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 Strong American Women 
    by Carolyn Murray Greer, The American Woman Organization
    Strong American Women Series: Florence Owens Thompson 

     
The Feminine Face of Poverty:
 Reality Feminism: If this does not affect you, it does your mother, your daughter, your sister, your grandmother, your aunt and your wife.
                                                                                        

This iconic photo entitled Migrant Mother - "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California." is housed at the Library of Congress catalog online. The photo was taken by Dorothy Lange in 1936. This photo remains one of the top twenty photographs taken in modern history.

Excerpt: But this statement really hit hard:"Her biggest fear," recalled son Troy Owens, "was that if she were to ask for help [from the government], then they would have reason to take her children away from her. That was her biggest fear all through her entire life."This is a constant for so many women who live in poverty.

REMEMBER FLORENCE OWENS THOMPSON? 

On September 16, 1983, a few weeks past her 80th birthday, Florence Thompson died at her son’s home. Her grave maker at the Lakewood Memorial Park in Hughson, Stanislaus County, California (also reported as in Empire just outside of Modesto, California⁴) reads, "Migrant Mother - A Legend of the Strength of American Motherhood.

The story of this remarkable woman of strength must be preserved for the annals of history. Masses of Americans were out of work, out of luck, and desperate. The year was 1936 and the Great Depression still had a hand on the throats of such as this mother of seven. Florence Owens Thompson was just one of the masses during this desperate time in our history. Inside a migrant workers' tent, she was feeding her starving children frozen vegetables gathered by her from a nearby farm field. Lange reported in her filed field notes for the photographs the following: 

"Seven hungry children. Father is native Californian. Destitute in pea pickers’ camp … because of failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tires to buy food."

In another article Lange was to have written in her notes:

"I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food." ⁵

One of Florence Owens’ sons disputed that:

"There’s no way we sold our tires, because we didn’t have any to sell," he told this writer. "The only ones we had were on the Hudson and we drove off in them. I don’t believe Dorothy Lange was lying, I just think she had one story mixed up with another. Or she was borrowing to fill in what she didn’t have."

When Dorothy Lange asked for permission for photographs to be taken she gave her approval. The photograph above is remembered by The American Woman, even if only subliminally. Most Americans, when asked if they recall Florence Owens Thompson do not remember the name. But when shown the photograph that was published in Life Magazine and other periodicals there is instant recognition, and an instantaneous feeling of heartbreak that any citizen could or would have known this kind of unfathomable desperation.

The situation that this American woman faced was dismal. For many, many years the outcome for this strong American woman and her family was unheralded by the media. Before the ending is discussed, first a little more information about this remarkable American Woman and her family.

With both her parents full blooded natives of the Cherokee tribe, she was born on a Cherokee Indian Reservation on September 1, 1903. She was born with the name Florence Leona Christie⁴. She was raised near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She married at age seventeen in 1921 to Cleo Owens. With such prejudice against the native Americans, her husband’s family only knew that she was half Cherokee. She was, however, full blooded native American. Cleo and Florence married against the wishes of his family. They thought her too headstrong.¹

With the three children and her husband, she traveled to California and arrived there on New Year’s Eve 1924.Cleo Owens was a frail man and light built. He had suffered a bout of pneumonia. The pneumonia had been a near death struggle and it had left his immune system weak. Roger Sprague Sr. reports that his grandfather was a good man who overworked himself to provide for the wife he loved and their children. In California Cleo and his family moved around to follow his family and because of losses of a fire. Most work was at the mills and even the storekeepers worked in the company stores. There was little knowledge of The Great Depression, but to live it they would. There was no work. All they could do was to join the throngs of people going where there was a whisper of work. The polite word for them was Migrant. The slang word for them was Okies even though they came from all over the midwest.¹

In 1931, her husband passed away from tuberculosis. Florence was called to his beside and remained there for hours. While his sister was called to his bedside next, she never heard the whisper of his last breath because the TB had rendered him so weak.

For the next two years Florence and her children stayed around Oroville while Cleo’s family migrated with the available work. Her husband’s family had wanted to break the family up and place Florence’s children with different relatives, but she staunchly refused. Her deceased husband’s family would return to Oroville during the winter. In 1933 Florence Owens had to announce to Cleo’s family that she was pregnant which set the family into an uproar and she feared that the influential father’s family might take the child⁴. She refused to name the father; she finally decided to migrate back to her mother’s in Oklahoma to have the baby.

Florence drove herself and her children except the youngest back to California where she followed the migration necessary to earn any money on which her family could survive. The sickly child was left with her mother in Oklahoma. That brings us to 1936 and the day of the now famous photograph. The car had broken down, and they were waiting for Jim Hall, who had been with the family for about a year, and her son Troy to repair it so they could go work in the fields. Hunger was already present, death was soon to follow to attack first the young and then the old. Because of a freak cold storm, there was to be no work there, but already the persistent nagging kernel of truth that forward progression to the next camp and town means life and sustenance.She and her children were forced to go to another camp. She left word of her whereabouts for Jim and Troy to find her. At the next camp Florence had set up her tent at the entrance so Jim and Troy were sure to see her. It was then that fate entered in, with a shiny almost new car pulling up with Dorothea Lange stepping out. As grandson Robert Sprague Sr reports: “She started taking Florence's picture. With each picture the woman would step closer. Florence thought to herself, "Pay her no mind. The woman thinks I'm quaint, and wants to take my picture." The woman took the last picture not four feet away then spoke to Florence: "Hello, I'm Dorthea Lange, I work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the plight of the migrant worker. The photos will never be published, I promise." Florence said, "Okay, if you think it will help." The woman turned, walked away, got in her car, and was gone.” ¹

 The promise was broken, and the photo appeared in the paper the very next day, the haunting hunger in that woman’s eyes. The editor of the San Francisco News, in which two of the wider-angle exposures appeared on March 10, 1936, under the heading: "Ragged, Hungry, Broke, Harvest Workers Live in Squalor.” The following day, the classic Migrant Mother portrait appeared in the News above an editorial entitled, "What Does the ‘New Deal’ Mean to This Mother and Her Child?” ⁴

The photos were sent to the Resettlement Administration in Washington, where the photos had an immediate impact and prompted the government into action⁴. There was 20,000 pounds of food sent to the pea picker camp in Nipomo. In three days time, there was food, supplies, clothes, help with vehicle repair and doctors in this camp in Nipomo. The family had already moved on by then.¹  When the sons and Hill returned Florence told them of the lady taking pictures, but they thought little of it. The two brothers, Leroy and Troy Owens, and Hill had put the Hudson back together, and the family made its way north to Watsonville before they could benefit from the government supplies⁴. The story of his grandmother is heartwarming and contains more photos of the woman—now famous and the symbol of strength of The American Woman.

