Vila Wolf's Dyslexic Folklorist Ranting

ca. 1860-80’s, [carte de visite portrait of “Annie Lord Chamberlain, Musical Medium, showing spirit hands, instruments, etc."] William H. Mumler 

via Larry Gottheim’s BeHold Fine Photographics

Born February 27, 1897, in Philadelphia, Marian Anderson displayed vocal talent as a child, but her family could not afford to pay for formal training. Members of her church congregation raised funds for her to attend a music school for a year, and in 1955 she became the first African American singer to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Despite Anderson’s success, not all of America was ready to receive her talent. In 1939 her manager tried to set up a performance for her at Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall. But the owners of the hall, the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.), informed Anderson and her manager that no dates were available. That was far from the truth. The real reason for turning Anderson away lay in a policy put in place by the D.A.R. that committed the hall to being a place strictly for white performers.  When word leaked out to the public about what had happened, an uproar ensued, led in part by Eleanor Roosevelt, who invited Anderson to perform instead at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday.

Over the nexteveral decades of her life, Anderson’s stature only grew. In 1961 she performed the national anthem at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Two years later, Kennedy honored the singer with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

After retiring from performing in 1965, Anderson set up her life on her farm in Connecticut. In 1991, the music world honored her with a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. 

Sappho, one of the great Greek poets and few known female writers of the Ancient world, circa 630 BC. In recent years her works have become well known for their homoerotic content- so much so that the words lesbian and sapphic are both derived from her. 

Aphra Behn 1640-1689

So remember English class? Remember how you were taught about Shakespeare and then your teacher was like “yeah there were some other dudes during that time too," but it was basically just a big douche-y penis fest? Enter stage left: Aphra Behn. 

Aphra was writing a few years after Shakespeare was, but that hardly justifies what little attention she gets in general education. Of course, we all know how hard it is to get into the history books with a vagina (please leave all lady-parts at the door.) 

Little is known about Aphra’s early life, perhaps because of intentional obscuring by Aphra herself. Her marriage to a merchant named Behn is also fairly unclear, he either died or they seperated shortly after betrothal.

What is known about Aphra is that she was a successful playwright, her best known play being Rover (Read it through the link.) She was also inspired by a slave leader to write Oroonoko, a story about an enslaved African Prince. Aphra also published poetry, Love Letters Between a Nobelman and His Sister came out in 1684 among other poem books and had two sequels. 

Aphra is considered the first professional woman writer. She paved the way for woman writers everywhere. 

Zuñi girl with jar, 1903 The Zuni (Zuni: A:shiwi; formerly spelled Zuñi) are a federally recognized Native American tribe, one of the Pueblo peoples. Most live in the Pueblo of Zuni on the Zuni River, a tributary of the Little Colorado River, in western New Mexico, United States. Zuni is 55 km (34 mi) south of Gallup, New Mexico. In addition to the reservation, the tribe owns trust lands in Catron County, New Mexico and Apache County, Arizona.

ca. 1860-80’s, [carte de visite portrait of a woman dressed in gentleman’s attire], Charles Eisenmann

via Carl Mautz Vintage Photography, Boudoir & Odd Sizes

ca. 1880’s, [cabinet card, portrait of a reclining tattooed lady], Charles Eisenmann

via Syracuse University Library, Special Collections Research Center, Ronald G. Becker Collection of Charles Eisenmann Photographs

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. It was also one of the deadliest disasters that occurred in New York City – after the burning of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904 – until the destruction of the World Trade Center 90 years later. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged sixteen to twenty-three; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was Providenza Panno at 43, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and “Sara” Rosaria Maltese.

Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a common practice at the time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks – many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the streets below. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

The factory was located in the Asch Building, at 23–29 Washington Place, now known as the Brown Building, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.

Profile of an Uzbek Woman, ca. 1907-1915

ca. 1840’s, [daguerreotype portrait of two women embracing, one wearing tinted spectacles]

via Christopher Wahren Fine Photographics, Skylight Gallery

ca. 1860, [tintype portrait of a mother and her child, posed cheek to cheek]

via Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs, Skylight Gallery

ca. 1870-80’s, [tintype portrait of a nun]

via Ebay

The Women’s March on Versailles: one of the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution.

The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread. Their demonstrations quickly became intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries who were seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France. The market women and their various allies grew into a mob of thousands and, encouraged by revolutionary agitators, they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched to the Palace of Versailles. The crowd besieged the palace and in a dramatic and violent confrontation they successfully pressed their demands upon King Louis XVI. The next day, the crowd compelled the king, his family, and most of the French Assembly to return with them to Paris.

These events effectively ended the independent authority of the king. The march symbolized a new balance of power that displaced the ancient privileged orders of the French nobility and favored the nation’s common people, collectively termed the Third Estate. Bringing together people representing disparate sources of the Revolution in their largest numbers yet, the march on Versailles proved to be a defining moment of that Revolution.

References to a powerful woman named Aspasia, the live-in partner of the ancient Greek statesman Pericles, appear in the writings of Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon and other classical Athenian authors. It is thought that she was born in the Ionian colony of Miletus around 470 B.C. and moved to Athens, where she became a hetaera—a type of courtesan who received an education in order to keep intelligent, sophisticated men company—and possibly ran a brothel. She then moved in with Pericles and bore him a son; according to Plutarch, the prominent politician loved her so much that he kissed her every morning and evening until the day he died. Because Aspasia was a foreigner, Athenian law prevented the couple from marrying.

Ancient sources relate—derisively, at times—that Pericles frequently consulted his companion about political and military matters. Plato even joked that Aspasia, described as a skilled orator and engrossing conversationalist in her own right, ghostwrote Pericles’ most famous speech, a funeral oration delivered during the Peloponnesian War. Though we may never know the extent of her influence, Pericles achieved ambitious building projects and presided over a golden age of democracy during their relationship. According to some accounts, Aspasia outlived her famous lover and was later linked to another Athenian bureaucrat, Lysicles.

ca. 1875-85, [tintype portrait of California sharpshooter Lillian Smith, armed with a Stevens Tip-Up rifle]

via Cowan’s Auctions

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

via Cowan’s Auctions

The Debutante (1807) by Henry Fuseli; The woman, victim of male social conventions, is tied to the wall, made to sew and guarded by governesses.

The picture reflects Mary Wollstonecraft’s views in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792.