing. Before er upbringing, however, had convinced her that no per- the Civil War, Anthony campaigned hard for the Ameri- son should participate in a government that waged war can Anti-Slavery Society, and during the war she helped or condoned slavery, and she was thus not yet ready to establish the Women’s Loyalty League to lobby for a take up the cause of woman suffrage. constitutional amendment that would abolish opposi- In 1851, while attending an antislavery lecture in tion to and guarantee civil and political rights for all Seneca Falls, Anthony met the renowned Elizabeth Cady Americans. Nevertheless, despite her lifelong commit- Stanton. The two women developed an instant friend- ment to black rights, after the war Anthony opposed both ship that led to a strong partnership in reform work. To- the wording of the Fourteenth Amendment, because gether they organized the Woman’s State Temperance it inserted the word “male” in reference to citizen’s Society of New York and petitioned the state legislature rights, and the Fifteenth Amendment, for its failure to for a prohibition law. On numerous occasions during the include the word “sex” in protecting voting rights for 1850’s, Anthony left Rochester for Seneca Falls to care all citizens. for Stanton’s children while their mother was away on Berated by her former allies, who insisted that speaking tours. women must not endanger the long-awaited liberation Although agreeing with Stanton on most issues, of slaves with additional demands for women’s rights, Anthony for several years refrained from embracing Anthony countered the accusations by asserting that if Stanton’s call for woman suffrage. Gradually, however, reformers linked these two great causes, then the mo- the arrogance and disregard of many male reformers for ment in history called by some “the Negro’s hour” could the rights of women altered Anthony’s view. Finally, in be the woman’s hour as well. This controversy ultimate- 1853, after the male delegates of the New York Wom- ly split the women’s movement. Following an explosive an’s Temperance Society monopolized the annual con- Equal Rights Association convention in 1869, Anthony vention and rudely ousted Stanton as president, Antho- and Stanton organized the National Woman Suffrage ny declared her full allegiance to the women’s crusade Association (NWSA), a “for women only” organiza- for equal rights and political equality. tion committed to the passage of a national woman Anthony’s political conversion brought new life to suffrage amendment. The more conservative reformers the Àedgling woman movement. An experienced work- established the American Woman Suffrage Association er willing to assume the time-consuming chores that no (AWSA), a rival body that focused its efforts at the state one else wanted, Anthony labored around the clock for rather than the national level. feminist causes, organizing women into local associa- At this time, Anthony’s commitment to feminist tions, scheduling conventions and arranging speakers, goals did not deter her from other reform activities. In seeking contributions, and paying administrative ex- 1868, Anthony organized the Working Woman’s Associ- penses. During the winter of 1854-1855, Anthony per- ation in a futile attempt to unionize woman workers and sonally visited ¿fty-four of the sixty New York coun- build female solidarity across class lines. In the same ties, collecting signatures in support of legal rights for year, Anthony and Stanton allied themselves with the married women. eccentric millionaire George Francis Train and began When the legislature failed to act, Anthony prom- publishing a radical newspaper entitled The Revolution. ised to return with petitions every year until the inequi- On its masthead was the motto: Principle, not policy; ties were recti¿ed. For ¿ve years the tireless Anthony justice, not favors. Men, their rights, and nothing more: kept her promise, and in 1860, following a stirring ad- Women, their rights and nothing less. This paper, which dress by coworker Stanton, the New York legislature opened its columns to editorials on greenback currency, granted property and guardian rights to married women. divorce laws, prostitution, and a variety of other contro- Much to Anthony’s and Stanton’s dismay, however, two versial issues, survived only two years and left Anthony years later the same body repealed portions of the mar- with a debt of ten thousand dollars. It took six years, riage reform bill. This setback con¿rmed what Anthony but Anthony ultimately repaid the entire debt from in- had been saying for a decade: Benevolent legislation come she earned delivering suffrage lectures on the Ly- alone was insuf¿cient; women would be fully protected ceum circuit. Following this experience, Anthony deter- only when they enjoyed full political powers. mined to disassociate herself from other controversial

