May 27th

Born this day in 1792,Julia Evelina Smith, and author, suffragist.
In the 1840's, William Miller claimed the world would end and many took him at his word. Not Julia Smith, this event spurred her to translate the Holy Bible written from its original languages of Hebrew and Greek into English, a literal translation. Making Smith the only person to undertake such a task and accomplish it alone, without the assistance of anyone else. For example, when the King James translation began 47 men were appointed and seven of them died before the job was done. Julia Smith, all alone without the asstance of anyone wrote her translation. And she was the first woman to ever translate the Bible.
Smith self-published her Bible translation in 1876,printing 1,000 copies. Many scholars agreed with much her translations because they were truly literal. Even today, Smith's translation is respected.
Julia and her sister, Abby,were the last in the family to own and run farm in Glastonbury, Conn.(being the last two surviving their parents.) In 1875, their farm taxes were raised, but none of the other farms in the county taxes were raised and all of the other farm owners were men. Abby requested to speak at the town hall meeting, she was refused. The Smith sisters refused to pay their taxes until they had a vote-"taxation without representation!", Abby gave her speech outside town hall on the back of a wagon to a large gathering crowd. Abby's speech was printed in the Glastonbury newspaper and the story was then reprinted in newspapers throughout the country. Their cows were sold by the tax collectors and the mail poured in supporting dear Abby and her cows.
Julia wrote a book about the event "Abby Smith and her Cows" They became quiet famous these two Smith Sisters.
Five years later, Abby died. And Julia sold the farm and married her sweetheart, Mr.Amos Parker, they were 86 years old. Julia sold the family farm and bought a new home for her new married life, in the town of Parkville. Julia died ten years later. She requested to buried in the family plot with just her maiden name on the head stone. Mr. Parker lived to the ripe old age of 102.

May 26th

Born this day in 1895,Dorothea Lange,photo journalist. Lange captured the Great Depression in one photograph, Migrant Mother


Lange's life was not without pain and suffering. As a child she contracted polio at the age of seven and she had limp in her right side her whole life. She also grew up in a family whose father abandoned them when she 12. Both experiences formed who she was to become.
Lange studied photography in New York City classes taught by Clarence H. White and she apprenticed with other studios including the famous Arnold Genthe. A move in 1918to San Francisco, there she opened a portrait studio and married artist Maynard Dixon, the marriage did not last but they did have two sons.
But, when the Great Depression hit, Lange hit the streets, turning her camera to real life instead a posed life. Her photographs of people who were unemployed and homeless caught the attention of the Farm Security Administration FSA. It is also at this time she met and married her second husband, Paul Schuster Taylor a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Together they documented rural poverty and exploitation of sharecroppers and migrant workers.
1935 to 1939, Lange's work captured the plight of the poor and forgotten sharecroppers, farm families and migrant workers. For free, Lange and Taylor distributed their stories and photographs to newspapers throughout the country. Educating a Nation to the pain and suffering of the section of Americans.

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