In the next town, the brothers Leroy and Troy, earned a small income from selling newspapers. Troy spotted an open newspaper on a lawn with the photo of his mother and responded with:"I screamed out, ‘Mama’s been shot, Mama’s been shot,’ " Owens recalled. "There was her picture, and it had an ink spot right in the middle of her forehead, and it looked like someone had put a bullet through her. We both ran back to camp, and, of course, she was OK. We showed her the picture, and she just looked at it. She didn’t say nothin’." ⁴

There were some who declared that the photo saved Florence Owens Thompson and her children. But her children have reported differently. Daughter Katherine McIntosh retorted, “We were already long gone from Nipomo by the time any food was sent there," said Owens. "That photo may well have saved some peoples’ lives, but I can tell you for certain, it didn’t save ours." Our life was hard long after that photograph was taken," added McIntosh emphatically. "That photo never gave mother or us kids any relief." ⁴

When Florence Owens Thompson wrote a letter to the local newspaper in 1975 and mailed it to the Modesto Bee, it made the news. She wrote about her opinion of the photography session. That was the first time America had heard from her. The Associated Press picked it up and it went nationwide. The story AP entitled : “Woman Fighting Mad Over Famous Depression Photo.” In the AP story, Thompson declared that she felt "exploited" by Lange’s portrait. "I wish she hadn’t taken my picture," she declared. "I can’t get a penny out of it. [Lange] didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did." The photo had become yet another cross for Thompson to bear in a lifetime of hardships. Some of the children despaired over how their mother had been lionized. Hard times were not new to this family of children and their mother and the hard times continued until after the war.

Concurrent to Florence Owens Thompson’s editorial entry in the Modesto Bee, Nearly 40 years after the publication of the iconic photograph, Bill Ganzel, a photographer and producer for Nebraska Educational Television, set out to find some of the people photographed by the RA during the Depression, an idea he would eventually turn into a book, Dust Bowl Descent. ⁴

Ganzel read the story, tracked down Thompson and, in 1979, in Modesto, California, photographed her and three of her daughters—Norma Rydlewski, Katherine McIntosh and Ruby Sprague—the same daughters featured in the original photograph. Thompson told Ganzel that "when Steinbeck wrote in The Grapes of Wrath about those people living under the bridge at Bakersfield—at one time we lived under that bridge. It was the same story. Didn’t even have a tent then, just a ratty old quilt." It was about that time in the 1970’s that the children purchased a home for their mother. She moved into a mobile home. She insisted and Ganzel recorded “I need to have wheels under me.” ⁴

But we digress. Over the years the photo haunted Florence Owens Thompson and her children. One of Florence's daughters, Norma Lee Rydlewski, said: "Mother was a woman who loved to enjoy life, who loved her children. She loved music and she loved to dance. When I look at that photo of mother, it saddens me. That’s not how I like to remember her.” ⁴

The woman who has become the face that represented all those who suffered through the great depression later could take comfort from the rewards the photo she had held disdain for all those years would bring. Florence needed full time care after becoming incapacitated due to a stroke. Unable to pay the expense for her care that mounted to more than $1400 per week, one of her sons talked to a local newspaper. Jack Foley of the San Jose Mercury News, understood immediately the historic implications of Florence Thompson’s plight. The story Foley filed for the Mercury generated national attention. More than $35,000 poured into a special Migrant Mother Fund administered by Hospice Caring Project of Santa Cruz County, much of it coming in the form of rumpled dollar bills.⁴

Of the nearly 2,000 letters to arrive, some of the letters came in with donations and those crumpled dollar bills. Florence Owens Thompson was no longer a subject of pity to anyone. She was a symbol of strength and survival. She was a mother first, last, and always. Some excerpts from the letters follow: 

"The famous picture of your mother for years gave me great strength, pride and dignity–only because she exuded those qualities so," wrote a woman from Santa Clara.

"Enclosed is a check for $10 to assist the woman whose face gave and still gives eloquent expression to the need our country still has not met," expressed an anonymous note
from New York.⁴

It was this outpouring that caused her children to revisit their feelings about the photograph. One of the daughters stated: "None of us ever really understood how deeply Mama’s photo affected people," said Owens. "I guess we had only looked at it from our perspective. For Mama and us, the photo had always been a bit of curse. After all those letters came in, I think it gave us a sense of pride."

Recalling her mother and her childhood in the CNN article Katherine McIntosh says their life was about fifty percent good times and fifty percent hard times. Her mother was very strict, but loving and caring. Her mother, she says, was a "very strong lady" who liked to have a good time and listen to music, especially the yodeler named Montana Slim. She laughs when she recalls her brothers bringing home a skinny greyhound pooch. "Mom, Montana Slim is outside," they said. Their mother rushed outside. The boys chuckled. They had named the dog after her favorite musician.

"She was the backbone of our family," McIntosh says of her mom. "We never had a lot, but she always made sure we had something. She didn't eat sometimes, but she made sure us children ate. That's one thing she did do." McIntosh goes on to give advice given the current state of the nation’s economy as, “if there's a lesson to be learned from her experience it is to save your money and don't overextend yourself.³

Florence Owens Thompson was so much more than a photo — and charity. In preparation for an exhibit in 1941, the famous photograph was retouched to remove Florence's thumb in the lower-right corner of the image. In the late 1960s the original Migrant Mother photograph and 31 other vintage, untouched photos by Dorothea Lange were found in a dumpster at the San Jose Chamber of Commerce. Marian Tankersley, daughter of the person who discovered the pictures in a dumpster, rediscovered the photos while emptying her parents' San Jose home. For a number of years the image was used as propaganda for a number of causes. In 1998, the retouched photo of Migrant Mother became a 32-cent U. U. Postal Service stamp in the 1930s Celebrate History series. The stamp printing was unusual since Katherine McIntosh (on the left in the stamp) and Norma Rydlewski (in Thompson's arms in the stamp) were alive at the time of the printing and "It is very uncommon for the Postal Service to print stamps of individuals who have not been dead for at least 10 years."

