February 29

1692: The first arrests in the notorious Salem witch trials began on February 29, 1692 with two elderly impoverished women: Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. The third arrested that same day was Tituba, a slave who was probably an Arawak Indian taken into slavery in Guiana, South America. The first to hang was Bridgit Bishop, who was first arrested on suspicion of witchcraft in 1680. She was hanged on June 10, 1692, in Salem MA.

1736: (Birthday) Ann Lee, British-born American founder of the Shaker sect, born in Manchester, England.

February 28

1797: (Birthday) Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, and the first woman’s college, Mount Holyoke College which was chartered in 1836, born in Buckland, Massachusetts. Elected to Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1905.

February 27

1865: (Birthday) Mary Frances Isom born in Nashville, Tennessee. Isom was a remarkable librarian who helped make library service a reality for the people of Portland, Oregon and the surrounding area. During World War I she organized libraries for various military areas as well as in France.

As an interesting side note, today Portland has the highest library circulation rate in the country. That, along with having the most number of book stores per capita in the country, seems to signal that Portland is a very well-read city.

1869: Congress passes the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote to all citizens, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude — but not to women.

1936: (Birthday) Sonia Johnson born. Johnson was excommunicated from the Mormon Church for supporting the Equal Rights Amendment for women and become a social activist for women’s rights and a writer of feminist literature. Her books include From Housewife to Heretic (1981), Telling the Truth (1987), Wildfire: Igniting the She/Volution (1990), Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation (1991), The Ship that Sailed Into the Living Room: Sex and Intimacy Reconsidered (1991), and Out of This World: A Fictionalized True-Life Adventure (1994)

February 26

1858: (Birthday) Lavinia Lloyd Dock, nurse, settlement house worker, union activist, and suffragist, born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A timeline of her social activist work shows how committed and passionate she was:

February 25

1972: The Rochester (NY) Junior Chamber of Commerce chapter, second largest in the nation, is suspended by the national organization for admitting women to its membership. The chapter had 750 members, of which 4 were women.

February 23

1787: (Birthday) Emma Hart Willard, founder of the Troy Female Seminary, born in Berlin, Connecticut.

February 22

1822: (Birthday) Isabella Beecher Hooker, a lifelong suffrage leader, born in Litchfield, Connecticut.

1860: Women shoemakers join strike for higher wges in Lynn, Massachusetts.

1912: Thirty-five starving women and children were beaten and arrested at the train station of Lawrence, Massachusetts, when they tried to go to temporary homes in Philadelphia. Workers were striking the lowering of wages and poor working conditions in the textile plants and were part of the now famous Bread and Roses strike.

1994: (A First) the Church of England announced officially that it would ordain women as priests. The first ordination of the 1,200 women in line for priesthood occurred March 12, 1994, with the first woman celebrating communion March 13, 1994, British Mother’s day. The U.S. Episcopal Church had ordained 1,031 women by the time of the Church of England announcement. Thirty-five Anglican priests announced they would leave the church, some saying they would join the Roman Catholic Church and predicting as many as one-third of the men would leave over the ordination of women. It did not occur.

February 21

1846: (A First) Sarah Bagley reports to work at New York and Boston Magnetic Telegraph Company office in Lowell, Massachusetts, as the first female telegrapher. This is accomplishment is the last [known] among many, many others achieved by Bagley. Previous to this, Bagely worked in a cotton mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.

1866: (A First) Lucy Hobbs graduates from Ohio Dental College, becoming the first American woman to become a dentist. This came after being denied admission to both the Eclectic College of Medicine and Ohio College of Dental Surgery. Through private tutelage by a professor from the former and the dean of the latter school, she opened a private practice in Cincinnati in the spring of 1861, and later in Bellevue, Iowa and McGregor, Iowa. In July 1865 she was elected to membership in the Iowa State Dental Society and sent as a delegate to the American Dental Association convention in Chicago. In November 1865 she finally was admitted to the senior class of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, and on her graduation in February 1866 she became the first American woman to receive a dental degree.

1936: (Birthday) Barbara Jordan, Representative to U.S. Congress 1973-79, born in Houston, Texas. Jordan was the only black and only woman in the Texas State Senate 1966-1972. Because of health, she was forced to retire to teaching at the University of Texas, but served as a political advisor to Texas Governor Ann Richards.

1960: Jerrie Cobb started secret tests for astronaut training. Years later in a U.S. Congressional probe, NASA officials admited they had “no intentions” of allowing women into space. Cobb testified that of the 25 women who applied to the space program in 1960, 13 had been found qualified.

February 20

1805: (Birthday) Angelina Emily Grimke born in Charleston, South Carolina. She and her sister, Sarah, were noted abolitistions and women’s rightists who drew audiences in the thousands, but were widely criticized for addressing audiences of both sexes which was considered immoral. In fact, women who spoke in front of men (including mixed sex groups) were referred to as “promiscuous.”

