May 25th

Born this day in 1680,Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh, founder of Haddonfield, New Jersey.
Born in England to a wealthy Quaker family. To be free of religious persecution, Haddon's father bought 500 acres of property in the New World. Due to illness he was unable to claim his land. Instead of loosing the land he sent his daughter Elizabeth to take his place. So in 1701, at the of age 21, Elizabeth set sail for the New World. Landing in Philadelphia she made her way to her father's land which she named in his honor, Haddonfield.
Elizabeth relationship with the local Unalachtico Lenape tribe was one of respect and she welcomed the opportunity of learning their ways and customs. Especially when it came to learning how to use native plants for medical use. Which Elizabeth described as sophisticated used a board range of plants. And one must understand that when Elizabeth first landed in the New World it was a wilderness. People were living in caves along the river.
Another piece of business Elizabeth took care was marriage. After meeting John Estaugh, a Quaker minister, Elizabeth made a marriage proposal which he accepted and they were married in 1702. And their courtship inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, Elizabeth, from the collection Tales of a Wayside Inn

In 1713, Elizabeth and John built a three story brick mansion, called New Haddonfield Plantation Behind their home Elizabeth built The Brew House, this is where Elizabeth dried herbs and made salve for healing. Both John and Elizabeth held the position helping the sick. This information the Native Unalachtico Tribe taught her went to good use.

In 1721, Elizabeth's father gifted an acre of land to the building of the Friend Quaker Meetinghouse and burial ground. This assured a growing community. Elizabeth was also the Women's Quaker clerk for fifty years.
For fifty years Elizabeth was doctor, clerk and a woman who took her position as founder of a township as one of yes nurturer, but so much more as it seems she held out her hand to all peoples living Native and immigrant like herself.

One of Elizabeth's deepest concerns was that of the relationship with the Unalachtico Tribe, whom were forced to leave their homeland. But, not by the Quaker Friends.

May 24th

Born this day in 1870, Ynes Mexia, botanist. Mexia was an Mexican-American who spent the first part of her career as a social work and then in 1921, Mexia enrolled in botany classes at University of California in Berkeley. She was 51 years old. By the age of 55, Mexia began the work of collecting plants throughout North and South Americas. Mexia's research took her deepest, isolated parts of South America. One of these trips lead to a very dangerous event. Massive flooding trapped her research party in deep jungle with no safe way to get out. After waiting three weeks and with starvation setting in- Mexia organized the building of a raft to ride down the river toward civilization. They were successful in finding their out and safely.
Mexia collected over 150,000 species. She is credited with discovering between two to five hundred new species.

Her specimen collections can be viewed at the Academy. Portions are duplicated at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; Catholic University, Washington, D.C.; the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Gray Herbarium, Harvard University; the University of California, Berkeley; and important museums and botanical gardens in London, Copenhagen, Geneva, Paris, Stockholm, and Zurich. Her personal papers are at the Academy and at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.

May 23rd

Born this day in 1810, Margaret Fuller (full name Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli)American journalist, critic and Women's Rights Advocate. Fuller was educated by her father,she was reading by the age of three and a half; she received the same education as any of Timothy Fuller's sons. This education was not lost on his daughter, she used her education to better the world.
Fuller taught at Alcott's school(Louisa May Alcott's father's school) And when the school closed, Fuller continued a dialogue with women by holding weekly "Conversations." Each conversation, Fuller would ask a question and the answers were discussed. Fuller's art of the conversation was provocative and thought provoking and very popular.
Fuller's next job was the first editor of the transcendentalist journal, "The Dial" in 1840. In 1844, Fuller joined the New York Tribune. It was said that Margaret
Fuller had the reputation as, "the best read person (male or female) in New England."
She was the first woman allowed to use the Harvard College Library.
In 1845, Fuller wrote the book,"Women in the Nineteenth Century" it is considered the first major feminist work in the United States.
Fuller was then sent to Europe as a correspondent for the New York Tribute, the first women to hold this job. In Italy, she met the love of her life,Giovanni Ossoli.
She gave birth to their son. Sadly, on the Ossoli's journey back to the United States, the ship wreaked on a sandbar off Fire Island. The Ossoli family did not survive.








1955 Presbyterian Church begins accepting women ministers

May 22nd

Born this day in 1844, Mary Cassatt,artist. Cassatt is one of the more famous and successful female painters of the 19th and early 20th century. Cassatt's most famous paintings capture the mother and child relationship.
Cassatt was born in the Pennsylvania and to a family of money. They believed in world travel and education. But, as open as her father was, he did not approve of his daughter's art career. And at this time in history, women were limited as to how far their art studies could go- for example women were not allowed to draw the from the live nude model. And this is even today an important part of studying drawing and painting and sculpture.
Cassatt moved to Paris, France to study her art. And her Mother and sister came along to chaperon. Throughout Cassatt's life she traveled back and forth between the United States and Paris France, but most of her life was in France. She studied with several artists of the day and she worked her way into the Art salons of the time and it is at this time she befriended Edgar Degas. Cassatt exhibited along with the Impressionists. And she died in France in 1926.

May 21st

On this day in 1881, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.

On this day in 1918, the House of Representatives past an amendment ALLOWING women to vote.

On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly the transatlantic solo flight.

On this day in 1945,the classic film couple Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart got married.

On this day in 1997, Susan Lucci, for the 17th time, lost the 24th Emmy Daytime Award.

Born this day in 1867,Frances Theresa Dansmore,ethnomusicologist whose life work was to preserve Native American Music by making recordings, and collecting musical instruments and other objects. Dansmore began her studies in music as a child and moved to Boston to study piano at Harvard College. It is here that Dansmore, learns about another pioneer in ethnomusicologist, Alice Cummingham FLetcher and her work with Omaha Indians in 1880.

In 1893 Densmore began a ten-year preparatory period of study during which Fletcher was a teacher, mentor, and friend. Densmore began to give public lectures on musicological subjects, during this time. The year 1901 brought Densmore's first publication, her first visit to the Chippewa of Ontario, and her first transcription of a Sioux song.

In 1907, after submitting a recording of Indian songs to William H. Holmes, then chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) of the Smithsonian Institution, Densmore began a fifty year relationship with the BAE. During this time, Densmore recorded American Indian music for preservation, and collected musical instruments, herbs, and other materials used in conjunction with songs; recorded a wealth of ethnographic data, and took numerous photographs.

"My work has been to preserve the past, record observations in the present, and open the way for the work of others in the future"-Densmore 1942.