The Ariadne Archive

Following the threads of history through language, art, design, and fashion.

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The wide awakes, with open eye as a symbol, energized the vote for Lincoln. Now a new coalition is taking up the cause—see link in bio. #wideawake2020 #wideawake https://www.instagram.com/p/CFKo7DVHOyb/?igshid=dws3riax5zbq

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#vote #era #womenwhorock #changetheworld #forthebetter https://www.instagram.com/p/CEj2bn8HjDR/?igshid=42742fb1il2v

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Zitkála-Šá, (Lakota: Red Bird) (1876–1938), was born on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota. She wrote about her childhood and boarding school experience, and the struggles to retain tribal identities and resist assimilation into European American culture, with essays published in Harper’s and The Atlantic Monthly. She was trained as a violinist at the New England Conservatory of Music, and she co-composed and wrote the libretto for what is considered the first American Indigenous opera, The Sun Dance Opera, in 1913. Zitkála-Šá became a strong advocate for Indigenous rights, lobbying for U.S. citizenship, voting, and sovereignty rights for Indigenous peoples and women. She was appointed the secretary of the Society of American Indians, the first national rights organization run by and for Indigenous Americans, and edited its magazine. In 1926, she co-founded the National Council of American Indians to lobby for increased political power for Indigenous Americans, and the preservation of American Indigenous heritage and traditions. #heroines #women'shistory #womenwhorock #sundance #opera #violin #womenwhowrite #Indigenous https://www.instagram.com/p/CEiL4XfnNZS/?igshid=1v0k811a3gb47

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Frida Kahlo also had a pet deer. So clearly, there is a pattern... #artist #womenwithstyle #fridakahlo #womenwhorock https://www.instagram.com/p/CEdKnxWHAga/?igshid=od8yslfcrm26

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I think I might need a tame deer. So sweet. #audreyhepburn #deer #tamed #style #fashionhistory https://www.instagram.com/p/CEa7YFwHBr0/?igshid=1g4pg0n3eb4sj

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This. Dress. Superhero level cool, brilliantly designed by Adrian—who only ever needed one name on a film’s credits. #philadelphiastory #adrian #katherinehepburn #superhero #fashionhistory #styleinspades #mainline #style https://www.instagram.com/p/CEVah6mHKdg/?igshid=1rcq582zuuifa

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This paragraph, starting “every philanthropist...” is. A mood. #activistoverphilanthropist #glennondoyle #thankgodforhonesty https://www.instagram.com/p/CEN4cQInLQW/?igshid=4lchrqe32h7i

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The original captain Marvel. Marvel Crosson (1900-1929) was the first woman to earn a commercial pilot license in Alaska. Dying in a plane crash in Arizona during a women’s flying derby that started in California, she was a rising star in the early years of a aviation. Joining her brother in making their own plane, she joined him in Alaska to continue flying. #captainmarvel #pilots #aviatrix #womenshistory #aviation #womenwhorock #viewfromupthere #alaska #alaskahistory https://www.instagram.com/p/CEIjC1NnkMN/?igshid=1i4in0q0dxcdx

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100 years ago women won the right to vote across the country, but it didn’t stop the disenfranchisement of Black, Indigenous Latina and Asian American women. There is so much work to do, and we will continue to do it. Today I voted wearing red lipstick thinking of our women ancestors, and thanked them for all they did 💄 #womenstrong #womenssuffrage #nineteenthamendment #equalrightsamendment #votingrightsact #unboughtandunbossed #VOTE https://www.instagram.com/p/CEDaYgUn7TI/?igshid=z9ml7uejaymo

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Zora Neale Hurston, writer and anthropologist, wrote the most beautiful last lines of a novel that may exist: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.” #zoranealehurston #writers #africanamericanwriters #womensriters #beauty #withstyle #notforgotten https://www.instagram.com/p/CD9dptpnoDj/?igshid=vc6l6l07keue

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No post can begin to do justice to this woman. Ida B Wells, activist, journalist, brave woman, a queen. If we want to honor the memory of true heroes with monuments, we should start with people like Wells. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #idabwells #womenhistory #africanamericanhistory #civilrights #bravequeen #historyofjournalism #futuremonuments #honoringthepast #votingrights https://www.instagram.com/p/CD6x4UMH8Kx/?igshid=1731qewq6m4a5

