We wanted to take a minute to update you on things from this side of the mic, and brag about our friends in our Facebook private group who have started some really fun group projects. You can join us in The History Chicks Lounge, and join our Book Club on Goodreads!
We’ll be back in a couple weeks with the story of a woman we really want you to know!
End song, Curious Women by John Williams used with permission from iLicense
The 108th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is happening the week we posted this in 2020, during a worldwide pandemic…what a better time to talk about a maritime disaster, right? Wait, come back! It’s inspirational! Margaret “Molly” Brown was brave and smart and kept her wits about her as the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. After our discussion of Margaret, come with us on a Field Trip to the Titanic traveling exhibit. it’s like you’re with us!
New York American 1909
Mary Mallon was a hardworking Irish immigrant in early 1900s New York City. She was strong, determined, and a good cook with both an extraordinary cussing vocabulary and a high concentration of Salmonella typhi in her digestive tract. Because of the latter, which she refused to accept and couldn’t, or wouldn’t, control the spread of, she was imprisoned for the latter portion of her life.
Netflix has created, Self Made, a limited series on the life of Madam C.J. Walker starring Octavia Spencer. This series is only “based on” her life so we figured that a refresher of the facts was important. However, we know that Madam C.J. Walker got her hair care education, her business template, and her professional start thanks to Annie Malone and her Poro college, and Annie entered the Millionaires Club before the woman who usually gets credit for it. We thought Annie deserved a little time in the spotlight, too.
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Isadora Duncan was a dance pioneer who bewitched audiences during her lifetime and trained young girls in her methods and methodology so that, after her passing, they could teach generations who danced after her. She was a rebel who loved hard, experienced great tragedy as well as great success and, to paraphrase the words of Paul Anka famously sung by Frank Sinatra, she did it her way.
Mary circa 1925ish (the photo isn’t dated) Library of Congress
When we last left Mary Church Terrell, it was 1898, she was 34 years old, standing on a stage and receiving thunderous applause after having given a speech entitled, The Progress of Colored Women to an audience at the National American Women Sufferage Association. (You can read her speech here, at blackpast.org.) (more…)
