Women's History Month
We’re back!!! It has been more than 525,600 minutes since our last post, but who’s counting…
Show notes:
Sure, we’ve both been busy. New jobs, loads of professional projects, but the bottom line is we just didn’t make this podcast a priority. Well that all changes today! We are back and are committed to bringing you new episodes every week (we’re going to try really hard anyway). First up, Women’s History Month!
We’re kicking things off on March 1 so that we could celebrate Women’s History Month with you. We’ve chosen some of our favorite amazing ladies to talk about. They might be a bit obscure, but we think their stories are worth telling and we hope you agree.
Before we get to our leading ladies, let’s talk about the beginnings of Women’s History Month. It actually started as a local event in our own backyard of Sonoma, CA. A group of feminist organizers took issue with how the history books largely left out stories and contributions by women of America, according to the National Women’s History Project. Their idea was to form a “Women’s History Week” in 1978 to coincide with the already established “International Women’s Day”, which the U.N. had officially started in 1975.
In 1979, Molly Murphy MacGregor, one of the week’s organizers, traveled to Sarah Lawrence College in New York for a conference with the Women’s History Institute. The participants heard about the week in Sonoma County, and the celebration soon spread across the country.
Gerda Lerner chaired the Institute at the time of the conference, and backed the movement to garner national recognition. As the week picked up steam, organizers lobbied Congress and President Jimmy Carter proclaimed the first national Women’s History Week for March 2-8, 1980.
“Women’s history is women’s right—an essential, indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long range vision,” Lerner was quoted saying in Carter’s proclamation.
President Ronald Reagan passed further proclamations announcing Women’s History Weeks, but by then some areas had already extended their celebrations for a month. The Women’s National History Project lobbied for a longer observation, and Congress passed a proclamation in 1987 establishing Women’s History Month.
You can read more about the history of Women’s History Month at time.com
Margaret Moore Barry - Known as the “Heroine of the Battle of Cowpens,” Margaret “Kate” Moore Barry volunteered as a scout for the American forces. Familiar with every trail and shortcut around her plantation in South Carolina and being an excellent horsewoman, Kate was crucial in warning the militia of the approaching British. The Battle of Cowpens took place on January 17, 1781. Before the battle, Kate was instrumental in rounding up militia, including her husband Captain Andrew Barry, to support General Daniel Morgan and his troops. Thanks to the bravery of women like Margaret Barry, the Battle of Cowpens was a decisive victory by Continental army forces in the Southern campaign of the American Revolutionary War. Excerpt from Journal of the American Revolution
Nancy Hart - Here is a woman known to have a hot temper, fearless spirit and no hesitation to deliver revenge if she felt herself or any member of her family had been harmed. The most well-known account of Nancy’s life begins when six British soldiers stopped at her cabin in search of a Whig leader, demanding information if he had stopped at her farm. Although the man they were tracking had been there, she denied seeing anyone. Convinced that she was lying, one of the Tories shot and killed Hart’s prized gobbler, ordering her to cook the bird. Entering the cabin, they stacked their weapons in a corner and demanded something to drink. Hart obliged them by serving up wine. As the soldiers drank the wine, Hart sent her daughter to the spring for a bucket of water. She secretly instructed her daughter to blow a conch shell, kept in a nearby stump, to alert the neighbors that Tories were in the cabin. As Hart served her unwelcome visitors and passed between them and their weapons, she began to pass the muskets through an opening in the cabin wall to her daughter, who had slipped outside to the rear of the house. When the soldiers noticed what was going on, they rushed to try and retrieve what weapons were left. She gave them one warning that she would shoot the next man that moved. Ignoring her warning, one man made the deadly mistake of approaching her. She held the rest off until her husband, Benjamin, and others arrived. Benjamin Hart wanted to shoot the remaining hostages, but she insisted on hanging them. In 1912 workmen grading a railroad near the site of the old Hart cabin unearthed a neat row of six skeletons that lay under nearly three feet of earth and were estimated to have been buried for at least a century. Excerpt from Journal of the American Revolution
Babe Didrikson Zaharias - Mildred Didrikson Zaharias, known as “Babe,” played her way into national fame in 1932, when she entered the U.S. women’s track and field championship as the sole member of her team. Despite competing in team events alone, she won five events and the overall championship. Her next stop: The 1932 Los Angeles Olympics where she took home three medals—one silver and two gold. She teed her way onto the golf scene in 1934, when she was the first woman to play in an all-male PGA Tour event. To this day, Babe holds the record for the longest winning streak in golf history (male or female), a feat she accomplished between 1946 and 1947. Have you heard of the Ladies Professional Golf Association? Well it was Babe, along with 12 other female golfers, who formed the pro tour in 1950. She wowed the crowd a final time in 1954, when she won the U.S. Women’s Open by a record margin of 12 strokes, just a year after being diagnosed with colon cancer. The Associated Press named her “Female Athlete of the Year” six times, and we cannot disagree. Excerpt from 11 Bold Women Who Changed the World
Hedy Lamarr - Often called “The Most Beautiful Woman in Film,” Hedy Lamarr was more than what met the eye. While Lamarr’s screen presence made her one of the most popular actresses of her day, she was also an inventor with a sharp mind. Along with avant-garde composer George Anthiel, Lamarr developed a new method of “frequency hopping,” a technique for disguising radio transmissions by making the signal jump between different channels in a prearranged pattern. Their “Secret Communication System” was created to combat Nazis during World War II, but the U.S. Navy ignored their findings. It wasn’t until years later that other inventors realized how groundbreaking the work was. If you use a smartphone today, you can thank Lamarr—her communication system was a precursor to wireless technologies including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Excerpt from 11 Bold Women Who Changed the World
Mirabel Madrigal - We know Mirabel is a fictional character, but we feel her ability to connect with and inspire the young women of today is more than enough reason to land her in our Women of History top five. The Madrigals are an extraordinary family who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia in a charmed place called the Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift -- every child except Mirabel. While Mirabel may not have been blessed with any “magical” gifts, she is the only one who has the ability of saving the Encanto and the Madrigal family. She discovers her real power is her bravery and the ability to encourage, inspire and lead others to live their best lives. We need more Mirabel’s, don’t you think?
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See you next week!