Born to an aristocratic Episcopalian judge who owned slaves, the Grimke sisters later turned away from their father’s teachings and became abolitionists and converted to Quakerism (known for their work in the abolitionist movement). After the General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts issued a pastoral letter in July 1837 strongly denouncing women preachers and reformers the sisters felt compelled to crusade equally for women’s rights. Angelina’s letters to Catherine Beecher regarding slavery and abolition along with sister Sarah’s letters on the Equality of the Sexes and The Condition of Women, published in 1838, probably constitute the first published advocacy for women’s rights in the U.S.

1972: (A First) Dr. Juanita Kreps is elected first woman governor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Yup, I’m back!!! I would like to thank Amp for graciously stepping in while I was gone. Thanks again, Amp.

[whistles] OK, is Amp gone? OK, now, he was really great for stepping in, but, as with many substitutes, he missed a few things here and there, so I’ve gone back and made a few additions and corrections to the days he did. Don’t hold it against him, just check out the updated entries — don’t forget, you can get all you “On this day in Women’s History…” entries with one click, just by clicking on that link in the upper right hand corner (or here).

February 19

1841: (Birthday) Elfrida Andree, the first woman telegraphist in Sweden, pioneer-activist of the Swedish women’s rights movement, elected Swedish Academy of Music (1879), elected Cathedral organist in Goteborg and directed more than 800 concerts.

1903: (Birthday) Clare Boothe Luce, playwright, war correspondent and Representative to Congress born in New York City. Booth Luce wrote a number of plays, perhaps her most famous being The Women, which was made into a movie directed by George Kukor (the screenplay by Anita Loos) and featuring an all-star cast (of all women) including Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russel and many more. Booth Luce is considered by some to have been “the most influential woman in both modern American history and the American conservative movement.” Her conservative and anti-feminist stances (continued today by The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute) certainly do not make her loved by feminists, but there’s no denying her achievements and her influence on society, which are at least worthy of respect (though, to be honest, that respect does not extend to the institute for me).

1946: (Birthday) Karen Silkwood, documented safety infractions at Kerr-McGee Corp. Cimarron Facility involving the misuse of radioactive materials. Her mysterious death, rather than covering up the infractions, prompted congressional hearings. And yes, the movie was about her, and yes, it’s pretty good — but like most movies, it’s neither 100% accurate nor 100% complete.

(Bean returns from her trip to the tropical forests and alpine peaks of London, Canada tonight, and so “On this day” will return to its regular host tomorrow.)

February 18

1851: (Birth) Ida Husted Harper, official publicist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA, see below) and collaborating author of History of Women’s Suffrage, born in Fairfield, Indiana. In 1897, she moved into the home of Susan B. Anthony in Rochester, NY after Anthony requested that Husted become her official biographer. The first two volumes of the Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony appeared in 1898; a third was published in 1908. She also collaborated with Anthony on the fourth volume of the History of Woman Suffrage in 1902 (the first 3 volumes were written by Anthony). In 1916 Carrie Chapman Catt asked Harper to head the newly formed Leslie Bureau of Suffrage Education within the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1922 she published the fifth and sixth volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, bringing the coverage up to 1920. A prolific writer and supporter of women’s rights, Husted edited columns for the New York Sunday Sun and Harper’s Bazaar and was a correspondent for major newspapers in Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City and served as chair of the press committee of the International Council of Women in 1899-1902 and was a delegate to council conventions in London in 1899 and Berlin in 1904.

1874: (Birth) Mary Dewson, economist and activist. Dewson helped establish the US’s first minimum wage law, in Massachusetts in 1913.

1878: (Birth) Blanche Ames, artist, women’s rights activist, botanist, author, inventor, and political cartoonist, among other achievements.

1890: The National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association combine to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as president.

1931: (Birth) Toni Morrison, nobel and pulitzer prize-winning author.

1934: (Birth) Audré Lorde, black lesbian poet and activist. Lorde, a wonderful public speaker, had a knack for telling quotes: “Silence has never brought us anything of worth.” “Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.” “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

edited by bean to add a few important events not mentioned earlier

February 17

1870: (A First): Esther Hobart Morris, suffrage pioneer and later delegate to the National Suffrage Convention in Cleveland, Ohio (1895), is appointed justice of the peace of South Pass City, Wyoming Territory, becoming the first woman the first woman to hold judicial office in the modern world. Mrs. Morris served 8½ months and handled 26 cases, none of which were ever overturned on appeal.

1897: (birth) Pioneering vocalist Marian Anderson, the first African-American to break through the “glass ceiling” keeping non-whites off opera stages. Anderson was known for her dignity, for her courage in breaking barriers, and for one of the greatest singing voices ever heard. Singer Jessye Norman described first hearing Anderson sing: “I listened, thinking, ‘This can’t be just a voice, so rich and beautiful.’ It was a revelation. And I wept.”

In 1955, rather late in her career, Anderson was the first African-American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. As Rosalyn Story wrote:

edited by bean for additional event not previously included

February 16

1862: (A First) Mary Ann Bickerdyke changes military history when she begins nursing wounded soldiers on the battlefield following the fall of Fort Donnelson in Tennessee. Because of her dedication to treating wounded soldiers — in the hospital and on the battlefields — she became known as the “Mother of the Battlefield.” Under Bickerdyke’s supervision, about 300 field hospitals were built with the help of U.S. Sanitary Commission agents. After the war:

1870: (Birth) Labor activist Leonora O’Reilly, who helped found The Woman’s Trade Union League, the first labor organzation for women in the USA, in 1903.

