365 Days of Gutsy Women

By Rosemary Roenfanz and Michelle Goodhew

365 Days of Gutsy Women reveals hidden stories of fearless females from the beginning of time. Traditionally women were kept out of history books or simply forgotten in our patriarchal culture. This book provides a daily glimpse into the lives of courageous women who have gone before us. You will discover their storie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosemary Roenfanz
• Release date: Sep 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737334712

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365 Days of Gutsy Women

Copyright © 2021 Rosemary Roenfanz

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, send an email to [e-mail].

ISBN: 978-1-7373347-0-5 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7373347-2-9 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1-7373347-1-2 (E-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021910968

Front cover image by Michelle Goodhew

Book formatting by Arjen Broeze, Black Bee Media

Printed by IngramSpark

First printing edition 2021.

Dedication

In memory of

Lenore Gaudin, who guides me from the stars.

For Jennifer Brooks, my shining light.

Introduction

Daily readings (devotionals) have been a way of life for many seeking emotional, intellectual, or spiritual growth. Nightstands are often covered with volumes consisting of 365 daily readings offering one easily consumed entry for each day of the year and are kept handy for either a hasty morning read or a nighttime browse.

365 Days of Gutsy Women is a secular compendium of the same tradition, a year’s worth of daily readings that will inspire and fascinate as you discover extraordinary women who have come before us. For centuries, women’s stories and their accomplishments have been ignored or forgotten. Too often left out of narrative, women need to be celebrated. And what better way than a daily glimpse of their lives?

Each woman in this book is drawn from a different category. Enjoy a mini-biography per day exploring each category once a week. What makes them different (or similar) to you and me? You’re holding the answer in your hands.

365 Gutsy Women’s biographies are divided into the following categories:

Monday—Activists/Rebels

Icons who fought for the nation’s as well as women’s freedoms, equality, and rights that changed the world.

Tuesday—Educators/Philosophers

Deep thinkers who taught, lectured, debated, counseled, and designed curriculums as they helped change the world.

Wednesday—Scientists/Innovators

Women whose brilliant minds and original thinking gave the world answers, cures, and businesses and changed the world.

Thursday—Authors/Poets

Writers who created art with words while protesting injustice or conserving Mother Earth while changing the world.

Friday—Leaders

From the beginning of time, women who have led nations or their communities and changed the world.

Saturday—Artists/Musicians

Female creative spirits who gave us visual beauty or lifted us to great heights with their voices as they changed the world.

Sunday—Goddesses

Ancient and revered women who continue to guide us with their blessings as we change the world.

Epigraph

Heal yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the waterfall. With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds. Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus. Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile. Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a hint of cinnamon. Put love in tea instead of sugar and drink it looking at the stars. Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain. Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it. Be smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with your forehead. Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier. Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember ... you are the medicine."

María Sabina, Mexican healer and poet

Abigail Scott Duniway

Monday, Week 1

The young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation, should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price…. The debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay to the future.

Known as Oregon’s Mother of Equal Suffrage, Abigail Jane Scott Duniway (1834-1915) was a writer, orator, editor, pioneering feminist and a mother. The pioneer Woman Suffragist of the Great Northwest committed over forty years to working to further women’s rights. In Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, Abigail traveled many miles during her important mission. Outspoken and controversial, her twenty-two novels centered around women’s rights and were serialized in the papers she edited. Gutsy and strong-willed indeed.

Abigail was actually born in Illinois, traveling to the Oregon Territory with her family when she was seventeen. During her first year there, she taught school, and met her future husband, Benjamin Duniway. After he suffered a permanent injury in 1862, Abigail became the chief breadwinner.

Taking in boarders, teaching school, and running a millinery shop allowed the family to move to Portland in 1871. The New Northwest, a weekly publication, then became the family’s enterprise, Ben handling business matters and their older sons helping out with the printing.

