Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Carrie Nation (1846-1911)

"You have put me in here a cub, but I will come out roaring like a lion, and I will make all hell howl!" ~Carrie Nation

Carrie Amelia Moore was an American woman who was a radical member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition. She is particularly noteworthy for attacking the property of alcohol-serving establishments (most often taverns) with a hatchet.

The daughter of slave owners George Nation and Mary Campbell Moore, Carrie was born on 25 Nov 1846 in Garrard County, KY. She married Dr. Charles Gloyd, a young physician (and by all accounts a severe alcoholic) on 21 Nov 1867. They separated shortly before the birth of their daughter, Charlien, on 27 Sep 1868. After Gloyd died less than a year later of alcoholism, Carrie developed a very passionate attitude against alcohol.

She remarried to David A. Nation in 1874. He became involved in the Jaybird-Woodpecker War and, as a result, was forced to move north to Medicine Lodge, KS where Carrie began her temperance work. She started a local branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and campaigned for the enforcement of Kansas' ban on the sales of liquor. Her methods escalated from simple protests to serenading saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ, to greeting bartenders with pointed remarks such as, "Good morning, destroyer of men's souls."

Dissatisfied with the results of her efforts, Nation began to pray to God for direction. On June 5, 1900, she felt she received her answer in the form of a heavenly vision. As she described it:

The next morning I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me speaking in my heart, these words, "GO TO KIOWA," and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, "I'LL STAND BY YOU." The words, "Go to Kiowa," were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but "I'll stand by you," was very clear, positive and emphatic. I was impressed with a great inspiration, the interpretation was very plain, it was this: "Take something in your hands, and throw at these places in Kiowa and smash them."

Responding to the revelation, she gathered several rocks – "smashers", she called them – and proceeded to Dobson's Saloon on June 7. Announcing "Men, I have come to save you from a drunkard's fate", she began to destroy the saloon's stock with her cache of rocks. After she similarly destroyed two other saloons in Kiowa, a tornado hit eastern Kansas, which she took as divine approval of her actions.
Hatchetations

Carrie continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, "That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you." Not surprisingly, the couple divorced in 1901, not having had any children.

Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Her actions often did not include other people, just herself. Between 1900 and 1910, she was arrested some 30 times for "hatchetations", as she came to call them. She paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets. In April 1901 Nation came to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various downtown bars on 12th Street . She was arrested, hauled into court and fined $500 ($13,400 in 2011 dollars), although the judge suspended the fine so long as Nation never returned to Kansas City.

Carrie's anti-alcohol activities became widely known, with the slogan "All Nations Welcome But Carrie" becoming a bar-room staple. She published The Smasher's Mail, a biweekly newsletter, and The Hatchet, a newspaper. Later in life she exploited her name by appearing in vaudeville in the U.S. and music halls in Great Britain. A proud woman more given to sermonizing than entertaining, she sometimes found these poor venues for her proselytizing. One of the number of pre-World War I acts that "failed to click" with foreign audiences, Carrie was struck by an egg thrown by an audience member during one 1909 music hall lecture at the Canterbury Theatre of Varieties. Indignantly, "The Anti-Souse Queen" ripped up her contract and returned to the United States. Seeking profits elsewhere, she also sold photographs of herself, collected lecture fees, and marketed miniature souvenir hatchets.

Suspicious that President William McKinley was a secret drinker, Carrie applauded his 1901 assassination because drinkers "got what they deserved".

Near the end of her life Nation moved to Eureka Springs, AR, where she founded the home known as Hatchet Hall. Ill in mind and body, she collapsed during a speech in a Eureka Springs park and was taken to a hospital in Leavenworth, KS where she died on 9 Jun 1911.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (1837-1930)

"You don't need to vote to raise hell." ~Mary Harris Jones

Typically clad in a black dress, her face framed by a lace collar and black hat, the barely five-foot tall Mother Jones was a fearless fighter for workers’ rights—once labeled "the most dangerous woman in America" by a U.S. district attorney. Mary Harris "Mother" Jones rose to prominence as a fiery orator and fearless organizer for the Mine Workers during the first two decades of the 20th century. Her voice had great carrying power. Her energy and passion inspired men half her age into action and compelled their wives and daughters to join in the struggle. If that didn’t work, she would embarrass men to action. "I have been in jail more than once and I expect to go again. If you are too cowardly to fight, I will fight," she told them.

Mother Jones' organizing methods were unique for her time. She welcomed African American workers and involved women and children in strikes. She organized miners’ wives into teams armed with mops and brooms to guard the mines against scabs. She staged parades with children carrying signs that read, "We Want to Go to School and Not to the Mines."