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Inez Milholland (1886 – 1916)--labor lawyer, architect of the women’s movement, orator and journalist. In 1913, on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, she led a march through Washington, DC astride a white horse and was likened to Joan of Arc. When she died of pneumonia at the age of 30 while on the speaking circuit, she was considered a martyr, with the image of her astride her white horse becoming an icon of the movement. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The imagery of the suffragette sitting astride her horse was an important part of the movement. "...instead of sedately riding sidesaddle, Inez ignored the gasps of London society and galloped her horse astride along Hyde Park’s Rotten Row. Milholland realized that mobility was synonymous with escape from a male-dominated society. That is why, in addition to being a suffragist, labor lawyer, correspondent, and public speaker, Inez Milholland ranks as one of the most important female equestrian leaders in American history, for it was on the back of a horse that she liberated her sisters from the sidesaddle, as well as helping obtain them the right to vote." (from Atlas Obscura). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #womenssuffrage #inezmillholand #womenshistory #equestrian #rideastride #americanhistory #hero https://www.instagram.com/p/CD4eBDHA0Bq/?igshid=15nib6ztsiylm

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A woman's right to vote began in the west and moved east. Let's hope that wave will be repeated as women from the west reach the oval office. #gokamala #womenssuffrage #womenshistory #votingrights #vote #ontheballot #bidenharris #vote2020 #americanhistory https://www.instagram.com/p/CD1qZtAAFVW/?igshid=1glvlv6c1tbq8

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Sidesaddles go back to 1382, when Anne of Bohemia travelled across Europe sidesaddle in order to wed King Richard II--and with an assurance of an intact hymen. By the late 19th century, between a corset and the increasingly bulky and locking sidesaddle, women could not mount the horse alone, could not control it with their bodies as riding astride allows, nor fly free of the horse in an accident. The sidesaddle became emblematic of a woman's virtue, as only a masculine Amazon, or a heretical Joan of Arc, would dare to ride astride. Skirts were fashioned longer to drape across the horse, in order to assure that there was no hint of a split skirt or the breeches that a woman would wear beneath. To avoid trips over long skirts, a safety skirt was fashioned to easily pull free in case of a fall. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ And women still found a way to jump. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #womenshistory #womensfashion #horseriding #fashionhistory #equestrian #sidesaddle #womeninclothes https://www.instagram.com/p/CDz0B94gMeY/?igshid=10idt4v5u9ha4

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Red lipstick has a long and interesting history. For the suffragettes, red lipstick was a symbol of power, female power. Suffragettes in the UK, US and other places wore red lipstick literally every day as part of their virtual uniform to, without saying a word, communicate their power—specifically their feminine power. It became a powerful symbol, with Elizabeth Arden handing out what were newly retractable tubes along suffragette marches, like supporters handing out Gatorade to runners at a marathon. I love that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues the tradition. And she doesn’t need to smile. She has power.

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Tove Jansson (1914 – 27 June 2001). While best known for the moomintroll books, I’m continually astounded at the beauty of all of her writing—of melancholy and wistfulness without drama, whimsy with realism. And if you live nearer to the Arctic Circle than the Equator, read Moominland Midwinter as soon as you can. It has been missing from your life and you will realize how much you needed it. By the way...her style. 

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Sarah Winnemucca was a Paiute activist, writer, and diplomat, an advocate for Indigenous rights and the first Indigenous woman to publish an autobiography. Speaking several languages, she served as an army interpreter and scout, and after experiencing and witnessing the corruption of officials and their abuse of her people, she became an activist for change, traveling to Washington D.C. to meet with the Secretary of the Interior and garner support for Indigenous rights. She delivered more than three hundred public lectures in a speaking tour of the east coast in 1883, the same year her book, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, was published. She later began a school for Paiute children in Nevada that taught in both native languages and English. A statue of Winnemucca stands in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., representing Nevada. “If women could go into your Congress, I think justice would soon be done to the Indians.”