With her signature line Yours for Liberty and led by her paper’s motto of Free Speech, Free Press, Free People, Abigail exposed and fought against social injustices. Mainly self-taught, with less than a year of formal schooling under her belt, she resolved to make The New Northwest a voice not only for women’s suffrage but for all social injustices. Her human rights newspaper published weekly and edited by Abigail, ran for sixteen years.

In the Idaho Territory, Abigail celebrated a victory for women’s suffrage in 1896. Early successes were overturned in Washington Territory, until finally in 1910 women were given the right to vote. And in Oregon, where women’s suffrage was defeated five times, the right to vote was passed in 1912.

Did you know?

Abigail also spoke up against poor treatment of Chinese Americans and Native Americans.

Oregon’s women’s suffrage was defeated five times before the right to vote

Was passed in 1912.

She died four years shy of the passing of the nineteenth Amendment.

Adelina Otero-Warren

Tuesday, Week 1

An American educator, Adelina Otero-Warren (1881-1965) fought for women’s rights as a writer, businesswoman and a politician. She created a civil service heritage through her work in education, public health, and politics. As one of New Mexico’s first female government officials, she served as Santa Fe Superintendent of Instruction (1917-1929). Otero-Warren was also the first Latina to compete for a Congressional seat in 1922.

Adelina began working with the woman’s suffrage campaign in New Mexico with Alice Paul’s Congressional Union. She quickly rose in rank because of her commitment. Believing she had an even greater calling advocating for Hispanics, particularly in education, Adelina began a progressive campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She advocated strongly (speaking out in Spanish to reach fellow Latinos) for education, health care and welfare services, also hoping to be able to preserve Hispanic heritage and culture. Controversy evolved when news of her divorce came out during the election, as did concerns about her stance on Spanish-language instruction in schools and employment of Hispanic teachers; she ultimately lost the national election.

While serving as school superintendent, she made several substantial changes repairing dilapidated school buildings and improving teachers’ salaries. Adelina increased the school year’s duration and created county high school and adult education programs. She amended the curriculum to emphasize bilingual and bicultural education as well. As an inspector in Indian schools, Adelina continued her attempt at integrating ethnic cultures and languages into public school curriculums. She advocated against sending Native children to boarding schools and sought to further opportunities to learn about Native culture, history and tradition.

Her contributions to her community were not just in politics and education. Adelina worked to preserve the historic structures of Santa Fe and Taos. She also worked closely with the arts community and was instrumental in renewing interest in and respect for Hispanic and Indian culture.

Did you know?

There are currently seventeen Latina women serving in the 117th U.S. Congress. Yay!

At age sixty-six, Adelina began a Santa Fe real estate career that kept her busy until her death. (Never too late to start over, right?)

Ada Lovelace

Wednesday, Week 1

Considered to be the first computer programmer, Augusta Ada King-Noel (1815-1852), Countess of Lovelace, was an English analyst, mathematician, and mother of three. She wrote an algorithm for a computing machine in the mid-1800s, the Analytic Engine. Ada’s father, poet Lord Byron left their home only months after her birth, never to return. Her life became a struggle between sentiment and reason, poetry and mathematics, illness and energy surges—enduring migraines and years of paralysis from measles as an adolescent. What a trooper she was.

Lady Byron encouraged Ada’s gift for mathematics and language. Certainly not the standard for women at the time, Ada was educated by tutors in history and geography, sciences and the arts, as well languages. Insisting on rigorous studies, Lady Byron hoped to prevent her daughter from acquiring her father’s moody and unpredictable temperament.

At the age of seventeen, Ada met Charles Babbage, a Cambridge mathematician and inventor who became her mentor and life-long friend. He introduced her to his mathematical machine. Ada published a translation of Luigi Menebrea’s 1842 Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage. She added her own set of appended notes to it; entitled Translator’s Notes, Ada explained in easily understood words and diagrams exactly how the engine worked.

Signing her notes A.A.L., Ada theorized a method for the machine to repeat a series of instructions, known as looping in today’s world. The translation with her appended notes was published in 1843. She described how codes could be created for the machine to handle letters, symbols and numbers.