Mother Jones' organizing methods were unique for her time. She welcomed African American workers and involved women and children in strikes. She organized miners’ wives into teams armed with mops and brooms to guard the mines against scabs. She staged parades with children carrying signs that read, "We Want to Go to School and Not to the Mines."

Early Years 

Born Mary Harris in Cork County, Ireland, the woman who would become Mother Jones immigrated to North America with her family as a child to escape the Irish famine. She spent her early years in Canada and trained to be a dressmaker and teacher. Historians are uncertain about her year of birth and mark it anywhere between 1830 and 1844.

In her early 20s, she moved to Chicago, where she worked as a dressmaker, and then to Memphis, Tenn., where she met and married George Jones, a skilled iron molder and staunch unionist. The couple had four children when tragedy struck: A yellow fever epidemic in 1867, which killed hundreds of people, took the lives of Mary’s husband and all four children.

Mary moved back to Chicago and returned to commercial dressmaking. She opened her own shop, patronized by some of the wealthiest women in town. According to one account of her life, Mary’s interest in the union movement grew when she sewed for wealthy Chicago families. "I would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking alongside the frozen lake front," she said. "The tropical contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed was painful to me. My employers seemed neither to notice nor to care."

Tragedy struck Mary again when she lost everything in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. After the fire, Mary began to travel across the country. The nation was undergoing dramatic change, and industrialization was changing the nature of work. She moved from town to town in support of workers’ struggles. In Kansas City, she did advance work for a group of unemployed men who marched on Washington, D.C. to demand jobs. In Birmingham, Ala., she helped black and white miners during a nationwide coal strike. Mary organized a massive show of support for Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union, after he served a six-month prison sentence for defying a court order not to disrupt railroad traffic in support of striking Pullman workers.

A Mother to Millions of Working Men and Women 

In June 1897, after Mary addressed the railway union convention, she began to be referred to as "Mother" by the men of the union. The name stuck. That summer, when the 9,000-member Mine Workers called a nationwide strike of bituminous (soft coal) miners and tens of thousands of miners laid down their tools, Mary arrived in Pittsburgh to assist them. She became "Mother Jones" to millions of working men and women across the country for her efforts on behalf of the miners.

Mother Jones was so effective the Mine Workers sent her into the coalfields to sign up miners with the union. She agitated in the anthracite fields of eastern Pennsylvania, the company towns of West Virginia and the harsh coal camps of Colorado. Nearly anywhere coal miners, textile workers or steelworkers were fighting to organize a union, Mother Jones was there.

Marching in Trinidad, Colorado, ca. 1910
She was banished from more towns and was held incommunicado in more jails in more states than any other union leader of the time. In 1912, she was even charged with a capital offense by a military tribunal in West Virginia and held under house arrest for weeks until popular outrage and national attention forced the governor to release her.

Mother Jones was deeply affected by the "machine-gun massacre" in Ludlow, Colo., when National Guardsmen raided a tent colony of striking miners and their families, killing 20 people—mostly women and children. She traveled across the country, telling the story, and testified before the U.S. Congress.

In addition to miners, Mother Jones also was very concerned about child workers. During a silk strike in Philadelphia, 100,000 workers—including 16,000 children—left their jobs over a demand that their workweek be cut from 60 to 55 hours. To attract attention to the cause of abolishing child labor, in 1903, she led a children’s march of 100 children from the textile mills of Philadelphia to New York City "to show the New York millionaires our grievances." She led the children all the way to President Theodore Roosevelt’s Long Island home.

In her 80s, Mother Jones settled down near Washington, D.C., in 1921 but continued to travel across the country. In 1924, although unable to hold a pen between her fingers, she made her last strike appearance in Chicago in support of striking dressmakers, hundreds of whom were arrested and black-listed during their ill-fated four month-long struggle. She died in Silver Spring, Md., possibly at age 100, and was buried in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Ill.

(Found at Aflcio-org.)

