Women's History Month

Who exactly were the Queens of Finance? The New York Herald reserved this title for Victoria Claflin Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin (or Tennie C Claflin). These sisters surmounted incredible odds by establishing a highly lucrative brokerage business on Wall Street in 1869. Born in Homer, Ohio they were not privy to the comforts and education afforded by wealth or high social stature. In fact, their childhood was quite a tumultuous one. Born to an alcoholic father, the sisters took charge of providing for the family while Tennessee was still an adolescent. Victoria and Tennessee moved to New York with their family and manage their combined living expenses with money earned from the brokerage business and profits made from their publication the Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly. Not only are they were they successful in finance but later both become involved in politics. Victoria actually ran for president in the 1872 election, before women even had the right to vote!

As I researched them I began to wonder how these tenacious women achieved so much during the period of time in which they lived. Here’s what I gathered from what I’ve read about them:  read more »

A while ago I had the delightful experience of hearing Dr. Gene Cohen, gerontologist, psychologist, and author, speak about the developmental stages of later adult life, as he sees them. Rather than thinking of life after 50--until death--as a single phase as others have proposed, he views the years between one’s 40s and 80s+ as encompassing several stages: Midlife Re-Evaluation; Liberation; Summing-Up; and Encore.

His conclusion: not only can you teach an old dog new tricks, but sometimes the old dogs can learn the tricks better than the young dogs.

This being Women's History Month, I decided to do some digging and find women who accomplished great things after age 50.

As a former Girl Scout, I happily start out the post with Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA. Born in 1860 to a wealthy Savannah, Georgia family, she lived a life of privilege, meeting her husband while on a trip to England. When he died after 19 years of marriage, the 46-year-old Low started traveling the world to find some direction in her life. She met Sir Robert Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes, founder of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, and became determined to bring a similar organization for girls to the U.S.  read more »

Working as an archivist I often come across collection items that change the way I see the world around me. I had such an experience recently when processing a manuscript collection. As I sorted through the papers of a woman who had donated her papers to the library, an article title caught my eye, “Is Feminism Dead?”

Those who are interested in the Feminist movement will remember the Time magazine cover from 1998 that asked this question, featuring the images of four women across a stark black background: Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and…Ally McBeal. The lead article by Ginia Bellafante chastised the newest generation of women for falling down on the job, being frivolous, inactive ingrates generally focused more on their own glitzy appearance than anything substantive. Ally McBeal was presented as the embodiment of the young generation’s lack of mettle.  read more »

Saint Patrick's Day is tomorrow and March is usually the time when I reflect upon my heritage and honor my ancestors' history. Since March is also Women's History Month, I thought I would highlight some of my favorite female American Irish writers who inspire others to write and love great literature.

Born in 1851, Kate Chopin was the daughter of Thomas O'Flaherty, an Irish immigrant and a founder of the Pacific Railroad. Chopin was attuned to the Louisiana lifestyle and role of the submissive housewife, which she herself rejected (even though she eventually married and had six children). These observations were reflected and often criticized in her short stories, poetry, and novels. Though unsuccessful in her own time, The Awakening is now considered a significant work in feminist literature.  read more »

Today marks the 86th anniversary of the birth of photographer Diane Arbus.

Diane Nemerov was born in New York City on March 14, 1923. In 1941, at the age of 18 she married Allan Arbus who worked in the advertising department of her family’s store. She received a Graflex 6x9 camera the same year. They started working in fashion, with Allan at the camera and Diane as stylist and art director.

She began to work independently in 1957 and after separating from her husband in 1959 (he later went on to become an actor) she moved to a rear carriage house at 131 1/2 Charles Street where she lived for nine years. During those productive years she received two Guggenheim Fellowships (in 1963 and 1966) and had her first exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (1964). In 1968 she moved from Greenwich Village to East Village’s historic Renwick Triangle at 120 East 10th Street. In 1970 Diane Arbus moved to the Westbeth Artists Housing in the West Village where she lived until July 26, 1971.

Check the Leo Catalog for more information on Diane Arbus. I recommend the book Untitled, the biography by Patricia Bosworth, and the highly fictionalized feature film Fur.