Did you know?

Because Ada’s notes were not published separate from the translation, she received no recognition for her contribution. (Jeez.)

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Ada Lovelace and the importance of her work was recognized.

Amy Lowell

Thursday, Week 1

All books are either dreams or swords, you can cut, or you can drug, with words.

An American poet, Amy Lowell (1874-1925) won the Pulitzer Prize posthumously for her poetry in 1926. As an editor, translator, biographer and critic, she dedicated her life to modern poetry. Amy wrote and published over 650 poems before her untimely death, flouting convention with her pro-feminist poetry and public persona which included smoking cigars. (I love her outrageousness!)

Born on the family estate in Brookline, Massachusetts, Amy was first tutored at home by her mother, later attending private schools in Boston, and was encouraged to write from an early age. At seventeen she secluded herself in the 7,000-book library at the family estate to study literature.

Around 1902, she decided to devote her energies to poetry. Amy, through strong will and determination, became a major force in American poetry at the critical moment of the birth of modernism. Though lacking the advantages of a first-rate education, her energy and passion for the genre was boundless. She became the leading speaker for the modernist movement known as Imagism (a movement that uses precise imagine and clarified speech).

She had a lifelong love for Keats, whose letters she collected. Amy’s vivid and powerful personality along with her independence and zest made her conspicuous, as did her scorn for convention. Lowell was notorious for her huge pack of pedigreed Old English sheepdogs. She was both beloved and despised for her outspoken manner and her challenge to gender conventions.

In addition to her poetry and books of criticism, Amy lectured frequently and wrote critical articles for periodicals. In 1918, she was the first woman to deliver a lecture at Harvard University. She has led the way for our generation of female poets.

Did you know?

Her final publication was not poetry but a biography of John Keats.

Amy Lowell was considered the most important American woman of letters at the time of her death.

Ahmose Nefertari

Friday, Week 1

Queen Ahmose Nefertari (1570-1530 BCE) was the Royal Wife of Ramesses II the Great and first Egyptian queen of the 18th dynasty. A Nubian and mother of six, she was often referred to as the most beautiful woman in the world. She played an important role because of her religious and economic influence in the cult of Amun-Re. Queen Nefertari had the right to endow lands and goods, as well as choose her own successors. She is arguably the most venerated woman in Egyptian history. As we gaze at her picture, we are reminded how powerful female leaders were in ancient times. (!)

Nefertari was highly educated and able to read and write hieroglyphs—a rare talent. As queen, she also played an active role in foreign politics. She was also involved in the king’s building projects, unusual for the time. Said to be an excellent military woman, Nefertari was the first female military leader in the history of mankind. She showed great superiority and power in training. As such, Nefertari was considered a national hero and one of the outstanding figures in African history.

When the king died, Nefertari ruled the land as regent for Prince Merneptah, the king’s 13thson by another wife. She is credited with restoring temples and official cults throughout the land after decades of neglect by the Hyksos dynasty, which she and the king had defeated.

Queen Nefertari was the first Egyptian queen to hold the title of God’s First Wife of Amun. She was deified as the patron of Thebes. Upon her death, she became Mistress of the Sky and Lady of the West.

Did you know?

She was the mother of at least six children.

Some historians believe she was the half-sister to her husband, Ramses II.

Nefertari’s tomb is considered the most exquisite of all tombs and is located in the Valley of Queens near Thebes. The walls are covered with paintings and the ceiling painted dark blue with stars.

Her tomb is named QV66 and is referred to as the Sistine Chapel of Ancient Egypt.

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach

Saturday,. Week 1

It has happened more than once that a composition has come to me, ready-made as it were, between the demands of other work.

American composer and pianist, Amy Cheney Beach (1867-1944) was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music—her Gaelic Symphony premiered by Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1896. Amy was also one of the first U.S. composers recognized in Europe. Her courage to follow her dream was extraordinary.