Friday, January 31, 2014

WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Timeline of the Women's Rights Movement

Timeline of the Women's Rights Movement in the U.S.
1777~1984
  • 1777 ~ The original 13 states pass laws that prohibit women from voting. Abigail Smith Adams, wife of President John Adams, writes that women "will not hold ourselves bound by any laws which we have no voice."
  • 1826 ~ The first public high schools for girls open in New York and Boston. The American Journal of Education wrote that the school should give "women such an education as shall make them fit wives for well educated men, and enable them to exert a salutary influence upon the rising generation."
  • 1833 ~ Oberlin College is founded in Ohio and becomes the first college to admit women and African Americans. The Oberlin Collegiate Institute held as one of its primary objectives: "the elevation of the female character, bringing within the reach of the misjudge and neglected sex, all the instructive privileges which hitherto have unreasonably distinguished the leading sex from theirs." While women took courses with men, they pursued diplomas from the Ladies Course. Three women graduated in 1841.
  • 1837 ~ Mary Lyon establishes Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the first college for women.
  • 1848 ~ The world's first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, NY, July 19-20. After 2 days of discussion and debate, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, which outlines grievances and sets the agenda for the women's rights movement. A set of 12 resolutions is adopted calling for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women.
  • 1849 ~ Elizabeth Smith Miller appears on the streets of Seneca Falls, NY,in "turkish trousers," soon to be known as "bloomers."
  • 1849 ~ Amelia Jenks Bloomer publishes and edits Lily, the first prominent women's rights newspaper.
  • 1849 ~ Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S. from Geneva College in New York. For the first time, women are permitted to practice medicine legally.
  • 1850 ~ Quaker physicians establish the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, PA to give women a chance to learn medicine. The first women graduated under police guard.
  • 1850 ~ The first National Women's Rights Convention takes place in Worcester, MA, attracting more than 1,000 participants. National conventions are held yearly (except for 1857) through 1860.
  • 1855 ~ Lucy Stone becomes first woman on record to keep her own name after marriage, setting a trend among women who are consequently known as "Lucy Stoners."
  • 1855 ~ The University of Iowa becomes the first state school to admit women.
  • 1855 ~ In Missouri v. Celia, a Black slave is declared property without right to defense against a master's act of rape.
  • 1859 ~ American Medical Association announces opposition to abortion. In 1860, Connecticut is the first state to prohibit all abortions, both before and after quickening.
  • 1859 ~ The birth rate continues its downward spiral as reliable condoms become available. By the late 1900s, women will raise an average of only two or three children.
  • 1860 ~ Of 2,225,086 Black women, 1,971,135 are held in slavery. In San Francisco, about 85% of Chinese women are essentially enslaved as prostitutes.
  • 1866 ~ The 14th Amendment is passed by Congress (ratified by the states in 1868), the first time "citizens" and "voters" are defined as "male" in the Constitution.
  • 1866 ~ The American Equal Rights Association is founded, the first organization in the U.S. to advocate women's suffrage.
  • 1868 ~ The National Labor Union supports equal pay for equal work.
  • 1868 ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony begin publishing The Revolution, an important women's movement periodical.
  • 1869 (May) ~ Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association. The primary goal of the organization is to achieve voting rights for women by means of a Congressional amendment to the Constitution.
  • 1869 (Nov) ~ Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell and others form the American Woman Suffrage Association. This group focuses exclusively on gaining voting rights for women through amendments to individual state constitutions.
  • 1869 (Dec. 10) ~ The territory of Wyoming passes the first women's suffrage law. The following year, women begin serving on juries in the territory.
  • 1870 ~ Iowa is the first state to admit a woman to the bar: Arabella Mansfield.
  • 1870 ~ The 15th Amendment receives final ratification. By its text, women are not specifically excluded from the vote. During the next two years, approximately 150 women will attempt to vote in almost a dozen different jurisdictions from Delaware to California.
  • 1872 ~ Through the efforts of lawyer Belva Lockwood, Congress passes a law to give women federal employees equal pay for equal work.
  • 1872 ~ Charlotte E. Ray, a Howard University law school graduate, becomes first African-American woman admitted to the U.S. bar.
  • 1872 ~ Susan B. Anthony casts her first vote in an attempt to test whether the 14th Amendment would be interpreted broadly to guarantee women the right to vote. She was tried in June 17-18, 1873 in Canandaigua, NY and found guilty of "unlawful voting."
  • 1873 ~ Bradwell v. Illinois: Supreme Court affirms that states can restrict women from the practice of any profession to uphold the law of the Creator.
  • 1873 ~ Congress passes the Comstock Law, defining contraceptive information as "obscene material."
  • 1874 (Oct 15) ~ Virginia Minor applies to register to vote in Missouri. The registrar, Reese Happersett, turned down the application, because the Missouri state constitution read: "Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote." Mrs. Minor sued in Missouri state court, claiming her rights were violated on the basis of the 14th Amendment. She argues that the 14th Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause must be interpreted to guarantee her a right to vote. However the Supreme Court rules that while women are "persons" under the 14th Amendment that they are a special category of "non-voting" citizens and that states remain free to grant or deny women the right to vote.
  • 1877 ~ Helen Magill is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. at a U.S. school, a doctorate in Greek from Boston University.
  • 1878 ~ The Susan B. Anthony Amendment, to grant women the vote, is first introduced in the U.S. Congress.
  • 1884 ~ Belva Lockwood, presidential candidate of the National Equal Rights Party, is the first woman to receive votes in a presidential election (approx. 4,000 in six states).
  • 1887 ~ For the first and only time in this century, the U.S. Senate votes on woman suffrage. It loses, 34 to 16. Twenty-five Senators do not bother to participate.
  • 1890 ~ After several years of negotiations, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Now the women's movement main organization, NAWSA works to obtain voting rights for women.
State Presidents and Officers
National American Woman Suffrage Assoc. (1892)