In the same month the U.S. stamp was issued, a print of the photograph with Lange's handwritten notes and signature sold in 1998 for $244,500 at Sotheby’s New York. In November 2002, Dorothea Lange's personal print of Migrant Mother sold at Christie’s New York for $141,500. In October 2005, an anonymous buyer paid $296,000 at Sotheby’s New York for the rediscovered 32 vintage, untouched Lange photos -- nearly six times the pre-bid estimate. In 1998 an unretouched vintage print of Lange's photograph was acquired by the Getty Museum for $244, 500.

Florence Owens Thompson is a reflection of all mothers who struggle daily, often without the help of a mate, to scratch the ground in what is still a man's world. Poverty always hits women and their children hardest. History prolifically chronicles men’s struggles and triumphs, but it has always been the women and the mothers who have ensured the survival of the family.

Florence lived until 1983 and died with her children by her bedside of cancer . Florence Owens Thompson, this strong willed mother became a symbol of courage for an entire nation. She became, unwittingly, the ‘Feminine Face of Poverty.’
Here you will find an Audio of Florence Owens Thompson telling her story.

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This remarkable woman gave birth to nine children between 1918 and 1939. Two died within a day of their birth - one died in 1918 and a daughter died in 1929. One son died at the age of ten months in 1934. She raised her family of six children during the hard times that befell those living during the Great Depression. If she had a motto for her life back then, it surely would have been, when life gives you scraps, make a quilt. For she struggled to make something lasting for her family and she also made quilts out of scraps for the warmth of her family.

Drue was born November 6, 1902. There was no official record of her birth, but family still alive then who documented her birth date for government records agreed with her date of birth. The 1910 census records indicates she is eleven years old, but there was no record of her on the 1900 census records which also substantiates her account of being born in 1902. She was the seventh child of ten children born to Joseph Calvin Tolbert and "Lizzie" Elizabeth Anna Garth Rachel Matilda Terry Tolbert. With the death of three of their children, Drue became the second youngest child to survive. Drue was born and raised in Lawrence County, Alabama. Life was a hard scrabble then. For the most part Drue, her husband Robert Duncan Peebles, and the children lived in the very rural parts in the county. She, Gran, and the older children helped work in the fields to bring in what money the household would exist on.

Drue’s mother died shortly after the birth of her youngest child in April 1911. The child’s name was Minnie but the family called her Baby Doll. Baby Doll died the following year in 1912. As a child, I remember vividly her ‘telling us stories’ as we called it as she recounted the days of old. She never complained, but her words painted a mental picture of sheer unadulterated poverty, the likes my generation has never known. She described the day her mother was buried and told the story with great sadness in her voice. On the day of her mother’s funeral, it had been pouring down raining, probably for days. She described how she and her siblings walked behind the horse drawn wagon that was transporting her mother to its final resting place. She said that the wagon slipped and slided, going a few feet and sliding back to the point of beginning. She said that her mother’s casket was being jostled from side-to-side and to-and-fro in the wagon. A searing memory burned into her conscience, even as a grandmother who recalled the events many decades later. She said that was the loneliest sight she had ever seen, and by that time she had seen quite a few lonely and agonizing sights. She told us as she recounted, that she did not want to be buried in that lonely place.

Joseph Tolbert must have married again almost immediately because his first child by his second wife, Hettie Glenn Letson Evetts was born in January of 1912. Drue became one child among her own seven siblings and seven other step or half siblings. They were a  large family with many mouths to feed. Times were hard, but they were industrious people. Everyone worked hard to feed and clothe such a large family.There were no slackers.

Drue recalled when she and Robert first married, they lived with his parents. She said that they were hungry and even though there was meat hanging in the smokehouse, that she picked wild berries and made cornbread for their meals. Supposition was that they were too proud to ask for food. This sounded pretty good to me at the time as I am a big cornbread aficionado. My supposition was that she had been hungry and that the smokehouse items lingered in her mind.

The Roaring Twenties were anything but roaring for my grandmother and her children. Times were hard. They were poor. They were proud. My mother recalled that they lived in houses without the modern necessities as for most years they were sharecroppers. They placed milk and butter in the creek to keep it cool. Their only water came from a well or a spring. There was only an outdoor toilet; and for that outside room they were always glad for the Sears & Roebuck catalog that they would crumple and wad up until it was usable for their purpose. The house they lived in had such big cracks in the floors that the children could see the chickens wandering around beneath the floor. My mother recalled her fourth birthday. Her mother [Mama as my mother and all of us called her] came on the front porch and said, “… honey, it is your birthday.” My mother, who had only seen the pretty girls on the calendars in the kitchen and associated birthdays with that calendar and the girls, said, “Well, Mama can it walk?” They laughed about that for years to come. Another time, my mother recalled that  Mama said there were no flour sacks to make her panties. My Mother said she cried for she did not want to walk around indecent.

During the throes of the Great Depression, my mother said that they were hungry. Mama had nothing to fix for them to eat. My mother and a sister sneaked over to a neighbor’s house. There the lady kept her flour in a dishpan on the window sill. They each got a hand full of the white substance that would abate hunger, and ran home with it. Mama used it to make them something to eat. This incident was talked about for decades as well. They wondered aloud why that lady kept her flour on the window sill. They surmised it must have been so they could access it because she knew they were too proud to ask. They surmised that it must have been okay with her. I concur with that thought, as I recall my little starched and ironed Mama who could never tell a lie or any such behavior and this was most unusual behavior for her and her sister; somehow I think they were forgiven for this transgression.

I know for a fact, that the Great Depression had a profound and lasting affect on my grandmother. As I look back at how we knew that whatever she was given as gifts for Christmas, Mother’s Day, or special occasions would all be stored away somewhere safe — in case I need them more later is what she would say. In the 1980’s a high school student interviewed her as a class project and questioned about her life during the Great Depression. I remember so well Mama saying that times then were so hard, and that the one lasting memory she had and the hardest thing was being hungry. She dried the tears that flowed on her handkerchief.

She died February 26, 1993 at the age of 91. She had not been hungry for well more than half a century. She was not buried in that lonely, lonely burial place for her mother.

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Strong American Women in Politics
by Carolyn Murray Greer, The American Woman Organization
Strong American Women in Politics Series: Victoria Claflin Woodhull

The Feminine Face of Politics:
All we want is a little liberty, a say in our government, and all our voices heard!

Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1872) - the first woman candidate for the President of the United States of America

The first woman to run for United States President was Victoria Claflin Woodhull. She was the candidate of the Equal Rights Party, sound familiar after all these decades? Her opponents in the 1872 election were Republican incumbent  President  Ulysses S. Grant , Horace Greeley and Benjamin Gratz Brown of the Democratic and the Liberal Republican parties; there was Charles O'Conor and Charles Francis Adams for the Straight
Out Democratic Party; and James Black and John Russell for the Temperance/Prohibition party.¹ There were others as well, but Victoria Woodhull got written out of history as her candidacy has been mentioned in only a few forums, mostly those by women. In the 1872 election there were 352 actual electoral votes with 352 of coming from all or part of thirty-five states. The majority of electoral votes needed to win was176, and there were 6,466,308 total popular votes cast. ¹

Woodhull, born in Homer, Licking County, Ohio on September 23, 1838, traveled with her parents practicing spiritualist activities; she was first against and then for  eugenics. She counted among her friends aristocracy and royalty. Some of her friends were: reformer Laura Cuppy Smith, artist and writer Addie Ballou, and suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Her demeanor was reserved and ladylike. She had an aristocratic bearing and could get imperious when angry. When she was on stage, her speech became impassioned, her cheeks flushed red, and her eyes sparkled. She was very active physically and liked to go on walks every day. She rode horses, played sports and the piano — and she loved to dance. She liked talking about philosophical questions. She was more interested in ideas than beauty, although her photographs indicate that she possessed beauty as well as strength of intellect. She was very idealistic and gave to the poor. She had a magnetic personality, but was probably not the best choice for a friend, because she valued principles over loyalty. She was  an individualist and a free lover. Her ideas on  ‘free love’ do not compare well to those of the 1960’s. She stood for something of a higher purpose than that. Her staunch stance on this subject was likely the result of the society she lived in, one that considered the wife and children the property of the husband in the oligarchy of her beloved America. She was on a perpetual pursuit of the truth about the nature of existence.  She believed that life is a series of obstacles to be overcome. She fought for women’s rights and founded her own newspaper. She became the first woman to own a Wall Street investment firm. She was ahead of her time.

There were whispers and innuendos - one that came from Victoria's opponents who claimed she wore outfits with bare arms and shoulders, something which Victoria denied. This accusation may seem funny now, but it was no laughing matter then.  Photographs support Victoria and not her opponents. There does not seem to be even one photograph of Victoria Woodhull that shows bare arms, shoulders, or cleavage. Victoria also wasn't one to wear a lot of jewelry. Her jewelry was simple---one brooch at her neck and a single diamond ring, or no jewelry at all. Sometimes she would wear a white tea rose instead of a brooch. She cut her curly brown hair short, which was scandalous at the time. She was known to wear short skirts sometimes. During her  time short was ankle length as opposed to floor length. She obviously preferred them for health and utilitarian reasons, because floor length skirts collected a lot of dirt from the floor. Or perhaps it was one small gesture she could take to advertise her independent nature. Unlike the average woman of her time, Victoria didn't wear corsets or lace up tightly because she thought it made women sick. She preferred dark colors for her clothing--purple was her favorite. Navy blue was her second color of choice and was a good alternative. A lot of her outfits were made out of broadcloth. In her era, bustles were popular. Some of her hats were Alpine hats, bowlers, or a pillbox hat with a feather, swooping to the front. For footwear, the ladies of her day wore gaiters, which look like what we now call granny boots

According to her contemporaries, Victoria Woodhull was a woman 100 years ahead of her time. Although few have heard of her today, when she ran for President of the United States in 1872, she was one of the most famous women in the country. She advocated many things which we take for granted today: the eight-hour work day, graduated income tax, women’s inherit right to vote, social welfare programs, and profit sharing, for example.

Victoria California Claflin was born September 23, 1838 ito a down-on-its-luck family. She was only 15 years old when she was married for the first time to Canning Woodhull. When she died on June 9, 1927, she had come a long way from her modest surroundings in Licking County. She died in a Manor House in Bredon's Norton, Worcestershire, England, as the wealthy widow of a British banker. Whether or not they were officially married depends on how you define marriage and who you believe. Victoria and Colonel both gave conflicting accounts of their marital status. According to Victoria, they were married in a Presbyterian religious ceremony on July 14, 1866 in Dayton, Ohio. They believed that marriage was a matter of the heart and not for the law and that is probably the reason they chose a religious ceremony, rather than a civil ceremony. Although they filed for a marriage license before the ceremony, the minister neglected to file a return to register the marriage officially. The failure to file a return was more common than not throughout the marriage recording history of our country.

According to Colonel's court testimony, he and Victoria were legally divorced in 1868 in Chicago and remarried." The remarriage was not a legal one, then the questions begs to be asked, why did they find it necessary to remarry? They simply continued to live together as husband and wife. Strangely, they legally divorced again on October 6, 1876 in Brooklyn, NY. While they were together, Victoria would call Colonel her husband, and Colonel would call Victoria his wife. That changed after the divorce. When Colonel Blood remarried, he said he had only been married once and was widowed. He said nothing about being married to Victoria. He also didn't mention his divorce from her or his alleged divorce from his first wife Mary. When Victoria remarried, she claimed she was the widow of Dr. Woodhull and was divorced from Colonel Blood. She didn't mention her divorce from Dr. Woodhull. There's probably no way to establish who was telling the truth, because Chicago divorce records were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. 

She was no "respecter of persons." She offered her hospitality to prostitutes and royalty alike. She was a bundle of contradictions. Although she was opposed to the organized Christian religion, she lived its principles: She fed the hungry, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoners. She believed that living those principles was more important to saving souls than preaching the resurrection of Christ. She owned a newspaper which was the first to print the Communist Manifesto in English; and yet, she was also the first female stockbroker on Wall Street. Her life was unique, to say the least.

Victoria was nominated for the U.S. Presidency by the Equal Rights Party. Her candidacy attracted an unusual coalition of people, which included laborers, female suffragists, Spiritualists, and communists, among others. The members of the coalition represented diverse--and often conflicting--opinions. The one thing that they all agreed upon was that the government needed reform. They wanted a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." They wanted a government with principles. Not only did the Equal Rights Party nominate the first female presidential candidate, they were also the first to nominate a black man, Frederick Douglass, for Vice President. Frederick Douglass ignored the nomination based on advice from friends in the suffrage movement because the thought was that an association with Woodhull would ruin him.