Born in New Hampshire, Amy showed every sign of being a child prodigy. She was able to sing forty songs accurately by age one, and at two-years-old was already capable of improvising counter melody. She taught herself to read at age three and began taking piano lessons at age six, although she had been composing simple melodies on the keyboard since she was four. Amy gave her first public recital at Boston Music Hall. Several more successful recitals followed, and in March 1885 she played Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F Minor with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

She married Henry H.A. Beach, an eminent surgeon and Harvard University professor, the same year. He encouraged her to concentrate on composition, so Amy began curtailing her public performances and undertook a rigorous course of self-instruction in Music theory and composition.

In February 1892, she heard the Boston Symphony and the Handel and Haydn Society perform her Mass in E-flat (written 1890), her first major work (numbered Opus 5). Amywas the first woman composer to be performed by those organizations. After her husband died in 1910, Amy continued composing and returned to performing. She toured Europe playing her own compositions. Europeans were not used to American composers or female composers meeting their high standards for classical music, and she gained considerable attention for her work on the continent—as well she should.

Did you know?

In total, Amy composed more than 150 numbered works, nearly all of which were published.

As generous in death as she was in life, Amy donated her royalties from her works to the MacDowell Colony, an artists’ haven in New Hampshire.

Adrestia

Sunday, Week 1

Greek Goddess of divine retribution, Adrestia is believed to have become an independent deity developing from many supernatural beings. Known as She whom none can escape, Adrestia is venerated as a Goddess of revolt, just retribution and the sublime balance between good and evil. Her symbols are the scales (balanced), a blindfold (representing impartiality of revolution as a natural force), a sword and a shield. Adrestia reminds us to seek justice for the downtrodden, holding our community and its leaders accountable.

Of the seven children of Ares and Aphrodite, Adrestia is the only girl who is most like Her father, joining Him (Ares) and His brutal men on the battlefield. She is estranged from most of Her siblings, especially her own twin sister Harmonia, and often keeps to herself. She feels responsible to aid humanity in small struggles against injustice, sometimes entering schools to stick up for the bullied.

As the times and tides shifted on the planet, Adrestia scoured the world to find wrongdoing and injustice, seeking to undo them for the good of the people. Adrestia was known by many names and many faces throughout her journeys, but none knew of her godly origin.

As a Goddess, Adrestia is armed with a myriad of supernatural powers, including agelessness, enhanced speed, strength, stamina, and physical allure—a ‘godly’ form whose presence killed mortals, and accelerated healing. Like Her mistress, Nemesis, Adrestia is able to manipulate reality to the point where Her selected targets (those overcome by their inner vices) are punished fittingly. Her retribution thus upholds the cosmic balance.

Did you know?

She is able to manifest a pair of black wings so she can fly.

The feathers of these wings are tipped with a venom that forces those who ingest it to relive their wrongdoing against another. (I advise avoiding them.)

Alexandra Kollontai

Monday, Week 2

Russian revolutionary Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (1872-1952) was a feminist, stateswoman, the world’s first female ambassador, a student of Marxism, and a mother. She was the socialist behind paid child-care and parental leave. A champion for women’s rights, Alexandra helped liberalize divorce, gave women access to their own earnings, and advocated for women’s rights to sexual autonomy. As a socialist and an early advocate of sexual freedom for women, Alexandra was written out of many histories concerning global feminism.

Alexandra’s emphasis on providing public services for women and children pervaded the key international United Nations treaty on women’s rights, The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. This treaty has been ratified by 187 countries, but sadly, not by the United States.

After WWII, Eastern European nations began implementing her reforms in order to help mobilizing women into the labor force. Her feminist ideas spread across the globe long before they became part of a U.S. presidential campaign. Alexandra served as the Soviet ambassador to Sweden throughout WWII. She was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 and in 1947 for brokering the Finnish-Soviet ceasefire.