1881: (Birth) Mary Breckinridge, pioneering midwife who provided care to rural America. Founder of the Frontier Nursing Service.

1888: (Birth) Dorothy Kenyon, lawyer, progressive activist and feminist. On being targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1950, she said “He’s a lowdown worm and although it ought to be beneath my dignity to answer him, I’m mad enough to say that he’s a liar and he can go to hell.”

1920: (Birth) Patty Andrews, lead singer of The Andrews Sisters, arguably the most popular and influential girl group of all time.

edited by bean to add additional event not previously included.

Februrary 15

1820: (Birth) Susan B. Anthony, women’s rights leader, who with Elizabeth Cady Stanton led the fight for votes for women for many years.

1859: (A First) Federal Law, promoted by Belva Lockwood, gives women who practice law access to the Supreme Court bar.

edited by bean to add even not previously included

February 14

1847 : (Birth) Reverend Anna Howard Shaw, suffragette leader, one of the first woman ordained as a Methodist minister, and president of the American Woman Suffrage Association for many years. “Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great Cause more than life itself, and to have the privilege throughout life of working for that Cause.”

1920: The League of Women Voters is formed.

1985: The U.S. Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Jews votes to accept women as rabbis.

edited by bean for correction

1870: (A First) Wyoming’s Esther Morris is appointed a Justice of the Peace - the first woman to serve in that capacity in the USA. Morris was also an active women’s rights campaigner.

1906: (Birth) Pauline Frederick Robbins, pioneering female TV and radio journalist. Among other firsts, she was the first woman to moderate a presidential debate.

1943: (Birth): Feminist scholar and theologian Elaine Pagels.

1945: (Death) Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah Women, the largest Jewish organization in American history. As the founder and director of the Youth Aliyah Agency, Szold was responsible for the rescue of over 22,000 Jewish children from the Nazis.

1962: (A First) Eleanor Roosevelt becomes first chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

edited by bean for corrections

(Bean’s away this week, enjoying the tropical sunshine and the palm trees of London, Canada, so I’m subbing for her - Amp.)

February 12

1855: (Birthday) Fannie Williams, co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women born in Brockport, NY. The NACW still exists today.

1909: (A First) The first meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is held; members include Mary Church Terrell, Jane Addams, and Ida B. Wells Barnett, Joesphine Ruffin, and Inez Millholland Boissevain.

1992: Following a seven-year court battle, Sharon Kowalski is finally brought home by her life partner (and now legal guardian), Karen Thompson. Kowalski, who had been severely injured in an accident, was the subject of a custody suit between Thompson and Kowalski’s estranged father.

2004: (A first) City officials in San Francisco issued a license and performed a wedding ceremony for a lesbian couple. This appears to be the first legal same-sex wedding in the United States. The couple, Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, are longtime lesbian-rights activists, who have been together for over half a century.

edited by bean to add previously missing information and to make one correction.

February 11

1802: (Birthday) Lydia Maria Child, author and renowned abolitionist born in Medford, Massachusetts. She wrote An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans. She was publisher-editor of the Juvenile Miscellany, a periodical for children. When she suggested education and the repeal of laws which discriminated against blacks it caused such an uproar in Boston that she was shunned from society.

LMC was named to the executive committee of the American Anti- Slavery Society by William Lloyd Garrison and edited the National Anti-slavery Standard but was removed by Garrison because she was seen as too womanly and moderate in her views. Her Letters from New York 1843-45 was a best seller going through 11 editions from 1845 to 1879. One pamphlet Child wrote condemning slavery sold 300,000 copies in the north.

Today, she is probably best known for her reply to a southern woman who insisted that Southerners were kind and helpful to slave women at childbirth. Child replied, “In New England, too, ‘the pangs of maternity’… meet with the requisite assistance, and here at the North, after we have helped the mothers, we do not sell the babies.”

1836: (A First) Mount Holyoke Seminary, the first woman’s college in the U.S., chartered in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

1916: Emma Goldman arrested under the Comstock Law of 1873 while giving a public lecture on family planning and birth control.

1970: (Law) The state of Hawaii enacts a law approving abortions for women who had been residents of the state for 90 days.

February 10

1855: (A First) The Women’s Hospital in New York City, the first woman’s hospital in the world, founded by women for the exclusive use of women where women were normal and not “other.” (See: January 23, Elizabeth Blackwell)

February 9

1849: (Birthday) Laura Clay born in Richmond, Kentucky. At the 1920 convention, Clay became the first woman to receive a vote for the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. She was a noted suffrager and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association.

1919: Radical Tennessee suffragist Sue Shelton White is jailed for five days for burning a caricature of President Woodrow Wilson.

1944: (Birthday) Alice Walker, Black American essayist, poet, novelist, and womanist born in Eatonton, Georgia. Walker won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple (1982). Her Warrior Marks and Possessing the Secret of Joy take on the horrendous practice of female genital mutilation in some African locations.