June 10th

Born this day in 1898, Hattie McDaniel, the first African American woman to win the Academy Award, for her amazing and memorial character, Mammy in the film, Gone With The Wind. McDaniel was also the first African American woman to sing on the radio.

McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one her acting career and the other for her contribution to radio. For not only was McDaniel an award winning film actor, but also a professional radio and stage performer as singer/song writer, and comedian. She was also a television star. She appeared in over 300 films. McDaniel was known for her generosity, elegance, and charm.
She was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1975 and in 2006 she became the first Black Oscar winner to be depicted on a US stamp.
The premier of Gone With The Wind took place in Atlanta, GA. And because McDaniel was Black she was banned from attending; it is hard to understand that one of the award winning stars of this film was not allowed to attend because she was black.
And when one considers the fact that Mrs. Alberta King and her son Martin Luther King, Jr. as child, performed at the premiere!
AND, Gone With The Wind was published on this day also! 1936.

October 19th, 2020.  Of course, the producers would pick the day "Gone With The Wind" was published for the premiere!"


On this day in 1720, Ms. Clement of England, took to market the first paste-style mustard.

On this day in 1966, Janis Joplin, gave her first live concert at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.

June 9th

1970: Anna Mae Hayes (Nurse Corps), Elizabeth P. Hoisington (Women's Army Corps) become first U.S. women to be promoted to brigadier general.

Born this day in 1843, Bertha von Suttner, author and peace activist for which she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905. Suttner was born into wealth and aristocratic society of the Austrian court, her name then, Countess Kinsky and in this world she was blind to the rest of the world.
At the age of 30, Suttner took a companion to the four daughters of the von Suttner family and it here that she falls in love with their brother. Suttner then travels to Paris to be Alfred Nobel's secretary, but soon returns to marry Baron Arthur von Suttner. Her family strongly apposed the marriage which gave them the liberty to live in Caucasus where they live for nine years, earning a humble living teaching lessons in music and language.
This the time, Suttner wrote Es Löwos, a poetic look of their life together. Then four more novels and then her first serious book,Inventarium einer Seele, or Inventory of a Soul. Here she takes stock of who they are and their life, the inner thoughts and outer input from what they read and this concept of achieving peace. World Peace.
A visit home to Austria, the family finally accepting of the marriage. It is here they learn of the International Arbitration and Peace Associational in London and of other organizations working toward of Peace instead of armed forces.
This influences her second serious book Das Maschinenzeitalter, The Machine Age Published in 1889. This book criticizing the many aspects of the times, fortelling the danger of exaggerated nationalism and armaments.

Suttner next book she wrote as a way to support the Peace League. Die Waffen nieder [Lay Down Your Arms], published late in 1889, follows a woman who suffers all the horrors of war and by researching the actual facts, the novel has a powerful impact on the reader, it struck a nerve and the reaction was huge.
And from this Suttner becomes an active leader of the Peace Movement. Putting her energy into writing about the cause for peace. Traveling giving lectures, attending world meetings of the congresses of peace and establishing peace groups.
With her husband they worked hard to set up Hague Peace Conference of 1899. The idea of Permanent Court of Arbitration so that war could be avoided.
International Peace Congress at The Hague met yearly. Meeting find solutions that avoided war and answered the issues peacefully without harm to human life and world.
Suttner died two months before the outbreak of WW I. And like she warned, the devastation was profound.

On this day in 1970, Anna Mae Hayes (Nurse Corps), Elizabeth P. Hoisington (Women's Army Corps) became the first United States women to be promoted to brigadier general.

Oh if only Suttner's vision had come true and Hayes and Hoisington were not promoted to military generals but emissaries of Peace and Harmony of the International Peace Commission. Only if.....

June 8th

Born this day in 1816, Mary Lucinda Bonney, educator and advocate for Native Americans Land Rights. Bonney was educated at Troy Female Seminary. Opening her own school in 1850, Chestnut Street Female Seminary in Philadelphia. She was the president for 38 years. Bonney also active in fund raising for missionaries overseas.

But, when Bonney became aware of the plight of the Native Americans; the United States government was not honoring their land treaties with the Native American Tribes. Bonney took up the Cause.
She opened Women’s National Indian Association. Bonney lobbied Congress to return the Lands of the Native Americans back in their trust.
The white settlers moving across the Great Plains, the Native Americans reservations became smaller or disappeared. Bonney traveled across the country collecting signatures to petition Congress to honor the Native Americans homeland. In the end, Bonney collected 50,000 signatures which she presented to Congress which lead to the Dawes Act of 1887.

The Dawes Act:

The impact on Indians of the Dawes Act was negative. The act "was the culmination of American attempts to destroy tribes and their governments and to open Indian lands to settlement by non-Indians and to development by railroads."[1] Land owned by Indians decreased from 138 million acres in 1887 to 48 million acres in 1934.

And, there was a provision that any excess land could be given to any white settlers moving into the West! There was no intention to help the Tribes but to divide and conquer. And 1908, the Act was then known as The Curtus Act, which completed the process of destroying tribal government but abolishing tribal jurisdiction of Indian Land.

Bonney kept fighting the good fight for the Native American Tribes and for their land rights until her death in 1900.