Alexandra recognized that the institutions of marriage and traditional family contributed to the oppression of women. She also realized household labors continued to prevent women and girls from advancing educationally and professionally. Aleksandra promoted radical ideas about women’s sexuality when Victorian prudishness was the norm. Hounded by the czarist police, she spent years in exile, returning from the West in 1917 when Lenin named her minister of social welfare.

She spearheaded drastic changes in Russian family law and organized the socialization of women’s domestic work through a vast organization. The 1918 Family Code reversed centuries of ecclesiastical and patriarchal power over women’s lives. This made her an international pariah to nervous male leaders in the West. (Figures.) In spite of her accomplishments, Alexandra Kollontai’s name and work have been overlooked.

Did you know?

Alexandra was deemed dangerous by the U.S. government and called a national securityrisk because of her progressive thinking on women’s issues.

The 1970s feminist movement garnered new interest around the world in her writings and her life.

Albertine Necker de Saussure

Tuesday, Week 2

Swiss educator and mother, Albertine Adrienne Necker de Saussure (1766-1841) wrote an influential study on the education of women. She was an early women’s rights advocate, believing women’s education was a necessity more than a way to create proper wives. Albertine authored a large three-volume work on the importance of education, L’Education Progressive (1828), which is still considered an educational classic today.Ignoring her deafness, Albertine learned four languages before influencing the world view of women and education. Because of her efforts, we women can realize our academic dreams.

The daughter of a Genevan scientist and Alpine explorer, Albertine was educated at home. She learned four languages plus the sciences. Her religious views were liberal and unprejudiced. Encouraged by her father, the young girl began keeping a diary of scientific observations at age ten. Later on, she became active in experimenting, even burning her face quite badly during an attempt to prepare oxygen. Albertine also went on geological and botanical expeditions with her father.

Marrying a botanist, Louis Necker, she initially wrote her husband’s botany lectures for him. Albertine went on to teach her own children a wide range of subjects including science. Much like Mary Wollstonecraft, Albertine believed single women must maintain themselves through education, not simply to please a man.

Her literary works were written later in life, after her children were grown. L’Education Progressive or Etude du Cours de la Vie was divided into two parts, originally in three volumes. The first two volumes are an examination of general education from childbirth to fourteen. The third volume focuses on the education of women, encouraging them to learn how to make independent judgments.

Did you know?

Albertine believed that historically, social attitudes had been damaging to women, to their dignity and their sense of self.

She was compared to Mary Wollstonecraft who also believed single women ought to bolster themselves up through education.

Alice Ball

Wednesday, Week 2

The first woman and first African American woman to receive a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii, Alice Augusta Ball (1892-1916) was an American research chemist who discovered an effective treatment for Hansen’s disease also known as leprosy She was also the first female African American chemistry professor at the same University. Known as the Ball Method, Alice developed a way to effectively use chaulmoogra oil, making it water-soluble, therefore, easier to dissolve in the bloodstream. Unfortunately, Alice died before being able to publish her discovery. Arthur L. Dean (a chemist and president of the University) finished writing her papers and took all credit for Alice’s discovery!

Alice began studying chemistry at The University of Washington in Seattle. She earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1912 and another one in the science of pharmacy in 1914. She then published an article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. A woman being published in a respected scientific journal, an African American woman, was an extraordinary accomplishment.

Alice went on to attain her master’s degree in Hawai’i. Dr. Harry Hollman of Hawaii’s Kalihi Hospital reached out to her regarding the cure for leprosy. Chaulmoogra oil had previously been used but it was discontinued due to mixed results and severe side effects. Injecting it was an ideal solution, and it took Alice less than a year to develop a water- soluble solution for efficacy.

Alice died tragically, some say from a laboratory accident, before publishing the results of her work. In the 1970s, two Hawaiian professors began investigating her research. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that papers were uncovered bringing to light the injustice done to her.

Alice Ball overcame racial and gender barriers to develop the only pain-free leprosy treatment that lasted thirty years until sulfone drugs became available.

Did you know?

Ninety years after her discovery, Alice was finally honored by the University of Hawaii.

