By Ramona Shelton
Motlow Buzz Managing Editor
Beginning in 1987, March was officially
recognized in the United States as Women’s
History Month, but the story does not start there. In 1978, a group of
teachers in California proclaimed the first Women’s History Week because they
felt that International Women’s Day, a celebration begun in 1911, was not
enough. This group focused on the struggle for women to receive the right to
vote, a fight spearheaded in the late 19th and early 20th
century by equality activists such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
and Alice Paul. The success of these women opened the door to the passage of
the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which finally gave
suffrage to the women of this great nation.
Thanks to the success of the Sonoma
teachers, the Women’s Action Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution began
calling in 1980 for not just a week but a full month of celebrations of the
contributions women have made in American and World History. It took them seven
full years of fighting but beginning with President Ronald Reagan, every U.S.
President has set off Women’s History Month with an official proclamation.
In 2011, the Obama Administration issued
“Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being,” an official
study showing not only the current status of women in the United States but
also how it had changed throughout the decades. The last time such an official
study was done was during the Kennedy Administration’s 1963 Commission on the
Status of Women, a domestic offshoot of the United Nations committee of the
same name. The question begs to be asked… over the course of the 48 years
between these two studies, how much had actually changed for women in this
country? The simple answer is nowhere near as much as it should have! It is all
too easy to think that women had little impact on history until 2011 or 1987 or
even 1911, but the real truth is that women have always been the backbone of
history and the stories of these women going all the way back to ancient times
deserve to be told.
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| Telling stories about remarkable women are (from left) Jamiyah Richardson, Joan Holland, James Wilkinson, Debbie Stockdale, Amy Campbell, Ramona Shelton, Jena Clew, Jessica Barber, Kamron Holliman, Ashley Holt, and Stacy Dowd. (Photos by Charles Whiting) |
With this in mind, the Motlow Smyrna
History Club sponsored “A Woman’s Voice:
Stories of Strong Women in History,” a spoken word event, on March 27.
Students, faculty and staff were invited to tell the stories of women, ancient
and modern, American or international, famous or not, who had an impact on
history. Speakers were encouraged to wear purple or green, the official colors
of Women’s History Month. Purple was chosen because historically it was the
color of royalty, and green was chosen by the early leaders of the Women’s
Suffrage Movement.
Over a dozen speakers presented details
on women whose stories they believed deserved to be told. Stacy Dowd, biology professor, spoke on Elizabeth Blackwell, the
first female doctor in American History. Dr. Blackwell managed to get into
medical school at a time when women were seen as too weak for such a thing. Her
acceptance was seen as a joke, but she refused to back down. In addition to not
only getting her degree, she was a pioneer in this country in simple things
like handwashing to lessen the spread of infection.
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| Stacy Dowd |
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| Jena Clew |
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| Jasper Emerton |
World History students Jasper Emerton and Jena Clew spoke on two powerful women from Egyptian History,
Cleopatra and Hatshepsut. Both of these women became Pharaohs of Egypt, a
position traditionally held only by men. As successful rulers, both of these
women managed to increase Egypt’s wealth and power though both had sad endings.
Hatshepsut died from bone cancer likely caused by the chemicals in ancient
cosmetics, while Cleopatra committed suicide rather than being captured by the
Roman military, to whom she had just lost a war.
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| Amy Campbell |
Some of our subjects still have an
impact to this very day. Amy Campbell
presented the story of Elizabeth Jennings Freeman, a woman who refused to give
up her seat on a trolley car. In history classes, we often discuss how Rosa
Parks did something similar in the 1950s, but Mrs. Jennings’ actions happened
decades earlier. Like Parks, Jennings refused to back down and took her
discrimination case to the courts.
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| Jamiyah Richardson |
Jamiyah
Richardson spoke on Madam C.J. Walker, the first African-American female
self-made millionaire. Madam Walker started a home business selling hair
products for African-American women and became so successful that she was able
to continuously expand her business.