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reforms and focus all of her energy on the crusade for the majority of the remaining states, women voted in woman suffrage. school or municipal elections. In 1872, Anthony gained national media attention Many of these changes were in part a consequence when she registered and voted in the presidential elec- of the Industrial Revolution, which freed many women tion. Several weeks later, a federal marshal issued her from a portion of their domestic chores, created new an arrest warrant for illegal voting. While awaiting trial, opportunities for employment, and provided increasing Anthony went on a whirlwind tour delivering the lecture numbers with the wealth and leisure to sponsor reform “Is It a Crime for a 8.S. Citizen to Vote"” Her defense work. The improved status of American women, how- was that the Fourteenth Amendment made her a citizen, ever, was also a result of the heroic efforts of individu- and citizenship carried with it the right to vote. Dur- als who endured decades of hardship and ridicule in ing her trial, the judge refused to allow her to testify on their quest for equal rights. For more than half a cen- her own behalf, demanded that the jury render a guilty tury, Anthony campaigned tirelessly for feminist goals. verdict, and ¿ned her one hundred dollars. Outraged by A radical visionary, the “Napoleon of Feminism” was this travesty of justice, thousands sent contributions to also a shrewd, practical politician who did more than the NWSA treasury. Although she lost the trial, Anthony any other reformer to change the minds of men toward (who never paid the ¿ne) won added respect for herself women, and of women toward themselves. Although and her cause. vili¿ed throughout much of her career, by the time of Anthony spent the last three decades of her life her death Anthony was the heroine of a second genera- recruiting and training a new generation of suffragist tion of suffragists, who in 1920 would win the victory leaders, including, among many others, Anna Howard she had fought so hard to achieve. Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt. In 1889, at the age of sixty-nine, Anthony worked to secure a merger of Terry D. Bilhartz the rival NWSA and AWSA. Three years later, she ac- cepted the presidency of the uni¿ed National Ameri- FURTHER READING can Woman Suffrage Association and she served in Barry, Kathleen. Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a this capacity until 1900, when she passed her mantle Singular Feminist. New York: New York 8niversity of leadership onto her handpicked successors. As hon- Press, 1988. Scholarly but readable biography, ex- orary president emeritus, Anthony remained the domi- plaining how Anthony’s family background, educa- nant ¿gure in the movement until the time of her death tion, and Quaker upbringing, and the early temper- in March, 1906. ance movement, produced a woman with a striving for social justice. Outlines Anthony’s involvement SIGNIFICANCE in the abolition and suffrage movements. When Anthony joined the women’s rights movement, Buhle, Mary Jo, and Paul Bulhe. A Concise History women had little social, professional, or educational of Woman Suffrage: Selections from the Classic standing. They were denied the right to vote, to hold Works of Stanton, Anthony, Gage, and Harper. of¿ce, or to be tried by their peers. As wives, they lost 8rbana: 8niversity of Illinois Press, 1978. An their legal individuality, having no rights to inherit abridged volume of the basic sources of the wom- property, keep earnings, sign contracts, or claim more an suffrage movement. Provides useful selections than one-third of their husbands’ estates. As mothers, from the writings of Anthony and other eminent they lacked legal custody or control over their own suffrage leaders. children. By the time of Anthony’s death, however, 80 DuBois, Ellen Carol, ed. The Elizabeth Cady Stanton- percent of American colleges, universities, and profes- Susan B. Anthony Reader: Correspondence, Writ- sional schools admitted women. In many states women ings, Speeches. Boston: Northeastern 8niversity had legal control over their own earnings and property Press, 1992. Collection of letters, speeches, and and, in case of divorce, generally were awarded cus- other written works tracing the relationship and tody of their children. Although much discrimination political development of the two women. DuBois remained, reform legislation along with advances in provides critical commentary to illuminate the the medical treatment of women had increased the life women’s writings and experiences. expectancy of women from forty to ¿fty-one years. In four states, women enjoyed full suffrage rights, and in 40

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Edwards, G. Thomas. Sowing Good Seeds: The North- assistance. The only source for numerous Anthony west Suffrage Campaigns of Susan B. Anthony. papers that were destroyed after its publication. Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1990. Antho- Lutz, Alma. Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, Hu- ny traveled to Oregon in 1871, 1896, and 1905 to manitarian. Boston: Beacon Press, 1959. A well- campaign for woman suffrage. Edwards uses news- documented, straightforward biography. Informa- paper accounts of her trips to describe how Antho- tive, but like the other dated biographies, it makes ny organized her campaign and obtained publicity no attempt to penetrate beyond the surface record and support for women’s right to vote. of events. Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Sherr, Lynn. Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony Rights Movement in the United States. Cambridge, in Her Own Words. New York: Times Books, 1995. Mass.: Harvard 8niversity Press, 1959. An over- Excerpts from Anthony’s speeches and letters. view of the women’s rights movement that offers Sherr provides commentary about Anthony’s life insights into the intellectual origins of American and career. feminism. It remains the standard history of the Truman, Margaret. Women of Courage. New York: Wil- suffrage crusade. liam Morrow, 1976. A popular collection of bio- Harper, Ida H. The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony. 3 graphical sketches of noted American women. The vols. Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill, 1898-1908. The Anthony essay concentrates on her arrest, trial, and authoritative biography, written with Anthony’s conviction for illegal voting in the 1872 presiden- tial election.