She was only twenty-three when she became a chemistry professor at the University of Hawaii.

Anna Akhmatova

Thursday, Week 2

It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.

Regarded as the greatest female poet in Russian literature, Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) also wrote memoirs, autobiographical pieces and literary scholarship on other Russian writers. She also translated Italian, French, Armenian and Korean poetry. Can you imagine doing that in early twentieth century Russia?

Anna Andreyevna Gorenka was born near the Black Sea. She began writing verse at eleven, but when her father found out about her aspirations, he told her not to shame the family name by becoming a decadent poetess. He forced her to take a pen name, and she chose the last name of her maternal great-grandmother, Akhmatova.

Anna’s writing was stamped with elegant colloquialism and the psychological sophistication of a young cosmopolitan woman. The smallest detail could evoke a large gamut of emotions. Her collections brought her fame and made her poetic voice a symbol of the experiences of her generation. The artistic and emotional integrity of her poetic voice garnered great enthusiasm. Anna’s principal motif is that of a frustrated and tragic love expressed with intense femininity.

Even with her broadening themes of patriotism and religious motifs during war time, Anna’s poems were frequently ostracized and castigated by the Soviet government and the Central Communist Party— though the Russian people continued to love and adore her. At times she was expelled from national writing groups, called names (half-nun-half harlot) and her published books destroyed. Anna’s reputation was shattered.

Despite her family members’ imprisonment, Anna continued to write, and began publishing again in 1958. She also translated other poets, including works by Victor Hugo, Rabindranath Tagore and Giacomo Leopardu. Anna’s own works were widely translated and her international stature continues to grow even after her death.

Did you know?

During her son’s imprisonment, Anna wrote praising Stalin in order to gain Lev’s release from prison to no avail.

She requested those poems not appear in her collected works.

Cartimandua Queen of Brigantes

Friday, Week 2

Cartimandua was a 1st century queen of Brigantia from around 43-69 CE. As the first documented queen to rule part of Britain in her own right, Cartimandua reigned over the Brigantes, a Celtic people of Northern England living in what is now Yorkshire. Territorially they were the biggest tribe in Britain.

Around the time of the Roman invasion and conquest, Cartimandua came into power. The Roman historian Tacitus has given us most of what we know about her. His writings tell us Cartimandua she was a very strong influential leader. In order to retain her throne, Cartimandua and her husband, Venutius, were pro-Rome. They made several deals and agreements with the Romans. Tacitus described her as loyal to Rome and defended by our [Roman] arms.

In 51AD Cartimandua’s allegiance to Rome was tested. The British king, Caratacus, leader of the Catuvellauni tribe of Wales, was defeated and sought sanctuary along with his family, with Cartimandua and the Brigantes. Instead of giving him shelter, Cartimandua chained him up, giving him to the Romans—who then showered her with great wealth and favors. However, her own people turned against her for this traitorous act.

Divorcing Venutius in favor of his armor-bearer Vellocatus further angered the Celts. Scorned, Venutius incited a riot against the queen. Cartimandua was eventually defeated in 69 CE. She fled, abandoning Brigantia to Venutius. The once mighty queen simply vanished— her fate unknown. Cartimandua remains a mystery to all generations, but we can recognize how our actions have far reaching consequences by reading her story.

Did you know?

Cartimandua most likely inherited her power as she was born of illustrious birth.

Her life story is fictionalized in the book Daughters of Fire.

Angelica Kauffman

Saturday, Week 2

A Swiss neo-classic painter, Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807), was the go-to painter for the British aristocracy. The most famous portraitist in 18th century Europe, male or female, Angelica was often plagued with allegations of being a ‘plaything’ for famous male artists. Despite her talent and avant-garde status, she has generally received less attention than her male Neoclassical colleagues. Philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder once called her possibly the most cultivated woman in Europe.

