March 31
 Victoria Woodhull is most well known as the first woman to run for President. That is however just one in a lists of “firsts” she accomplished. Woodhull and her sister began their careers as the first female Wall Street stock brokers where they made a fortune. In turn, they used that fortune to start a newspaper which advocated such controversial topics as women’s suffrage, sex education, and vegetarianism. They were also the first to publish Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in English. Victoria went on to become an advocate for suffrage. In 1871, she testified in front of House Judiciary Committee that women already had the right to vote since the 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteed that right to all citizens (when in reality, women were not granted the right to vote until nearly 50 years later). In 1872, the Equal Rights Party chose her as their nomination for President. In the election, Woodhull did not receive any electoral votes and the number of popular votes she received is unknown.
March 30
 At just six years old, Ruby Bridges made history when she became the first African American child to attend an all-white school in the south. Bridges’ parents had responded to a call from the NAACP, asking for volunteers to participate in the integration of the New Orleans School System. Bridges (along with her family) was met with resistance, and even threats. She persevered however; then U.S. Deputy Marshall Charles Burks remarked, "She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn't whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we're all very proud of her." Bridges has devoted her adult life to fighting racism and intolerance. In 1999, she started her own foundation for that purpose, and in 2001, she was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal. Her struggle has been immortalized in books, film, art and song.
March 29
 Jane Addams was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1931). Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, known as a “settlement house” at that time, Hull House was a sort of community center that provided social support and educational opportunities for poor and working class people. Through the patrons of Hull House, Addams became well acquainted with the social ills blocking people from a better life. She became an advocate for laws which would guard against child labor, limit women’s working hours, mandate schooling for children, recognize labor unions, ensure safe working conditions, and naturally, give women the right to vote. During her career, Addams was the subject of much controversy – she was a pacifist and vocally opposed U.S. involvement in WWI, she was also a founding member of the ACLU and a charter member of the NAACP. It was not until Franklin Roosevelt’s term as President that many of the reforms she fought so hard for were implemented. She once said, “The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”
March 28
 Sarah Rosetta Wakeman was just one of possibly hundreds of women who disguised themselves as men and enlisted to fight in the Civil War. Born into a large, impoverished farming family in New York State, a poor woman’s life in that era held few prospects. So in 1862, she left home in an effort to earn her own living; she disguised herself as a man and accepted a job on a coal barge. Shortly thereafter, she joined the Union Army. Wakeman’s regiment fought in the Red River Campaign in Louisiana. They fought several battles therein before being forced to retreat to safety in Alexandria, Louisiana. At that time, Wakeman reported to the regimental hospital, suffering fromdysentery. She was transferred to a hospital in New Orleans where she perished a few weeks later. Her true identity was never discovered. She was buried under her alias, Private Lyons Wakeman at the Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans.
March 27
 During Donna Shalala’s prestigious and multifaceted career in academia, she served as chancellor of numerous universities including UW-Madison. She revamped the school in a time of slumping admissions and rising racial tensions. Shalala championed an effort to diversify the campus’ teaching staff and make undergraduate admission more accessible by raising money for scholarships and financial aid. She later served as appointed Head of Health and Human Services in President Clinton’s cabinet.
March 26
 On March 9th of 1892, upset by an incident in which she knew the victims, Ida B. Wells began a journalistic investigation of lynching which was eventually published. Born a slave six months before the Emancipation Proclamation, she grew up in the south and fought for equal rights for African Americans using her journalism as a tool to expose the injustices of racial segregation. Prior to her rise as a journalist, in 1884, Wells had successfully sued the railroad for forcibly removing her from her first class seat that she had purchased and moving her to the “Jim Crow” car. Read more about Ida B. Wells at your library.