The Presidents of the NAWSA were:
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1890-1892
Susan B. Anthony, 1892-1900
Carrie Chapman Catt, 1900-1904
Anna Howard Shaw, 1904-1915
Carrie Chapman Catt, 1915-1947
Caroline McCormick Slade, 1947-1951
  • 1893 ~ Colorado is the first state to adopt an amendment granting women the right to vote. Utah and Idaho follow suite in 1896; Washington State in 1910; California in 1911; Oregon, Kansas and Arizona in 1912; Alaska and Illinois in 1913; Montana and Nevada in 1914; New York in 1917; Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma in 1918.
  • 1896 ~ The National Association of Colored Women is formed, bringing together more than 100 Black women's clubs. leaders in the Black women's club movement include Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Church Terrell and Anita Julia Cooper.
  • 1899 ~ National Consumers League is formed with Florence Kelley as its president. The League organizes women to use their power as consumers to push for better working conditions and protective laws for women workers.
  • 1900 ~ Two-thirds of divorce cases are initiated by the wife; a century earlier, most women lacked the right to sue and were hopelessly locked into bad marriages.
  • 1903 ~ Based on a similar organization in Britain, the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) is founded at the convention of the American Federation of Labor in Boston, when it became clear that American labor had no intention of organizing America's women into trade unions.The goals of the WTUL are to secure better occupational conditions and improved wages for women as well as to encourage women to join the labor movement. Local branches are quickly established in Boston, Chicago and New York.
  • 1909 ~ Women garment workers strike in New York for better wages and working conditions in the Uprising of the 20,000. Over 300 shops eventually sign union contracts.
  • 1912 ~ Juliette Gordon Low founds first American group of Girl Guides, in Atlanta, GA. Later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA, the organization brings girls into the outdoors, encourages their self-reliance and resourcefulness and prepares them for varied roles as adult women.
  • 1913 ~ Alice Paul and Lucy Burns form the Congressional Union to work toward the passage of a federal amendment to give women the vote. It later is renamed the National Women's Party. Members picket the White House and engage in other forms of civil disobedience, drawing public attention to the suffrage cause.
  • 1914 ~ Margaret Sanger calls for legalization of contraceptives in her feminist publication, The Woman Rebel, which the Post Office bans from the mails.
  • 1916 ~ Margaret Sanger opens the first U.S. birth control clinic in Brooklyn, NY. Although the clinic is shut down 10 days later and Sanger is arrested, she eventually wins support through the courts and opens another clinic in New York City in 1923.
  • 1917 ~ During WWI women move into many jobs working in heavy industry in mining, chemical manufacturing, automobile and railway plants. They also run street cars, conduct trains, direct traffic and deliver mail.
  • 1917 ~ Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
  • 1919 ~ The federal woman suffrage amendment, originally written by Susan B. Anthony and introduced in Congress in 1878, is passed by the House of Representatives (304 to 89). The Senate passes it with just two votes to spare (56 to 25). It is then sent to the states for ratification. 
  • 1920 ~ The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to collect information about women in the workforce and safeguard good working conditions for women.
  • 1920 (Aug 26) ~ The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote, is signed into law by the Secretary of State, Bainbridge Colby.
  • 1921 ~ Margaret Sanger organizes the American Birth Control League, which becomes Federation of Planned Parenthood in 1942.
  • 1923 ~ Supreme Court strikes down a 1918 minimum-wage law for District of Columbia women because, with the vote, women are considered equal to men. This ruling cancels all state minimum wage laws.
  • 1933 ~ Frances Perkins, the first woman in a Presidential cabinet, serves as Secretary of Labor during the entire Roosevelt presidency.
  • 1936 ~ The federal law prohibiting the dissemination of contraceptive information through the mail is modified, and birth control information is no longer classified as obscene. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second District renders an historic decision in U.S. v. One Package and asserts the rights of the physician in the legitimate use of contraceptives and eradicated the restrictions prohibiting the importation, sale or carriage by mail of contraceptive materials and information for medical purposes.
  • 1941 ~ A massive government and industry media campaign persuades women to take jobs during the war. Almost 7 million women respond, 2 million as industrial "Rosie the Riveters" and 400,000 join the military.
  • 1945 ~ Women industrial workers begin to lose their jobs in large numbers to returning service men, although surveys show 80% want to continue working.
  • 1957 ~ The number of women and men voting is approximately equal for the first time.
  • 1960 ~ The Food and Drug Administration approves birth control pills.