Maria Anna Catharina Angelica Kauffmann was a precocious child, a talented musician and painter by her 12th year. Her parents came from a noble family, allowing Kauffman to glean the best parts from both of their respective worlds in order to form her own identity. She took those best parts and funneled them into her art. We can emulate Angelica by discovering our inherited talents and utilize them—even if it’s just for our own pleasure.

A child prodigy who was producing commissioned portraits in her early teens, Angelica was trained by her father, the muralist Johann Joseph Kauffman. During the early 1760s, she traveled through Switzerland, Austria, and Italy working as her father’s assistant.

During a three-year stay in Italy, she garnered a reputation as a painter of portraits; she also produced historical paintings. In 1766, Angelica moved to London where she achieved immediate success as a portraitist. Over the next 16 years, she exhibited regularly at the prestigious Royal Academy and worked for a glittering array of aristocratic and royal patrons. Gender did however remain an on-going obstacle in her career.

During her lifetime she was one of the highest paid and most sought after portrait artists, second only to her great friend and colleague, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Angelica challenged contemporary perspectives on gender from the very center of the art world, cleverly using the most elite and respected form of art at the time, history painting—paintings of mythology and classical history. She was charming, financially independent, and internationally acclaimed.

Did you know?

Angelica was nearly forgotten by historians despite her magnificent talent.

She was one of the founders of the Royal Academy in London.

Aine

Sunday, Week 2

An Irish Goddess of summer, love and fertility, Aine (Awn-ya) rules over wealth and sovereignty and is the protectress of women and animals. Also known as a Faery queen and Love Goddess, She is called The Lady of the Lake and Goddess of the Earth and Nature. In Her role as Moon Goddess, She guards livestock, crops and cattle. As SunGoddess, Aine takes the form of a red mare. Her name is thought to mean brightness, glow, radiance, splendor, glory and fame. Associated with midsummer and summer solstice, Aine has sacred days following Lughnassadh (a festival that falls halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox, Mabon). She is among the most revered and powerful of Irish Goddesses.

Because Aine is also known as the Love Goddess, people worshiped Her hoping to be endowed with fertility, sexuality, abundance and prosperity. She was believed to have given the gift of grain to people of Ireland. Legends tell of royal ceremonies held at Cnoc Aine (Knockainey, Co. Limerick). It is there while sheep quietly graze that mythological Irish kings were crowned and a sacred marriage was held. The Oenach festival (honoring the dead, proclaiming laws and funeral games) was continued here until the twentieth century.

Traditions and legends grew about the hill where Aine is celebrated as the people’s Goddess. At Samhain, on November 1st, it is said Aine emerges from the side of the hill where a cairn is located. The locals light bonfires on all the surrounding hilltops in Her honor. She is also celebrated at midsummer’s festival on June 23rd. The local men march around the summit and run through their cattle and fields to bestow good luck on them for the upcoming year.

Did you know?

Aine is associated with air, the direction southwest, and a sacred herb of the Druids—Meadowsweet.

Aine is part of the triple Goddess group with her two sisters—Fenne and Grianne.

Alexandra van Gripenberg

Monday, Week 3

A Finnish social activist, Baroness Alexandra van Gripenberg (1857-1913) was an author, editor, newspaper publisher, and legislator. A pioneer of the Finnish feminist movement, she founded the first women’s rights organization in Finland, the Suomen Naisyhdistys (Finnish Women’s Association) in Helsinki in 1884. Her book, A Half Year in the New World, was inspired by her tours of England and the United States, absorbing the women’s movements there. She was known as Finland’s most prominent women’s rights activist.

As a leader of the Suomen Naisyhdistys, Alexandra headed a campaign for educational, professional, and political equality. She strongly advocated feminist reforms of property rights, divorce laws, and the abolition of state-regulated prostitution. (Lucina Hagman, another feminist, was campaigning for women’s suffrage at the same time.)

In 1883 Alexandra attended the Women’s Congress in Washington, D.C. organized by Susan B. Anthony. The formation of the International Council of Women in 1889 led to her becoming its vice-president from 1893 to 1899. The Council organized national bodies in eastern and southern Europe, read papers at congress, as well as writing and giving interviews.

