History's Heroines

Badass ladies who have made their mark on history (I also run Sci-fi Sweetheart).

[historyheroines]

History's Heroines turned 6 today!

Thanks, everyone, for making it a good 6 years.  Here’s to another good one.

[maaarine]

Guardian News: “‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,’ climate activist Greta Thunberg has told world leaders at the 2019 UN climate action summit in New York.”

[wehadfacesthen]

Remembering Hattie McDaniel on her birthday (June 10, 1893 – October 26, 1952). Not only was she the best thing in Gone With The Wind, but she was the first African-American to win an Oscar. She is seen above recording her radio show Beulah in 1947.

[historicaltimes]

Girls at a high school in Brooklyn protesting the school dress code saying females could not wear slacks, 1940s.

via reddit

[astrodidact]

[thisdayinherstory-deactivated20]

October 2nd...

On This Day in Herstory, October 2nd 1925, Josephine Baker, singer, Civil Rights activist, dancer, and spy, opened for the first time at La Revue Nègre.

Josephine Baker (née Freda Josephine McDonald) was born on June 3rd 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. When she was 8 years old she began cleaning houses and babysitting for wealthy white families, in order to help her family make ends meet. At age 13 she ran away from home to work as a waitress in a club, and it was there she met a man named Willie Wells, whom she quickly married and divorced within weeks. It was around this time that Baker first began dancing in clubs and in street performances; and by 1919 she was touring the US as part of a vaudeville show. In 1921 she married Willie Baker, whose name she kept for the rest of her life despite their divorce after only a few years of marriage. Baker continued to find success on the stage in various shows until she was successful enough to move her act to New York where she became a crowd favourite.

By 1925 France’s fascination with American jazz and exoticism had nearly reached its peak, and so on October 2nd of that year Baker traveled to Paris to perform in La Revue Nègre. She performed only in a feather skirt, and the audience fell in love with her. Her most popular performance was called La Folie du Jour, where she danced in just a skirt made of 16 bandannas. The show was widely popular and Baker became on of the highest paid performers in Europe. With her newfound wealth she was able to move her entire family from St. Louis to Paris. At the height of her international popularity in 1936 Baker decided to return to the US to perform with the Ziegfield Follies, but she was met with hostility and racism from the audience, so she quickly returned to France where she got married and became a citizen of the country that was more welcoming than her own.

When WWII erupted Baker was quick to arms, working for the Red Cross in occupied France, and working as part of the French Resistance where she would smuggle hidden messages in her sheet music or even hidden in her underwear. When the war ended she was awarded both the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour with the rosette of the Resistance, two of France’s highest military honors. In 1947 she married again, and in 1950 she began adopting children from all over the world, 12 in total, and she called her family the “rainbow tribe.” During the 1950s and 60s she regularly returned to the US to assist in the Civil Right Movement by participating in demonstrations and boycotting segregated clubs and venues. In 1963 she joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the March on Washington, and was one of the notable speakers that day.

Finally in 1973 after facing many decades of racism from her home country Baker performed to a sold out Carnegie Hall and received a standing ovation. In 1975 to mark the 50th anniversary of her Paris debut she performed at the Bobino Theatre in Paris, and only a few days later she died in her sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage, at the age of 68. On the day of her funeral more than 20,000 people lined the streets of Paris to see the procession, and the French government honoured her with a 21-gun salute, making her the first American woman in history to be buried in France with military honours.

[thisdayinherstory-deactivated20]

On This Day in Herstory, April 12th 1975, Josephine Baker, singer, Civil Rights activist, dancer, and spy, died in Paris, France; she was 68 years old.

[roricomics]

100 Days, 100 Women, Day 10: Noor Inayat Khan, Indian royalty, was a writer and pacifist until the Nazis invaded France. As a member of British Secret Executive Operations. Khan worked as the only radio operator in occupied Paris for months until she was betrayed. More about her here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan

[roricomics]

100 Days, 100 Women Day 6: Queen Lili’uokalani, author, musician, dispossessed monarch of Hawai’i: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liliuokalani

[buzzfeedreader]

—9 Incredible Women Who Spent Their Lives Trying To Change America. 

By Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl

[plannedparenthood]

On November 5th, 1968, Shirley Chisholm made history as the first African American woman elected to Congress. It’s been 50 years since that milestone – but we have work left to do. Your vote is your voice. Use it.

[inthemarginalized]

Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life.  - Wilma Rudolph (June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994)

She was an American athlete. Rudolph was considered the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s and competed in two Olympic Games despite contracting infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) at age four.

[useless-vietnamfacts]

Great Women in Vietnamese History: Queen Mother Ỷ Lan

Statue of Queen Mother Ỷ Lan in Hanoi

Ỷ Lan (literally leaning on the orchid) was the imperial concubine of Lý Thánh Tông, the third emperor and the mother of Lý Nhân Tông, the fourth emperor of the Lý dynasty. She successfully served as a regent during the absence of her spouse in 1066-68, and as co-regent during the reign of her son in 1073-1117.

Chosen by the emperor to serve as his concubine, Ỷ Lan was a distinguished and beautiful country girl who, as stories were told, was leaning on an orchid tree, while paying no curiosity to the escort of the emperor like others during the emperor’s visit to her village. Granted the title Imperial Concubine, she brilliantly acted the regency for him during Lý Thánh Tông’s military campaign in the kingdom of Champa, and later as their child Lý Nhân Tông became king at the age of 7.

She was highly revered, having looked after the agriculture and developing education, with the first imperial examination based on Confucian learning being organized. Ỷ Lan began her plan of spreading Buddhism in the country by order to build over one hundred pagodas, and consulted several Buddhists regarding the history of Buddhism in Vietnam. 

For her political, social and cultural achievements, Ỷ Lan was considered one of the most important figures during the early Lý Dynasty and one of the few women who held significant political power in the dynastic time of the History of Vietnam.

[theaceanarchist-deactivated2019]

This right here is Mary Elizabeth Bowser and she is James Bond levels of dope.

She was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia in 1839. We don’t really know anythingabout her parents or her childhood because she was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia in 1839.

We do know that the plantation owner, John Van Lew was wack as hell, that we can be sure of.

Don’t worry though, because John Van Lew dies in 1843, and his wife Eliza Baker and daughter Elizabeth Van Lew decide to be semi-decent and “free” all their slaves.

Many didn’t want to leave, because what were they gonna do, pick up some shifts at Applebees? No, this is pre Civil War Virginia! Many of them chose to stay, and those that did were paid for their service.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser chose to stay, either because of the promise of pay…or because she was five. Either way in 1855 a noticeably bright Mary is sent to the Quaker School for Negroes in Philadelphia.

Upon graduating in 1860, Mary moves back to Richmond and meets a free brother named Wilson Bowser. Because of racism, we don’t know a lot about their courtship, but I’m sure it was fire because they were married the next spring, just four days before the beginning of the Civil War!

So, Mary’s still working for Elizabeth Van Lew, and one day Elizabeth says to her: “Look, I know that the Civil War just started, and as an unmarried, land owning, southern woman in 1861 I seem like an unlikely participant, but I want to tell you that I am in fact the leader of an elaborate Union spy ring that has already infiltrated the Confederate Capitol, and I want you on my spy squad!”

And Mary’s like: “Well, I have to think abou-YES, I’M ABSOLUTELY IN!”

So Mary heads to the “Confederate White House” to pose as a servant. These Confederate dummies would come and be like “It’s a good thing no one’s here but these negros! Now we can talk in depth about our super secret plans! There’s no way we’re gonna lose!”

And Mary would come back and relay everything! I mean we’re talking troop movements, strategies, all that! Oh yeah, and because they thought she couldn’t read, they’d just leave their documents around and she’d memorize them and pass them along!