Although few seriously thought Victoria Woodhull would win, they knew her campaign would send a message to Washington. It's time for a woman in the White House.

Victoria also was under the constitutionally mandated age of 35 when she ran the first time. However, she did run again when she was older than 35.The fact that she would be seven months shy of 35 on the day of the inauguration probably went unnoticed by her contemporaries. Those who objected to her candidacy usually objected on the basis of her gender and not her age. In fact, one Congressman told her that because she was a woman, she wasn't a U.S. citizen. If you're not a U.S. citizen, you can't vote and you can't run for President of the United States. The issue of age becomes an in significant point.

Victoria faced many obstacles to election besides the obvious one of running when most women couldn't even vote. One obstacle was campaign fund-raising and organization. She formed "Victoria Leagues." She held "Congresses" of her followers in her own home. She attempted to raise money by selling bonds that would be redeemable during her administration. Still, she couldn't get the support she needed to launch a formidable campaign. When she began her run, she had personal funds to draw from like Steve Forbes. She was the publisher of a New York journal, "Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly." She owned a stock brokerage, "Woodhull, Claflin & Company." Eventually, though, her funds ran out. She remarked of her own campaign, "The press suddenly divided between the other two great parties, refused all notice of the new reformatory movement; a series of pecuniary disasters stripped us, for the time being, of the means of continuing our weekly publication, and forced us into a desperate struggle for mere existence. . . . The inauguration of the new party, and my nomination, seemed to fall dead upon the country; and . . . a new batch of slanders and injurious innuendos permeated the community in respect to my condition and character."

Instead of debating Victoria on the issues, her opponents attacked her personally. They called her everything from a witch to a prostitute. They accused her of having affairs with married men. At first, Victoria responded to the slanders by taking the high road and ignoring the abuse. She believed that the private matters of public figures were just that, "private." Still, the rumors didn't subside, and she found she had to justify her private behavior in public. The rumors eventually led Victoria and her family to be evicted from their home. They literally spent one night homeless on the streets of New York because landlords were afraid to rent to the "Wicked Woodhull." Victoria believed certain members of the Beecher family--Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe--were responsible for the insidious rumors. In desperation, Victoria and her second husband Col. Blood wrote to Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. They asked him to help put an end to the persecution. Rev. Beecher turned a cold shoulder to them. 

Because Henry Ward Beecher refused to listen to her pleas, Victoria felt there was no choice but to fight back and reveal the hypocrisy of her attackers. She published the story of Rev. Beecher's affair with a married woman, hoping that his family would stop the personal attacks. Instead, they enlisted the help of the United States marshals and the YMCA.

The first female presidential candidate spent election day in jail. The U.S. government arrested her under the Comstock Act for sending "obscene" literature through the mail. (As late as 1996, this act was still in effect as a part of the internet Communications Decency Act.) The alleged obscenity wasn't pornography. The obscenity was an article about Rev. Beecher's affair with Lib Tilton, the wife of Beecher's best friend, Theodore Tilton.

At first, people took the side of the government. They were glad to see the "Wicked Woodhull" in jail for smearing one of their favorite celebrities. As time went by, though, they realized that the principle of free speech was at stake. Victoria, her sister Tennie C., and her husband Col. Blood were in jail for publishing what they believed to be the truth. The government didn't care if it was the truth. They wanted to destroy Victoria Woodhull and her newspaper, "Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly." Some members of the press joined in. A Chicago editor admitted to an intentional campaign to destroy her. He said, "Editors know that all she has said about Beecher is true, and we must either endorse her and make her the most popular woman in the world, or write her down and crush her out; and we have determined to do the latter."

The scandal erupted into numerous trials for obscenity and libel. Victoria was on the defensive and was arrested eight times. Henry Ward Beecher and Theodore Tilton denied everything. They said that woman was lying. In 1875, Theodore Tilton had a change of heart. He took Reverend Beecher to court for alienation of his wife's affection. To some, it seemed a vindication of Woodhull. To others, it proved Theodore Tilton was part of a vast conspiracy to bring down Rev. Beecher.

The Beecher-Tilton trial was the biggest news since President Lincoln had been assassinated. It received more coverage than the impeachment of President Johnson. It was as widely covered as the O.J. Simpson trial. It created thousands of pages of testimony and numerous books like the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. The country was sharply divided. Some believed Beecher was guilty. Others believed Woodhull made the whole thing up. They thought she published the article because she wanted fame or increased circulation.

Most devotees of Victoria, the namesake of Queen Victoria, know that she and Colonel Blood exposed the Beecher-Tilton sex scandal. Few know, though, that Frank Work, the great-great-grandfather of the Princess of Wales, was a frequent visitor to the home of Victoria and Colonel.  During the Beecher-Tilton trial, the defense team of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher wanted to discredit Victoria and Colonel by proving they kept bad company.   When the defense saw the actual list of frequenters of the Woodhull-Blood household, they sought to suppress the list.  This list included President Grant's father as well as Frank Work, Diana's maternal great-great-grandfather.

Victoria wrote "I am charged with seeking notoriety, but who among you would accept any notoriety and pay a tithe of its cost to me?. . . I have been smeared all over with the most opprobrious epithets, and the vilest names, am stigmatized as a bawd and a blackmailer. Now, until you are ready to accept my notoriety, with its conditions--to suffer what I have suffered and am yet to suffer--do not dare to impugn my motives."  

After divorcing her husband, Victoria fled the country because the press wouldn't leave her alone. In her new home in England, she denounced her ex-husband Col. Blood and denied that she ever believed in the "free love" she used to advocate.  [1998 Mary Shearer website]

Victoria, Tennie C., and Colonel were eventually acquitted of any crimes, but the lawsuits ruined them. They spent a fortune in legal bills and bail. They lost their stock brokerage. The government confiscated their printing press, their personal papers, and their brokerage accounts, which were a major source of their income. They had received death threats and blackmail letters. They estimated their losses at half a million dollars and told the government they would be satisfied if they received $50,000 in restitution. They never received anything. With its malicious prosecution, the federal government bankrupted its first female presidential candidate--financially and emotionally.

To date, it' has been nearly 140 years, and still no woman has made it to the White House. The historical face that  no person of color has even made it to the Vice Presidency. changed this last election cycle with the Obama obtaining the status of the first black to obtain the highest post in the world.  Money is still a major obstacle for candidates., except for those who have harnessed the contributions through the internet.  The private lives of public figures are still an issue. The people still feel the politicians aren't representing them. It seems some things have changed in politics in the past century, but the American Woman has been relegated to subservience yet again.