Alexandra concentrated on educating women to be wise political participants after they won the vote in Finland in 1906. (Finland was the first European country where women gained full political rights.) Elected to the membership of the Finnish Diet (the Parliament of Finland) in 1909, she was known as a female conservative.

Did you know?

She argued against legislation of protection for women, believing that total equality between the sexes would not be achieved if either of them received special protection.

Her collection of nearly 300 books, periodicals, newspapers, and ephemera is stored in the National Library of Finland.

Alice Freeman Palmer

Tuesday, Week 3

Alice Freeman Palmer (1855-1902) was known as the New Woman of the 19th century. An American educator and a wife, Alice was an outspoken advocate of higher education for women. She was the first female college president of Wellesley College (1881) at age twenty-six. Later, the founding Dean of Women at the University of Chicago, Alice also co-founded and became president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (later known as the American Association of University Women). She was one of the most influential people expanding women’s education in the US and we can be grateful to her for leading the way.

Alice had an inherent desire to advocate for women and children’s rights. Gaining acceptance at the University of Michigan, she quickly rose to the top of her class. After graduation, she accepted a position as principal of a high school in East Saginaw. Accepting Wellesley’s offer in 1879, she distinguished herself and was named acting president two years later. Alice was elected president of Wellesley after the death of Henry Durant and the first woman to be college president of a well-known national school.

By raising admission standards and adding honored faculty members, Alice improved the general image of higher education for women. She overhauled Wellesley’s academic program, turning it into a premier college for women. In America’s early years, people believed that if women were educated, it would have an adverse effect on their health and their femininity. Alice’s efforts proved that women deserved to be educated.

Marrying Harvard professor George Palmer in 1887, she resigned from Wellesley and began touring the country speaking on the importance of higher education for women. Later on, The University of Chicago offered her a position as Dean of Women, which she accepted in 1895. Her solid administrative experience helped create an appealing intellectual and social environment for women in the new University.

Did you know?

Alice chose both marriage and a successful career—quite unusual for the late 19th century.

She died of a heart attack after undergoing surgery in Paris at the age of 47.

Althea Sherman

Wednesday, Week 3

A nationally recognized, self-taught ornithologist, Althea Rosina Sherman (1853-1943) was a teacher and an artist. She was the first to observe and document chimney swifts. Althea published over 70 different articles for technical and ornithological journals. Her illustration of the American Goldfinch spurred the Iowa Legislature to choose it as its state bird. Instead of killing birds to study them, Althea began studying individual species on her family farm, calling it her Acre of Birds, she started her ornithological career at age 50 drawing on her skills of observation, illustration and writing. She embodied a life grounded on the natural world—we should do the same.

Mirroring my own childhood, Althea grew up on an Iowa farm with a love for nature, She would later write about the animal and plant life that disappeared from it as her father developed the land for agriculture. Graduating from Oberlin College in 1875, Althea started teaching art before returning to the same school for her master’s degree in 1882. While teaching full-time, she attended additional art classes to hone her artistic skills until her parents’ health decline.

After her mother’s death in 1902. Althea began studying birds full time. The family farm became a living laboratory allowing her to seek out natural nesting sites. She loved adding bird houses, piles of brush, and nesting platforms to the property—anything that would organically attract more avian life.

Althea began writing meticulous notes in her journal, making reports of all her observations. In 1915, she built a twenty-eight-foot wooden tower near her home to attract and study nesting chimney swifts. In total, Althea studied 38 individual bird species copiously.

She then started submitting articles and field notes giving accounts of bird activity to numerous ornithological and scientific journals. Althea also struck up correspondence with leading avian researchers. Utilizing her artistic talents, she began creating realistic illustrations of her birds. Traveling throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Althea produced a monograph, Birds by the Wayside, bringing her international praise.

Did you know?

One of her students was Margaret Morse Nice, a notable ornithologist and child psychologist.

Her chimney swift tower has been revamped and