March 25
 Matilda Gage (1826-1898) was a leader in the struggle for women's rights in the nineteenth century. She wrote numerous speeches, essays, and books that analyzed the role of women throughout history and provided arguments for rejecting the traditions that perpetuated the oppression of women, African slaves, Native Americans, and other minorities in America. An active abolitionist, she opened her home to escaped slaves as a stop on the Underground Railroad. She had a talent for organization and communication that she displayed in activities devoted to the main work of her life--the fight for women's rights. She made her first public appearance at the Syracuse National Woman's Rights Convention on Sept. 8, 1852. Though the youngest at the convention, she made connections with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and became one of the most effective of the woman's rights lecturers of her day. On several occasions she addressed congressional committees on the suffrage question. She undertook literary advocacy and published several books on the history of women. Gage's extensive body of feminist literature serves as a record of the philosophy that drove the women's rights movement in her day. The rediscovery of these works by scholars is gradually reestablishing her reputation as one of the most influential voices among nineteenth-century woman reformers.
March 24
 Kalpana Chawla (1962-2003) was an astronaut and adventurer. She has the distinction of being the first Indian woman to go into space. When she announced to her father that she wanted to study aerospace engineering in college, he told her she should study to be a doctor or teacher, "a more respectable profession," Undeterred by her father and a male professor, who told her that engineering was "unladylike," She eventually moved to the United States to work on her masters and then her doctorate. In 1994 Chawla joined a pool of 2,000 astronaut candidates. She was chosen for the astronaut program in December 1994. By November 1996 Chawla was named a mission specialist and prime robotic arm operator on STS-87. Her first flight into space came on November 19, 1997.
On January 16, 2003 she headed into space again upon the space shuttle Columbia. Unfortunately her life and the lives of six others ended when the shuttle blew apart just 16 minutes from landing. Chawla took her place in history, and left many behind to praise her spirit and her ambition. She once described her first trip in space by saying that, "In the pre-sleep period, when you're looking out the window, you're floating. The Nile River looks like a lifeline in the Sahara. Earth is very beautiful. I wish everyone could see it."
March 23
 Augusta Savage (1892-1962) was a sculptor of remarkable fortitude. Savage battled racism, sexism, and poverty to become one of the most distinguished members of the Harlem Renaissance. She was also an ardent political activist and arts educator. Moving to New York, Savage became interested in African art and spent a lot of time at the public library reading and doing research. Savage suffered from a chronic lack of funds so that unfortunately many of her statues never made it past the plaster-cast stage. However, much of Savage's work in the 1930s and 1940s was in education. She founded the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts, and led the way in enrolling black artists in the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project and later become a director of that program. She worked with and promoted her students at both her own studio and at the YWCA. She was also appointed as the first director of the Harlem Art Center in 1937, and she continued to promote the education and work of black artists. In the end, her most lasting achievement was not her individual works, but the students she trained and inspired.
March 22
 On March 22nd of 1972 the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by the U.S. Senate and sent to the states for ratification. It had originally been proposed in 1923 by the National Woman’s Party but it was reintroduced to legislature after the resurgence in feminism from the 1960s. It passed the Senate and got a two thirds vote from the House of Representatives but it was never ratified since thirty eight states were required to ratify it and they did not meet that criterion during a time of conservative backlash against feminism in the mid 1970s. Though the Equal Rights Amendment didn’t make it into constitutional law, numerous other laws have since passed offering similar protections.
March 21
 Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was born in Saint Louis, Missouri to a mother who worked as a domestic worker and a rarely employed father who played the drums. By age fourteen, she had moved out and was supporting herself as a waitress. She joined a vaudevillian act and learned to dance, eventually moving to New York and later Paris to pursue her career in entertainment. She was graceful and sensuous yet comedic on stage and audiences loved her. She achieved stardom in Paris beginning in the 1920s, at a time when theaters were still segregated in the U.S. When Baker returned to the U.S. in 1935, she found white audiences far less receptive to her than they had been in France. She returned to France and remained there for part of World War II when she served in the French resistance as an intelligence correspondent. The French honored her for her service. After the war, Baker decided to start a family and adopted twelve children from all over the world. She called them her Rainbow Tribe and offered them as a testament to racial harmony. Baker worked to bring racial equality in the U.S. by refusing to perform in segregated theaters and demanding non-discrimination clauses in her contracts. The NAACP honored her for her contributions to society. In April of 1975, four days after opening a new show in Paris, Baker died in her sleep. Twenty thousand people attended her funeral in Paris and it was televised on French national television.
