Meet Lillian Wald (1867 - 1940). After growing up in Ohio and New York, Wald became a nurse. She briefly attended medical school and began to teach community health classes while attending classes. One day in 1892, she was approached by a young girl who kept repeating “mommy … baby … blood”. Wald gathered some sheets from her bed-making lesson and followed the child to her home, a cramped two-room tenement apartment. Inside, she found the child’s mother who had recently given birth and needed medical treatment. The doctor tending to her had left because she could not afford to pay him. This was Wald’s first experience with poverty; she called the episode her “baptism by fire” and dedicated herself to bringing nursing care, and eventually education and access to the arts, to the immigrant poor on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Lillian D. Wald started the Visiting Nurse Service in 1893, and two years later she opened the Henry Street Settlement. The Henry Street Settlement was initially named the Nurses’ Settlement. It was (and remains) not-for-profit social service agency in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It provided both medical care to those who could otherwise not afford it, and a social center with a gymnasium added in 1895. Wald also worked on behalf of women’s rights and the welfare of children, establishing the Women’s Trade Union League and spearheaded a federal organization to help children. After years lobbying for this idea, the Children’s Bureau was established in 1912.

Facts about February

This is fun for me: a facts list about a time. I don’t think one has been done before for h-nf. Here goes!

Katharine Dexter McCormick — known more commonly while she lived as Mrs. Stanley McCormick — was a graduate from MIT at a time when very few women were enrolled there. In addition to being part of the movement for women’s suffrage in the United States, she went on to use her knowledge in biology to help find care for her husband, who was mentally ill, as well as to fund research into artificial contraceptives. When she inherited her husband’s estate after his death, she used her money to almost singlehandedly fund the development of the first reliable, effective oral contraceptive.

Here’s a link to our notes and research. 

Katharine Dexter McCormick (left) and Mrs. Charles Parker, from the George Grantham Bain collection at the Library of Congress

Amazon warriors from Dahomey

The Amazon Women of Dahomey, a precolonial West African kingdom, in the present-day Republic of Benin at the Crystal Palace exhibition. Circa 1893  

THE BADASS LIBYAN WOMAN: THE LADY OF AL AZIZIA

Slema Bent Maghawess was from the tribe A Nnawael. She became famous in February 1912 by partaking in every single battle against the Italian colonizers in the city of Tripoli since the invasion, alongside the Mujahedeen (Libyans who rebelled against the Italian occupation).

Slema didn’t let anything get in the way of her fight for her country’s liberation, not even a bullet in her chest. Two weeks after she was shot, she retook her position among the Mujahedeen. 

She touched the heart of a Frenchman, Paul Tristan, correspondent of the french newspaper “Le Petit Marseillais”. He became so fond of her that he offered her a sword. Here, she poses with that sword in a picture taken by Georges Remond, correspondent of the Parisian newspaper “L’Illustration”. He wrote that twelve female fighters arriving from Fezzan joined Slema in the Al Azizia Mujahedeen camp.

According to some ancient Eastern cultures, long hair symbolizes "unrestrained sexuality".

Just a little fun fact ;P

Read More

The Book of the City of Ladies (Le Livre de la Cité des Dames) is an illustrated book by medieval author Christine de Pizan, considered by some to be Europe’s first published female author. Finished in 1405, the book argued that women had made significant contributions to society, and deserved to be educated on equal terms with men. It describes an allegorical city, which Pizan fills with examples of strong and wise women from history. Many of Pizan’s writings worked to counter the patriarchal and sexist values of her day.

ca. 1880’s, [cabinet card of Mary Walker wearing her medal of honor], Collins Studio

via Cowan’s Auctions

Daily Badass- part 3

Part 1 is here

This is Enheduanna

She was a High Priestess in Ancient Sumeria, and is thought to be the first writer or poet of either gender. She was also one of the first people ever to attempt theology and is one of the first women whose name was remembered through history. While her brother was king, she was involved in some kind of turmoil that caused her to leave Ur (the area in which she lived), but she was later reinstated and well loved even after her death.

For more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enheduanna

Why we need Women’s History Month

Part 4 is here

Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding, Michelle Z. Rosaldo (via retrojapan)

@credits

Julie-Victoire Daubié (26 March 1824 in Bains-les-Bains – 26 August 1874 in Fontenoy-le-Château) was a French journalist. She was the first woman to have graduated from a French highschool and university when she optained a bachelor degree in Lyon in 1861.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko [1916-1974]: Successful Sniper during the second World War at age 24, History Student, Wartime Diplomat

An excerpt from her bibliographical profile within the Military Channel reads:

When Russian sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko was interviewed by Time magazine in 1942, she derided the American media. 

“One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat, ” she said.  The length of skirt probably didn’t matter to the 309 Nazi soldiers Pavlichenko is credited with killing, or to the many Russians she inspired with her bravery and skill.