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| Joan Holland |
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| James Wilkinson |
The subjects of James Wilkinson’s and Joan
Holland’s tales were women who began a fight for recognition and equality
that is still ongoing. James thought about telling his grandmother’s story, a
woman who was a part of the Women’s Corps in World War I, but since he thought
she might not have impacted enough people in history, he switched to Helen
Keller. Helen Keller was born with sight and hearing but lost those senses at
18 months when she suffered from a bout of Scarlet Fever. Not knowing what to
do with a child with disabilities, Keller’s family essentially allowed her to
turn into a holy terror. As she got older, they brought in Anne Sullivan, a
teacher connected to Alexander Graham Bell, and she got Keller on a path to
lifelong education. Keller graduated from Radcliffe College and published
multiple articles and books. Nelly Bly, the subject of Joan Holland’s speech, was the pen name of journalist Elizabeth
Cochran. Bly is best known for her newspaper expose’ of the treatment of women
in asylums. It was common for women to be committed to insane asylums for the
slimmest of diagnoses and once inside their doors, they were not likely to be
heard from again. Bly managed to get herself committed so she could report
firsthand on the deplorable conditions. Getting in was easy but getting out was
not. She had to get her editors to fight for her release because, as an inmate,
she was unable to “prove” she was sane.
Ashley
Holt and Jessica Barber told the
stories of two women who set out to encourage others in very different ways.
Ashley’s subject was Jane Addams, a woman who came from a well-to-do family in
Chicago near the turn
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| Ashley Holt |
of the 20th century yet realized that her city
was filled with people who did not have the same advantages as she did. Jane
Addams took money that she inherited from her father and used it to start Hull
House, a place for women and children to not only find shelter and food but
also support and education. Without Jane Addams, so many would have died on the
streets, and the world recognized her work with a Nobel Peace Prize. As Jessica
Barber pointed out, helping women break the mold they were forced into by
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| Jessica Barber |
male-dominated fashion gave women a sense of control in their lives. This was
the life’s work of Coco Chanel. In the time after the World Wars, Chanel
realized that women’s fashion was dictated by men and was quite often used to
force women to create personas that “kept them in their places.” Taking her cue
from men’s fashion, Chanel first morphed menswear into female forward clothing
and then she created something that women to this very day still embrace- the
“Little Black Dress.” Thanks to Coco Chanel, women had the opportunity to dress
for themselves rather than to impress the men of the world.
The idea of the strong woman who has an
impact on history does not mean that she had to be a famous woman. Two of our
speakers told the stories of local women who have inspired others. Nursing
student Kamron Holliman
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| Kamron Holliman |
spoke about
Nashville area Dr. Melan Smith-Francis. Dr. Smith-Francis does not sit in an
office and wait for patients to come to her. Rather she goes out into the
community and brings care to those in need. Her hands-on and caring approach
ensures that those most at risk do not fall through the cracks. Dr.
Smith-Francis has inspired Kamron to become a nurse himself so he can follow in
her footsteps and help others. Tierney
Finnie took a different tactic with her subject, a teacher who is no longer
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| Tierney Finnie |
with us. Rather than tell the story of Lisa, a middle school teacher who
inspired Tierney herself and countless other students, Tierney honored Lisa’s
memory with a personally written poem directed at Lisa herself. It is easy to
imagine this amazing woman smiling down from above, knowing that in her
lifetime, she inspired so many students like Tierney to follow in her footsteps
and help others.
The event was bookended by its
organizers, Professors Ramona Shelton
and Debra Stockdale who both spoke
on impactful First
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| Ramona Shelton |
Ladies of the United States. Professor Shelton told the
story of Martha Washington, a woman most often dismissed as her far more famous
husband’s frumpy, dumpy little wife. In reality, Martha Washington was as much
of a fighter as her husband. She helped him with many of his successes during
the American Revolution and in the establishment of the United States. Martha
Washington definitely deserves to be remembered as one of our greatest Founding
Mothers. Professor Stockdale closed the show with the story of Barbara Bush,
wife to one President of the United States and mother to another. Despite satirists
making fun of her for her looks- saying she looked more like Bush 41’s mother
than his
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| Debra Stockdale |
wife- and her white hair -- which was caused by the shock of losing
her three year old daughter to leukemia -- Mrs. Bush never backed down. Her
platform as First Lady was literacy education.
The History Club would like to thank
everyone who attended or helped with the event. This was one of the first such
Women’s History Month events held in Smyrna and thanks to campus-wide support,
it was a huge success.