March 20
 LaDonna Harris is an outspoken advocate on issues of concern to Native Americans, women, children, and the mentally ill. A founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus, in 1970 she also founded Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO), and assisted women's and Native American grassroots organizations. She has served on the National Rural Housing Conference and the National Association of Mental Health. Harris has expanded the AIO to include the "American Indian Ambassadors" program, which provides one-year fellowships for Native American students. To find out more about LaDonna Harris check out her autobiography at the Milwaukee Public Library: LaDonna Harris : a Comanche life.
March 19
 Maya Lin is an American architect and sculptor. She is most famous for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. She won a national competition to at the age of twenty one to build the memorial which features a black granite wall inscribed with the names of the nearly 58,000 American servicemen and women who died in the war. The Memorial has become one of the most visited sights in Washington. Other significant works by Lin include the Civil Rights Memorial (1989) in Montgomery, Alabama, the lower Manhattan home of the Museum for African Art, and The Women's Table at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.To find out more about Maya Lin and her art check out this book on her life at the Milwaukee Public Library: Boundaries by Maya Lin.
March 18
 Mae West was a woman far ahead of her time. She expressed herself freely and boldly, using her sexuality, off-color humor, and sharp wit. West’s work ran the gamut of show business – she acted in theatre, film, and television; she wrote and produced plays; she recorded her own albums; and also penned her autobiography in addition to a novel. West was one of the first American women working in show business to demand - and receive - creative control of her work. At the time of her death in 1980, West’s estate was worth more than 40 million dollars. When reflecting on her life in her autobiography, she wrote: "I freely chose the kind of life I led because I was convinced that a woman has as much right as a man to live the way she does if she does no actual harm to society."
March 17
 Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) children's book illustrator, artist, and writer. Her name is truly synonymous with children's literature. Along with Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott, Greenaway was part of England's premier group of children's illustrators during the late nineteenth century. Greenaway had a particular talent for creating rhyming verse alongside warm, cheerful pictures of idealized children. Her drawings and designs of children's actually influenced the children's clothing of the era. Her style was dubbed "Greenawisme" by one French commentator. This style of dress became extremely popular in Europe and America in her day. After Greenaway died in 1901, her work continued to influence many twentieth-century children and artists. In recognition of her impact on children's literature, in 1955 the Library Association of Great Britain began granting the Kate Greenaway Medal, an annual award considered the highest honor an English illustrator can receive.
March 16
 Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) was an astronomer. Unlike other girls of her time, her father encouraged her to learn, and included her in intellectual conversations with her brothers, as well as music instruction. In 1772, she left her home and joined her brother, choirmaster, and amateur astronomer William Herschel, in England. Though she was in training to become a singer, she and her brother started to spend more time on studying the stars than studying sheet music. In 1783, Herschel discovered the Andromeda and Cetus nebulae and was also the first woman to discover a comet. She eventually discovered eight comets. Herschel was one of the first of two women granted membership in the Royal Society, England's elite science club. She won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society at age seventy-eight; was elected to the Royal Irish Academy at eighty-six; and won the King of Prussia's Gold Medal for Science at age ninety-six. Her work helped to open the field of astronomy to other women in the nineteenth century and beyond.
March 15
 Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) was a surgeon who advocated for change in women’s dress codes because she found them to be too restrictive of women’s mobility and a detriment to their physical health. She even got married in trousers and a long men’s coat. Mary Edwards Walker is the only woman to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. In 1865, when it was awarded to her, it was the highest military honor available. She served as assistant surgeon to the 52nd Ohio Infantry in the Cumberland during the civil war and was captured by the Confederate forces and held as a prisoner of war. During her imprisonment, she complained to her captors about the lack of grain and vegetables in Confederate rations. They added wheat bread and cabbage in response. After the war, Mary Edwards Walker advocated for equal rights for women including voting rights and more egalitarian marriage laws. She eventually ran for Congress though she didn’t win.