For historical viewpoints on Victoria Claflin Woodhull, the best book for attitudes of present historians is "One Woman, One Vote,” edited by Marjorie Spruill Wheeler. It contains the pro-Woodhull view of Ellen Carol Dubois on pages 88-91 and the anti-Woodhull view of Andrea Moore Kerr on pages 73-77. You'll also want to consult one of the three biographies by Mary Gabriel, Lois Beachy Underhill, or Barbara Goldsmith.

For past historians, consult the History of Women Suffrage by Stanton, Anthony, and Gage. They published the Woodhull Memorial, which is about their only mention of Woodhull as she was largely written out of the history of the movement. You'll also want to check out the ”Terrible Siren “ by Emanie Sachs, published in the 1920's. It was the first full-length biography. Sachs wasn't an historian, but her biography is considered the definitive one by historians.

Probably her greatest contribution was empowering women in business, politics, sex, and marriage. She brought the discussion of female sexuality to the public forum. She condemned marital rape at a time when there was no such thing under the law. Victoria's view of marriage as an equal partnership, based on love rather than the law, has largely been accepted in the United States and abroad. Attorney Marilla Ricker said Victoria was the one who really started the women's movement, because she gave women the idea that they could "own themselves."

Victoria was cremated at the Birmingham Crematory and her ashes were scattered to the sea at New Haven, Sussex, England. There is a memorial to her at Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire, England.  The only memorials known to Victoria Woodhull & Company are plaques at Tewkesbury. The text of her obituary follows: 

June 11, 1927

OBITUARY

Victoria Martin, Suffragist, Dies

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

LONDON, June 10--Mrs. Victoria Claflin Woodhull Martin, nominee for the United States Presidency in 1872 and donor of Sulgrave Manor, home of Washington's ancestors in England, to the Anglo-American Association, died in her sleep here last night at her home, Norton Park, Tewksbury, at the age of 80.

London newspapers all contain long obituary notices of Mrs. Martin, who has been known in this country chiefly as one of the donors of Sulgrave Manor. The Morning Post observed editorially:

"There goes to her long rest a veteran who lived to see the triumph of a cause for which she was one of the first to contend. Mrs. Martin cleared the way for leaders of agitation for equal political rights alike in America, this country and elsewhere. The younger generation knows not the indomitable leader to whom their enfranchisement owes so much. She it was who blazed the trail for those more insurgent leaders who finally won victory.

Mrs. Martin had resided in England since her marriage to John Biddulph Martin, noted banker and philanthropist. In her adopted country she continued the work in behalf of woman's suffrage, for which she had become known throughout the United States. She also was one of the most active workers in England for the promotion of friendly relations between that country and her native land.

Born in Homer, Ohio, Sept. 23, 1838, Mrs. Martin was the daughter of Reuben and Roxanna Claflin. Her sister, Tennie C. Claflin, who became Lady Cook, died in January, 1923. As a young woman Mrs. Martin engaged in the banking business for a short time in New York and also was editor of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly.

A Pioneer Suffragist

Early in life she became an ardent advocate of woman suffrage, and her lectures favoring the movement took her to all parts of the United States. She also lectured on the scientific and religious improvement of the human race and was the author of works dealing with both subjects.

Mrs. Martin memorialized Congress in behalf of woman suffrage in 1870 and two years later was the candidate of the Equal Rights Party for the Presidency of the United States. She organized various conventions for the discussion of social reform and carried on propaganda work in the interests of the working classes both in the United States and Europe for more than thirty years.

After the death in 1873 of her first husband, Dr. Canning Woodhull, Mrs. Martin went to Europe for a speaking tour. At one of her lectures in old St. James's Hall she met Mr. Martin, and their marriage followed. He died in 1897. Since then Mrs. Martin had devoted much of her time and had spent liberally of her fortune in all projects to cement the friendship between her native and adopted countries.

A Leader in Sulgrave Movement

Mrs. Martin was a moving spirit in the purchase of Sulgrave Manor and was a generous contributor to the fund raised for its purchase. In recent years, especially since the granting of woman suffrage both in the United States and England, she had lived in almost complete retirement.

Her gift in 1922 of an ancient English manor to the British Sulgrave Institution brought Mrs. Martin before the public again, the occasion being taken by newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic to review the more important events of her active life. The manor, given by Mrs. Martin in recognition of the success attending the efforts to promote Anglo-American friendship, was built in 1531, and is on the Avon, forty miles from Sulgrave Manor. The relics contained in the house were said to be valued at more than $80,000.

Author of Several Works

Some years ago Mrs. Martin established in London the Humanitarian Magazine, which she edited in cooperation with her daughter, Zula Maud Woodhull, an author of note. Mrs. Martin was the author of "The Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government," "Social Freedom," "Pharmacy of the Soul," "Aristocracy of Blood," "Garden of Eden Stirpicultures," "Rapid Multiplication of the Unfits" and "Arguments for Woman's Electoral Rights."

She was one of the organizers of the Women's Aerial League of England. In February, 1914, on behalf of the league she offered a prize of $5,000 and a trophy for the first aviator who would make a flight across the Atlantic in either direction between any point on the American continent and the British Isles.
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How To Make A Feminist

November 8, 2008 by Anna Belle 

I am a strident feminist, but I wasn’t always. When I was released into the world as an 18 year old girl, I was as sullied and sullen as any 3^rd waver today. I had already submitted to sex that I wasn’t even sure I wanted, a major mistake for any modern girl. I was cynical about the world, but I had not yet made the connections between my life and my gender, so I assumed it was the whole mad world that made me moody, instead of recognizing that it was the patriarchy that created the conditions of my lowly status in this world. That’s how poverty works: it is designed to confuse you about exactly what you should be angry about by giving you far too much to be angry about, and too many directions to be angry in. But poverty is a tool of the patriarchy too, and that’s why we find increasing numbers of women and children represented among the poor, even though they were already disproportionately represented.