  • 1960 ~ Women now earn only 60 cents for every dollar earned by men, a decline since 1955. Women of color earn only 42 cents.
  • 1961 ~ President John Kennedy establishes the President's Commission on the Status of Women to explore issues relating to women and to make proposals in such areas as employment policy, education, and federal Social Security and tax laws relating to women. Kennedy appointed Eleanor Roosevelt, former U.S. delegate to the United Nations and widow of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to chair the commission The report issued by the Commission in 1963 documents substantial discrimination against women in the workplace and makes specific recommendations for improvement, including fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave, and affordable child care.
  • 1963 ~ The Equal Pay Act, proposed 20 years earlier, establishes equal pay for men and women performing the same job duties. It does not cover domestics, agricultural workers, executives, administrators or professionals.
  • 1963 ~ Betty Friedan's best-seller, The Feminine Mystique, detailed the "problem that has no name." Five million copies are sold by 1970, laying the groundwork for the modern feminist movement.
  • 1964 ~ Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination by private employers, employment agencies and unions based on race, sex and other grounds. To investigate complaints and enforce penalties, it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which receives 50,000 complaints of gender discrimination in its first five years.
  • 1966 ~ National Organization for Women (NOW) is formed by a group of feminists including Betty Friedan while attending the Third National Conference of Commissions on the Status of Women. It becomes the largest women's rights group in the United States, and begins working to end sexual discrimination, especially in the workplace, by means of legislative lobbying, litigation, and public demonstrations.
  • 1967 ~ Executive Order 11375 (amending Executive Order 11246) expands President Lyndon Johnson's affirmative action policy of 1965 to cover discrimination based on gender. As a result, federal agencies and contractors must take active measures to ensure that women as well as minorities enjoy the same educational and employment opportunities as white males.
  • 1968 ~ New York Radical Women garner media attention to the women's movement when they protest the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City.
  • 1968 ~ The first national women's liberation conference is held in Chicago.
  • 1968 ~ The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) is founded.
  • 1968 ~ National Welfare Rights Organization is formed by activists such as Johnnie Tillmon and Etta Horm. They have 22,000 members by 1969, but are unable to survive as an organization past 1975.
  • 1968 ~ Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) is first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
  • 1970 ~ Women's wages fall to 59 cents for every dollar earned by men. Although non-white women earn even less, the gap is closing between white women and women of color.
  • 1970 ~ The Equal Rights Amendment is reintroduced into Congress.
  • 1972 ~ Congress sends the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution to the states for ratification. Originally drafted by Alice Paul in 1923, the amendment reads: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Congress places a seven year deadline on the ratification process, and although the deadline extends until 1982, the amendment does not receive enough state ratifications. It is still not part of the U.S. Constitution.
  • 1972 ~ Title IX of the Education Amendments bans sex discrimination in schools. It states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." As a result of Title IX, the enrollment of women in athletics programs and professional schools increases dramatically.
  • 1973 ~ The first battered women's shelters open in the U.S., in Tucson, AZ and St. Paul, MN.
  • 1973 ~ In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court establishes a woman's right to abortion, effectively canceling the anti-abortion laws of 46 states.
  • 1974 ~ MANA, the Mexican-American Women's National Association, organizes as feminist activist organization. By 1990, MANA chapters operate in 16 states; members in 36.
  • 1974 ~ Hundreds of colleges are offering women's studies courses. Additionally, 230 women's centers on college campuses provide support services for women students.
  • 1975 ~ The first women's bank opens, in New York City.
  • 1978 ~ The Pregnancy Discrimination Act amends the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and bans employment discrimination against pregnant women. Under the Act, a woman cannot be fired or denied a job or a promotion because she is or may become pregnant, nor can she be forced to take a pregnancy leave if she is willing and able to work.
  • 1981 ~ At the request of women's organizations, President Carter proclaims the first "National Women's History Week," incorporating March 8, International Women's Day.
  • 1981 ~ Sandra Day O'Connor is the first woman ever appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1993, she is joined by Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
  • 1984 ~ Geraldine Ferraro is the first woman vice-presidential candidate of a major political party (Democratic Party).

One Woman One Vote ~ VIDEO