March 14
 Sylvia Beach, born Nancy Woodbridge Beach in 1887, took her name to honor her father Sylvester Beach, a Presbyterian minister. Originally from Baltimore, Beach lost interest in religion and moved from the parsonage in Princeton, New Jersey to Europe. She lived in Italy, Spain, and France. Eventually Beach settled in Paris where she remained until her death in 1962. In Paris, she fostered the literary scene with her Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library which featured only English language books. She published James Joyce’s work including Ulysses and maintained a close relationship with Joyce for many years. Her lending library was used by such great minds as Ernest Hemingway, Simone De Beauvoir, Gertrude Stein and Richard Wright. Ernest Hemingway considered Beach a close personal friend and she was loved by many for her sharp wit, her kindness, and her magnetic personality.
March 13
 By age eight, Golda Meir’s family had emigrated from Russia to Milwaukee where her mother ran a grocery store and father worked on the railroads. Meir graduated North Division High School and went on to attend Milwaukee Normal School (now UWM). After graduation, Meir spent some time teaching in the Milwaukee Public Schools. Meir spent her adult life as a Zionist activist. In 1948, she was one of 24 signatories (only 2 were women) of the Israeli declaration of independence. Meir held several offices in the newly formed Israeli state – Ambassador to Moscow, Labor Minister and Foreign Minister – before her election to Prime Minister in 1969. Meir was only the 3rd woman in the world to ever hold such a title.
March 12
 Condoleeza Rice grew up in segregation era Birmingham, Alabama. Before her career in politics she was the youngest person and first African American to have the position of chief academic and budget officer at Stanford University. She then advanced to the ranks of trusted presidential advisor and head of the National Security Agency for George Bush Sr. as well as George W. Bush, who later appointed her as Secretary of State. She is also a gifted pianist who has performed with Yo-Yo Ma. Learn more about Condoleeza Rice at your library.
March 11
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) is perhaps the first woman to be published in the horror or science fiction genre. Her most famous work, Frankenstein, was published in 1818. Though this novel is sometimes seen as a work reflecting her personal losses, critics cannot dismiss the social commentary of Frankenstein. She alludes to Prometheus in the novel and comparisons can be made to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist writer and William Godwin, a political philosopher and novelist. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was self educated but had access to the intellectuals who frequently visited her family home. Her writings included essays, novels, and poetry, though Frankenstein enjoys the most enduring success.
March 10
 Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) was an playwright, editor, journalist, ambassador, and U.S. Congresswoman, representing the state of Connecticut. At 27 she persuaded Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue and Vanity Fair, to give her a job. Soon she was managing editor of Vanity Fair. In 1934 she left her job as Vanity Fair Editor to become a playwright. She wrote several plays including one called "The Women," a biting satire of scheming high-society women which ran for 666 performances. In 1942 Luce ran for a seat in the House of Representatives and with her victory became Connecticut's first Congresswoman. In March of 1953 she was named as an ambassador to Italy. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Luce to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. She served on the board until 1983, the year President Reagan awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After her death in 1987 came the creation of Clare Boothe Luce Program and since its first grants in 1989 it has become the single most significant source of private support for women in science, mathematics and engineering.
March 9
 Virginia Woolf came from a distinguished family in Sussex England. Though she never attended school, she had unfettered access to books and the literary and political figures that frequented her family home. She was an important member of the group of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury group. The group included leaders in the fields of art, literature, economics and political theory. Virginia Woolf was a pioneer in the modernist literary movement. Her stream of consciousness writing reveals the inner thoughts of her characters. In Mrs. Dalloway, the titular character’s thoughts are written in a style that mimics the thought process itself, an inner narration of her life rather than an explanation of the thoughts by a narrator. This stylistic innovation is characteristic of Woolf’s writing. Woolf authored essays, novels, short stories, literary criticism, and non-fiction.