So how did I get here? Regular readers know my story. I should not be here. I was raised in brutal poverty, subjected to abuse of all sorts by various family members, and my father attempted to beat any independent impulse out of me for the first ten years of my life. He failed. Epically. And I do take most the credit, though I have to hand it to my mom. My mother, contrary to all of these bleating grand-mother wannabes, told me early and often that I never had to get married, and that I never had to have kids. She told me, using language that never once made me feel like she resented me, that these two choices above all else must be made smartly and cautiously, or I would pay for them, as would my children, for years to come. She knew of what she spoke. Having only a high school education herself (until I was a teen, when she went back to school), she did not know to tell me to avoid sex. She’d never had any luck avoiding it herself, being the female product of another financially struggling and incestuous family. Ain’t patriarchy grand? Cycles and cycles to overcome.

I learned one lesson and not the other. I was 37 before I got married, but I had a baby at the tender age of 22. Still, I consider it a victory in hindsight, and count myself as the first woman in my family in at least five generations to avoid the fate of being a teen-aged mom. My marital choice is, I think, excellent, and I am grateful my mother told me that I could wait. I fought tremendous pressure, because I was a single mother, to be able to make my choice in my own way in my own time. I could not have made this choice at 25, or even 30.

So that is my early foundation, and already we see the seeds of feminist thinking laid by my own mother. (Thank you Mom!) You can lay those seeds for your daughter too. You don’t have to openly fantasize with her when she dreams about her wedding “one day.” You can take that opportunity to talk about what bullshit wedding culture is, and how girls are trained from a very young age to want a wedding with all the trappings, and how it is not the marriage itself. Weddings and marriages are two entirely different things. Use these opportunities to explore the concept of fairytales and show your daughter in the moment how these things lead directly to her subjugation later. You don’t have to talk her out of marriage. Marriage is a fine institution and in this world, it often takes two incomes to even survive. But you don’t want her marrying some good-looking asshole who will later divorce her because she got old, so you had better disabuse her of aesthetics, and get deep with her. People who are attracted to beauty only will only know to choose beauty, so tell her your truth and show her the beauty of it. Tell her what marriage is really like if you know.

The second step in my development as a feminist occurred when I went back to college. Like a lot of people I flunked out of my first semester because I didn’t attend. I was 18 then. I went back in January of 1992 as a 21 year old holding down three jobs. I couldn’t afford tuition, but I’d promised myself that I would go to school or kill myself (seriously–I’ve always been morbid), so that December of 1991 I returned everything I got for Christmas in order to pay tuition for one class. I had decided that I would ignore the suggestions of the admissions experts to focus on Gen Ed requirements and chose to take a class that I thought would be interesting, a communications course on gender. What an eye-opener!

In that class we used Deborah Tannen’s book You Just Don’t Understand, and we learned about the different ways men and women communicate. We explored how they come to develop different language skills based on training and expectation. Did you know, for instance, that women generally ask questions and men make declarations? That simple fact changed my life. I made it my business for the next few months to train myself to make declarations instead of asking questions. No more, may I please have? Rather, it was I need a or I’d like a… It was a simple change that didn’t take long, and it improved my mind and made me a better woman, a woman who was about to be awakened to the reality of women’s history and our current status. The gender communication class was the perfect prep for birthing my inner-feminist.

Two semesters later, by this time the young mother of a daughter, I got properly radicalized in my first ever women’s history course. In that class, I learned about Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the first time. I learned about Mary Wollstonecraft, and about the Grimke sisters, Lucy Stone, Victoria Woodhull, Jane Hull, Jeannette Rankin, Frances Perkins, Margaret Smith Chase…I could go on and on about the women I was introduced to for the first time. Think about that. I had spent 12 years in public schools and never once heard about these women. I had spent all of January and February for 12 consecutive years talking about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, George Washington Carver, well, you get the idea. And of course I knew all about American men’s history and European men’s history from the rest of the year. I absolutely reveled in this new information on women; I was empowered by it, but it also after-birthed a real resentment. I had begun to understand how my lot in life was made, so that I would have little hope of making it something else.

The culture, like my father, would try to beat any impulse of independence out of me. It would be destined to fail. And it will continue to fail; I cannot and will not be beaten into submission. Susan B. Anthony lives in my indefatigable heart and her words guide my life: Failure is Impossible!

That is how you make a feminist. You start with a disadvantage, which women automatically come with—it is the purpose of patriarchy, after all. From there:

Pay Attention.
Stop Asking Questions. Start Making Declarations.
Know Your History (and pass it on.)
Train your daughters, nieces, friend’s daughters, or any other girl you can get in earshot in these as well.

Educate yourself for today. Educate others for the future.

Republished with permission from Anna Belle at Peacocks and Lilies

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The American Woman's Journey:
The Feminine Face of Science, Mathematics, History, and Technology



The Feminine Face of Science: Dr. Sally Ride
 Tennis Player * Astronaut * Professor * Space Camp (for girls)
 by Marjorie Fisher, The American Woman Organization
 Note: Click here for our Photo Album of Dr. Sally Ride the First Female Astronaut

Sally Kristen Ride was born in Los Angeles May 26, 1951 and is the oldest child of Joyce and Dale Ride.  Sally has a sister named Karen “Bearful” Ride, who became a Presbyterian minister.  Dr. Ride attended high school at Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles on a tennis scholarship.  In addition to being interested in science she was a nationally ranked tennis player.  She initially attended Swarthmore College but received her bachelor’s degrees in English and physics from Stanford University.  She then received her master’s degree and a PH.D. in physics at the same institution, while doing research in astrophysic and free-electron laser physics.

In 1978, Sally Ride beat out 1,000 other applicants for a spot in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) astronaut program.  She went through the program’s rigorous training program and got her first chance to go into space and the record books in 1983.  On June 18, Sally became the first American woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger.  As a mission specialist, she helped deploy communication satellites, operated the robot arm, and conducted experiments in materials, pharmaceuticals.   She returned to earth June 24th.

The next year, Sally again served as a mission specialist on a space flight in October.  She was scheduled to take her third trip, but it was cancelled after the tragic Challenger accident on January 28, 1986.  After the accident, Sally served on the presidential commission that investigated the space shuttle explosion.

After NASA, Sally Ride became the director of the California Space institute at the University of California, San Diego, as well as professor of physics at the same school 1989.  In 2001, she started her own company to create educational programs and products known as Sally Ride Science to help inspire girls and young woman to pursue their interests in math and science.  Sally serves as president and CEO.

