May 7, 2005

• I love Women's History month.  There is so much information everywhere.  I would have loved to have been submerged in all this wonderful history of women.  I have been collecting all kinds of tidbits and will be posting them here so that I don't lose track.  If you have any interesting notes to "herstory" that were about or created by women, please let me know.

  
  

  I learned yesterday at an exhibition sponsored by the Marietta Historical Society about some of the following bits and pieces of history.  Hope you enjoy it.

  
  

  Wesleyan College in Macon, GA,  is the world's oldest college for women. It was chartered on 12/23/1836.  The college was founded through the combined efforts of Macon citizens and the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  The doors of the college opened in 1/7/1839 with 90 young women enrolled in its first session.  The curriculum encompassed a liberal arts course of study with an emphasis on the sciences.

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodeled. "A blank wall of social and professional antagonism faces the woman physician that forms a situation of singular and painful loneliness, leaving her without support, respect or professional counsel."                     --  Cassandra Pickett Durham  (1824-1885) Cassandra Pickett Durham, born in South Carolina, was the first doctor licensed by the state of Georgia.  "Let us have no more croaking as to what cannot be done; let us see what 'can' be done, and above all see that it 'is' done."                        -- Ida Mae Hiram Ida Mae Hiram was the first African American woman to pass the Georgia Dealt board exams and became the first black female dentist in Athens Georgia. Sarah Freeman Clarke who was born in 1808 in Boston founded the Clarke Lending Library from her home in Marietta GA.  She is also known as a painter of beautiful landscapes. Alice McClellan Birney, a widowed single mother, was co-founder of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers (National PTA) which first met in Washington DC on 2/17/1897. In 1848 300 participants (40 of them were men) met in SENECA FALLS NY to approve the Declaration of Sentiments composed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and modeled after the Declaration of Independence.  This was the first public political meeting in the United States that dealt with women's rights.  The main theme to be approved included "that a man should not withhold a woman's rights, take her property or refuse to allow her to vote.  And all men and women were created equal"  Only the right to vote did not receive unanimous support.  Lucretia Mott was one of the dissenters because she believe that women should not be drawn into politics. I remember that in my lifetime, I was not able to buy a car or rent an apartment or buy a home without my husband's signature.  I couldn't have my own credit.  I can remember a time when women could be used and abused by men and people would look the other way.  I remember the first woman's shelter.  I remember bra burning and freedom to be a living, feeling human being.  In such a short lifetime there have been so many changes.  Not all of them have been positive but all of them have been opportunities to learn and grow.  Thank God(dess) I am a Woman.

  • 8:53 am
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