MARY ANTIN Russian-born writer and educator

Antin is known for her inÀuential autobiography, Antin’s father had developed a profound respect The Promised Land, which focused on her family’s for learning from his travels, and he started his daugh- emigration from Russia’s Pale of Settlement to the ters’ education with both a rebbe and a secular teacher. United States and the urban conditions that greeted However, when he and his wife fell seriously ill, the immigrants in the large Eastern cities during the late business lapsed. After a period of trying to revive it, An- nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. tin’s father decided to immigrate to the United States in 1891. His wife and children joined him in Chelsea, Born: June 13, 1881 near Boston, in 1894. While Antin’s father struggled to Died: May 15, 1949 make a living, his daughter excelled in school. Antin Area of Achievement: Education, literature had written a detailed account of her journey and life in Chelsea to a maternal uncle in Polotsk, and when trans- EARLY LIFE lated into English, it appeared as her ¿rst book, From Mary Antin (AN-tihn) was born in Polotsk in the Rus- Plotzk to Boston, published in 1899 under a misspelled sian Pale of Settlement, the second of the six children title, with the help of Philip Cowen, editor of The of Israel and Esther Antin. After a few failed business American Hebrew. ventures in Polotsk, Antin’s father decided to try his for- Antin attended Boston’s prestigious high school, tunes elsewhere and traveled widely. He rose to become Girl’s Latin School, and met geologist Amadeus Wil- assistant superintendent in a distillery and planned to liam Grabau, a descendant of German Lutheran minis- have his family join him. However, his wife’s mother ters, whom she married in 1901. He taught at Columbia died, leaving Antin’s mother a large market in Polotsk. University; Antin studied at Columbia Teacher’s Col- He returned to the town, where she took the lead in run- lege and then at Barnard College from 1902 to 1904, ning the store because of her long business experience. never completing a degree. Her only child, Josephine Life was prosperous for a time; Antin grew up in a home Esther, was born on November 21, 1907. with a cook, a nursemaid, and a dvornik, or outdoor man, to take care of the livestock and woodpile. 41

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LIFE’S WORK Winchester, and she maintained an apartment in Boston. When essayist Josephine Lazarus, the older sister of the In her ¿nal years, illness rendered her an invalid, and poet Emma Lazarus, reviewed From Plotzk to Boston, she lived with her younger sisters until she died of can- she became friends with Antin and encouraged her to cer in Suffern, New York. write an autobiography. After Lazarus died in 1910, Antin dedicated her autobiography “To the Memory SIGNIFICANCE of Josephine Lazarus who lives in the ful¿llment of With the publication of The Promised Land in 1912, An- her prophecies.” Antin was living in a large house in tin secured a place for her work in the world of Ameri- Scarsdale, New York, where she wrote The Promised can classics. The book was a best seller on publication Land, the ¿rst installment of which appeared in Atlantic and has remained a landmark work of its genre, despite Monthly in November, 1912. This warm, highly per- the numerous autobiographies of Jewish immigrants sonal autobiography, extolling Antin’s new country and that came after it. The book enjoyed tremendous popu- especially its open educational system, became a great larity for years after Antin’s death, being read in public hit. She attributes her own rise above poverty to the ex- school classrooms all across America. With its empha- cellent education she obtained and is grateful that her sis on assimilation, it has provided hope and encourage- family recognized her promise and allowed her to go ment for many Jewish immigrants. The Promised Land to school. works both as a sociology and as a literary account of For the next ¿ve years Antin continued to publish Antin’s luminous rebirth as an American citizen. short stories in Atlantic Monthly and other journals, and she traveled throughout the United States, lecturing Sheila Golburgh Johnson Jewish and other groups on emigration and the progres- sive politics of Theodore Roosevelt, for whom she had FURTHER READING campaigned. In 1914, her last full-length work, They Antin, Mary. The Promised Land. Boston: Penguin Who Knock on Our Gates, appeared, which dealt with Classics, 1997. This autobiography, published ¿rst the injustice of restricting immigration. It was well re- in 1912, includes history, introspection, and politi- ceived but never enjoyed the great acclaim of her au- cal commentary. tobiography. The same year that They Who Knock on Guttmann, Allan. “The Rise of a Lucky Few: Mary An- Our Gates appeared, World War I (1914-1919) broke tin and Abraham Cahan.” In The Jewish Writer in out and brought the differences that had been simmer- America: Assimilation and the Crisis of Identity. ing in the Grabau household to a head. Although her New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Attri- husband was strongly pro-German, Antin threw herself butes Antin’s success to her academic ability and into lecturing on behalf of the Allied cause. to her reconciliation of the immigrant’s ambiguity By 1918, Antin suffered a nervous breakdown, of assimilation. which led her to retire from public speaking. The fol- Rubin, Steven J. “Style and Meaning in Mary Antin’s lowing year the couple separated, and Antin left New The Promised Land: A Re-evaluation.” Studies in York to return to her childhood home in Massachusetts. American Jewish Literature 5 (1986): 29-34. Fo- She spent part of her time in Great Barrington in a so- cuses on the contrast between Antin’s Old World cial service community and part in her family’s home in experience and her life in the New World.

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