For her contributions to her field and to society,  Sally Ride has received many honors, the NASA Space Flight Medal (twice), NCAA’s Theodore Roosevelt Award, the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the Lindbergh Eagle and has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

SALLY RIDE SCIENCE CAMPS for GIRLS:

Sally encourages girls interested in science by giving them hands-on science learning and activities in an environment that is designed to be supportive, enriching, and-most importantly- fun!  Education Unlimited has partnered with Sally Ride Science to provide innovative science programs for girls entering grades 4 through 9.  These unique overnight camps provide girls an opportunity to explore science, technology and engineering while doing fun science experiments for kids on an actual college campus.  The American Woman’s goal is to receive enough donations and grant money to send at least one girl to Dr. Ride’s camp this summer.  Won’t you please help TAW reach our goal? Any amount even as little as five dollars would help. You can contribute securely online with our DONATE button on our website and on our blog at blog.theamericanwoman.org.

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 Photo Album of first female astronaut Dr. Sally Ride:

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The American Woman's Journey:
The Feminine Face of Science, Mathematics, History, and Technology

Johnson was educated in country schools and in her teens studied art at the St. Louis School of Design, boarding with and older half brother. In 1877 she was awarded first and second prizes at a state exposition in competition with professional wood carvers. A year later, manifesting a dramatic flair exhibited throughout her life, she changed her name to Adelaide. While studying in Chicago and supporting herself by decorating and wood carving, she fell down an elevator shaft in the Central Music Hall, breaking her hip. She used the $15,000 obtained from a casualty suit to finance her study of sculpture in Europe.

in 1883, Johnson studied painting in Dresden, then, in 1884, moved on to Rome, becoming a pupil of Giulio Monteverde. She studied with him for eleven years and maintained a studio in Rome for the next twenty-five; at various times in her career Johnson had studios in Carrara, London, New York, Chicago, and Washington.

Johnson developed a feminist perspective early. Perceiving feminism as the greatest revolutionary force in history and "the mightiest thing in the
evolution of humanity," she saw it as her mission to record and immortalize the history of the movement. She began this life work by exhibiting busts of suffragists Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, and of the pioneer physician Caroline B. Winslow, at the Woman's Pavilion of the World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

On Jan. 29, 1896, Johnson married Alexander Frederick Jenkins, an English businessman She falsified her age on the marriage certificate, listing it as twenty-four, one-year younger than her husband, though she was actually thirty-six. Married in her Washington studio, with busts of Anthony and Stanton serving as "bridesmaids," the couple was united by a woman minister and became Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. The groom, like Johnson, was a vegetarian and a spiritualist; he took her name as "the tribute love pays to genius." Their marriage, however, was characterized by long separations in which Johnson felt that her husband had lost the spiritual consciousness they had shared. In 1908 she obtained a divorce, retaining much bitterness about their relationship.

Johnson had a lifelong dream of creating a gallery and Museum to house the history of the woman's movement. Lacking public support and funding, she eventually regarded her home studio in Washington, D.C., as the locus of this Museum. She also hoped that the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) would underwrite the costs of a woman's monument for the United States Capitol. In 1904 differences with Susan B. Anthony, who opposed the placement of a monument in the Capitol, preferring the Library of Congress, caused a disruption in their friendship and in Johnson's relationship with NAWSA. She turned then to New York suffragist Alva Belmont of the National Woman's party, and later secured a commission for the national monument. Her seven-ton sculpture of white Carrara marble, "The Woman Movement," containing portrait
busts of Mott, Stanton, and Anthony, was presented to the nation on behalf of American women by the National Woman's party, which had financed and lobbied for it, on Anthony's birthday, Feb. 15, 1921. The reception for Johnson on that day was the first ever given for a woman in the Capitol building. In 1936, Johnson's sculpture of Anthony used as the model for the three cent postage stamp commemorating the sixteenth anniversary of woman suffrage.

Johnson was a supporter of numerous women's organizations. A founder and lifelong member of the National And International Councils of Women, she was also a charter member of the Lyceum club, founded in London in 1904, and its American organizer. She held a "veteran's certificate" from NAWSA. Throughout her life Johnson spoke on the topic of the woman's rights movement, though her perspective was inspirational rather than political. Speaking on Anthony's birthday in 1934, she referred to "the awakening of woman" as "the central and supreme fact in the world of today."

After the 1930s, Johnson's career declined. Financial problems, which had always beset her, became worse, and she relied for support on family and friends. Unable, and often unwilling, to sell her sculpture because she considered the prices offered an affront, she faced eviction and sale of her home to pay taxes. In 1939, frustrated and convinced that her dream of a studio-Museum would never be realized, she mutilated many of her sculptures and called in the press to witness the destruction. There she denied indignantly that she intended to arouse sympathy, she benefited from public generosity and from the intervention of Congressman Sol Bloom of New York who prevented her eviction. Efforts to pass a bill through Congress granting her $25,000 were unsuccessful, however.

Financial distress and ebbing strength caused her to move in with friends on Capitol Hill about 1947. Attempting to raise money to repurchase her home, she appeared on several television quiz programs and won prize money, but to no avail. Seeing that advanced age could convey special privilege, she reversed her earlier falsificaton, made herself twleve years older than she was, and celebrated every birthday from "100" to "108" with friends and newspaper publicity. Johnson died in Washington in 1955, at the age of 96, of a stroke. Her Capitol sculpture remains the only national monument to the woman's movement. She is the American Woman to be remembered for perserving the history of The American Woman.
 
The above article is ©1980 by Radcliffe College
"Notable American Women"
Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary
by Edward T. James (Editor), Paul Boyer (Editor), Paul S. Boyer (Editor), Janet W. James (Editor)

The American Woman's Journey
    By Carolyn Murray Greer, The American Woman Organization
        
The First Honorary American Woman:
Susan Boyle, a contestant on Britain's Got Talent


149.1 million YESES for Susan Boyle!!! The 149.1 million is the number of females in the United States as of July 1, 2004 - a number that exceeds the same report for the number of males. This extraordinary singer's dream is to be like Elaine Paige. It is the opinion of The American Woman that she accomplished that on this talent show. Hooooowwwwwever, it was much to the chagrine of Piers, Simon and the audience who showed such disdain for her and her ambition by their body language. This first Honorary American Woman showed great courage in the face of such derision, and triumphed magnificently. Below is her singing and the choice of songs micmics the feelings of The American Woman with this current administration and all that the government is doing to change our America into something that we would depise. Listen. You decide. Go to the blog and comment at http://blog.theamericanwoman.org/.