March 8
 Runner Joan Benoit Samuelson has enjoyed a long and successful career in sports, making her name in distance running – a sport within which women were discouraged from competing until just a few decades ago. Benoit won the Olympic gold medal in 1984 – the first year that women were allowed to compete in the marathon. To this day, Benoit still holds the records for fastest time by an American woman in the Olympic Marathon, Boston Marathon, and Chicago Marathon. In 2009, Benoit broke yet another record – this time in the 50+ division at the New York City Marathon. Now 53, Benoit spends her time as a coach, motivational speaker, and sports commentator. She once said, “When I first started running, I was so embarrassed I'd walk when cars passed me. I'd pretend I was looking at the flowers.”
March 7
 One year ago today, history was made within the film industry when Katherine Bigelow became the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director. Bigelow directed The Hurt Locker which won six Oscars in total, also including the award for Best Picture. Bigelow’s directing career spans more than 30 years, during which time she has directed films, television, and music video. Her work has often dealt with action, violence and tension – typically male-dominated genres. She has said, “If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't. There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible. It is.”
March 6
 On March 27th of 1904 Mary Harris Jones (a.k.a. Mother Jones) was deported from Trinidad, Colorado for stirring up discontent in the striking mine workers. This was only one of the times Jones had been deported from Trinidad for her involvement in the labor strikes. Jones was a gifted speaker who worked as an organizer for the improvement of conditions for laborers for over half a century. Jones spoke out against child labor and poor conditions in coal mines and factories across the U.S. She lived to the age of one hundred and made a vigorous speech on her 100th birthday in 1930. Later that year, she died and was buried in the cemetery of the United Mine Workers in Mount Olive, IL. Read more about this crusader for worker’s rights at the library.(photo Google images)
March 5
 Rosa Luxemburg was born in 1871 in Poland and grew to be a leader in Socialist thought. Luxemburg obtained her doctorate degree in economics from the University in Zurich which was a hotspot for European socialist debate. She challenged Marx and his disciples with her disapproving views on nationalism. In 1918 she co-founded the German Communist Party. Luxemburg was often imprisoned for her views and wrote during her internment.
“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.” -Rosa Luxemburg from The Russian Revolution
March 4
 Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, is considered one of the grandparents of the environmental movement. Her book initiated unprecedented concern over the use of pesticides and their effect on the environment. As a result, national policy on pesticides reversed – DDT and other pesticides were banned, and the Environmental Protection Agency was founded. After her death, Carson was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom by President Carter. Relevant as ever still today, Carson once said, “For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.”
March 3
 Fay Weldon is an English author, essayist and playwright. Her work has been associated with feminism since her primary subjects are the lives and natures of women. To date, her numerous works of fiction have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and works include over twenty novels, five collections of short stories, non-fiction books, magazine articles and plays written for television, radio and the stage. Much of her fiction explores issues surrounding women's relationships with men, children, parents and each other.
March 2
 Beezie Madden is a Milwaukee-born Olympic Gold Medal winner. She won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games as part of the United States team in the Team Jumping competition. She won two medals at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Madden earned gold in the Team Jumping competition and she also earned a bronze in the Individual Show Jumping competition. She is the first two-time winner of the prestigious USET Foundation Whitney Stone Cup, and was the first woman and the first American rider to reach the Top Three in the Show Jumping World Ranking List.
March 1
 In keeping with the theme for 2011, today we feature Gerda Lerner. Born in Austria in 1920, Lerner came to the U.S. to flee the Nazis at age eighteen. She is the first to have taught a women’s history course, and she began the first women’s history graduate program at Sarah Lawrence College. Lerner came to teach at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1980 and began the women’s history graduate program. In 1981 she was elected president of the Organization of American Historians. She has written extensively about women throughout history as far back as the Middle Ages.
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