This goes on for four years before the Confederates realize that Mary is the leak. Realizing she’s been discovered, Mary makes a great escape from the Confederate White House that included her literally trying to burn that shit to the ground! Straight up action movie shit!

So when the Civil War ended, a lot of records detailing Union spy efforts were burned so that no butt hurt confederate sympathizer could seek retaliation! Unfortunately, that means details of Mary’s post war life are largely unknown.

What we do know is that in 1995 the United States army finally gave Mary Elizabeth Bowser her props by inducting her into the U.S. Army Intelligence Hall of Fame. Oh, and we also know the name she posed under, are you ready for it?…It was Bond, Ellen Bond! Because of course it was! She was perfect!

Mary Elizabeth Bowser didn’t just fight for the union. Under the threat of certain death she worked to dismantle the confederacy from inside their very home and because of that on February 6th of every year, I’m remembering Mary Elizabeth Bowser.

– stolen from Facebook

[tribeca]

“The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within: strength, courage, dignity.”

On the 95th anniversary of her birth, here is the heroic, heart-soaring American artist and activist Ruby Dee.

[valyrianpoem]

Eleanor Roosevelt and Lyudmila Pavlichenko.    Lyudmila Pavlichenko was a Soviet sniper credited with 309 kills, she is regarded as the most successful female sniper in history. She visited with President Franklin Roosevelt, becoming the first Soviet citizen to be welcomed at the White House. Afterward, Eleanor Roosevelt asked Lyudmila to accompany her on a tour of the country and tell Americans of her experiences as a woman in combat. Pavlichenko was only 25, but she had been wounded four times in battle. ↳ more х,х,х | gifs from Battle for Sevastopol 2015 trailer.

[girlschasinggirls]

this is her 

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 12 March 1912, Polish Jewish resistance activist Ala Gertner was born. While a slave labourer at a munitions factory under Nazi occupation, Gertner stole gunpowder which she smuggled to prisoners at Auschwitz Birkenau to build bombs which they used to blow up Crematorium IV and kill several SS officers. Gertner and three other women were executed for their role in the uprising in 1945. This is a great article about the resistance at Auschwitz: https://ift.tt/2tGl2Mb https://ift.tt/2HfBmJI

[the-female-soldier]

Yaa Asantewa was the Queen Mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire during the late 18th and early 19th century, as well as leader of the Ashanti rebellion against the British Empire.

Born in 1840, Yaa Asantewa played a supporting role in the royal family of Ashanti Empire (located in modern-day Ghana) as ‘Queen Mother’.  Following the exile of her grandson King Prempeh I by the British in 1896, Yaa Asantewa inherited leadership of the empire as regent in his stead.

In 1900, the British governor-general of the Gold Coast, Frederick Hodgson, met with local leaders at Kumasi. He demanded that the Golden Stool, the divine throne and symbol of the Ashanti nation, be turned over to him as a recognition of British power. While some of the leaders considered this, Yaa Asantewa, as Guardian of the Golden Stool, reprimanded them, saying:

“If you the men of Ashanti will not go forward, then we will. We the women will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields.”

Yaa Asantewa then assembled an army of 5000 volunteers to resist the British forces, inflicting heavy losses upon them and forcing them to retreat to the fortified British offices at Kumasi. With the offices defended by machine guns and 500 Nigerian Hausas, Yaa Asantewa’s forces chose to instead lay siege to the British, cutting telegraph wires and blocking supply routes. Two days before the British would have been forced to surrender, a relief column sent by Hodgson broke the siege and forced the Ashanti to retreat.

Despite having been able to harass the British forces from several well-defended forts, the Ashanti Empire was eventually defeated and absorbed into the British Empire in 1902. As rulers before her had been, Yaa Asantewaa was exiled to the Seychelles, where she remained until her death in the early 1920s. In 1924   Prempeh I was finally allowed to return to Ashanti, bringing Yaa Asantewa’s remains with him to receive a royal burial on her native soil.