The Bosworth biography lists Arbus’s Greenwich Village address as 121 1/2 Charles Street, which interestingly enough is just about the location of another village landmark, Margaret Wise Brown’s relocated house. Other sources including the May 2, 2006 Greenwich Village Historical District Extension Designation Report and the address book notes associated with the discovery of her Hubert’s Museum photographs list her address as 131 1/2 Charles Street.

On a side note: architect Stanford White grew up in 118 East 10th Street, also part of the Renwick Triangle. White was murdered by Harry Thaw in 1906 and the murder trial was held at the Jefferson Market Courthouse.

If you enjoyed my earlier post on the Unexpected Lives of Women, here are some authors who did or wrote about things that were different from the status quo at the time.

George Eliot, wrote under pen name of a man so that she would not be seen as, what was considered at that time, merely another writer of romances. Other female writers who have used male pen names include George Sand, and more recently, writers such as Nora Roberts who have used gender-neutral initials, as J.D. Robb, for various reasons.

Mary Shelley, best known as the author of Frankenstein (written, incidentally, during a long winter night as a contest with some of the leading male Romantic writers of the day, including Lord Byron, in order to determine who could write the best supernatural story), was also the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, → the author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), a key work to the emergence of the feminist movement.

Octavia Butler, an African-American woman, wrote in a genre, science fiction, that was predominantly written by white males, and she did it in a way that changed that genre forever.

Jean Rhys wrote Wide Sargasso Sea as a “prequel” to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, essentially “remixing” it to remark on the Caribbean, where she grew up and to address themes of “imperialism, capitalism, religion, racism, classism, and sexism”.

Zora Neale Hurston → drew on folklore to create groundbreaking fiction, inspiring modern writers such as Alice Walker. She also worked as a librarian at points in her life, including at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

I don’t have the space to write about all the landmark female authors that have changed literature through their contributions, but I invite you to explore NYPL’s holdings of literature by great female authors, past and present.

“Revolution is but thought carried into action.” Emma Goldman
“All creative people want to do the unexpected.” Hedy Lamarr
“If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them.” Jane Fonda

For Women’s History Month, you might expect to hear about the same Notable Women, but what about women who are famous for one thing, and yet are accomplished in multiple arenas? Many modern women are familiar with juggling different aspects of their lives. Let’s take a look at a few famous women who have accomplished great feats for things other than what they are commonly known for…

The National Women’s History Museum’s gallery Clandestine Women: Spies in American History explores the contributions of women such as Julia Child, who, before she became internationally known as a leading chef, was a World War II era spy. Other female spies that parlayed their status as entertainers so that they could gather intelligence include Josephine Baker and Mata Hari. Harriet Tubman, best known for organizing the Underground Railroad trips to free slaves, “also served with the Union Army in South Carolina, organizing a spy network and even leading raids and spy expeditions” (http://womenshistory.about.com/od/civilwar/a/women_spies_un.htm).

Actress Hedy Lamarr, best known for her roles on the silver screen, was also a co-inventor of a radio-controlled torpedo electronic guidance system. Although she eventually received credit for her role in the invention, she never saw any money from its application.

I hope you enjoy browsing some of these links to unexpected or little known lives of women. Stay tuned for some links to unexpected lives of women authors.

In honor of Women's History, librarians blogging @ NYPL will present a monthlong series of posts highlighting the many amazing women they've discovered through the print and online resources of The New York Public Library.

You can expect to hear from library staff covering a range of areas of expertise: Irish-American writers, women over fifty who have made a difference in the world, the three waves of feminism as recorded in the Manuscripts & Archives Division, the unexpected lives of women (was Julia Child really a spy?) as well as the quietly unassuming but thoroughly compelling histories held in the Milstein Division, and more.

And in celebration of the women of today, the NYPL has partnered with the New York City Commission on Women's Issues in their launch of the NYC Women's Resource Network.

The NYC Women's Resource Network "is a free, user-friendly database of over 1,000 nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies that work to advance and benefit women and families in New York City." These organizations provide a range of services and information on topics like aging, childcare, domestic violence, employment and job training, health, immigration, LGBT, financial education, veterans, and more.

This March, we celebrate the dual roles libraries play in our lives: as a way to preserve and curate women's history, and as community information providers, giving women of the present resources to improve their lives and set a path for the future.