We will through the study of our respective significant women in American history demonstrate their struggles with indentifying with and conforming to the "true womanhood" ideals of their particular historical period from the mid-1800s until the modern era.

Furthermore, we will demonstrate that these women through their struggles perpetuated significant era-changing events.

SIGNIFICANT WOMEN CHANGING STEREOTYPES

Morgan Watkins

Phillip Bautista

Anna Stein

Anna Tretyakov

Nicholas Koehler

Robert Martinez

Sarah Rosetta Wakeman 1843-1864

WHAT IS HER SIGNIFICANCE?

Sarah Rosetta Wakeman was known as Private Lyons Wakeman

She was a woman who disguised herself as a man to serve in the Civil War in 1862

She was one of over 100 documented female soldiers, though the actual number is thought to be closer to 400

WHAT INFLUENCED HER?

Her family was poor She went to work as a man because she knew she

could make more money for her family She was a hard worker and grew up on a farm

doing the same work as the rest of her family

WHY SHE DECIDED TO GO

She was approached by soldiers while working at another job in New York where she was already pretending to be a man

She was intrigued by the enlistment bonus and monthly amount of money she was promised

HER CHALLENGE TO TRUE WOMANHOOD

She broke out of the traditional roles allowed in patriarchy

Most women supporting the war effort were making quilts and selling baked goods

She was one of few women on the battlefield

TRUE WOMANHOOD

She did not fight in order to get public recognition

She fought strictly for the money she could send back to her family

No one knew she was a woman until after her death

AT HER DEATH

Private Lyons Wakeman passed away from dysentery after she served two years in the War

She was a courageous woman who broke the patterns of what it means to be patriotic and she challenged what it meant to be a woman in the Civil War

Not all women made such unconventional contributions to the war effort

CLARA BARTON 1821-1912

Founder of the Red Cross

Barton was born in 1821 as the youngest of

five children. At the age of 12 her older

brother fell off a barn roof and was badly

injured. For the next two years Barton

provided his care. This set the stage for

what would become her life work.

Barton became a schoolteacher at around the age of 25. This was not uncommon for women at the time, but Barton took her career one step beyond just teaching at schools.In 1852 she established the first free school in Bordertown, New Jersey, and became the principal.

At this time in American history, women were allowed to teach in schools, but society believed that a man was more qualified to be a principal of a school. Barton gave up her position as principal to a male counterpart, and when she gave up the position, she gave up teaching for good.

After leaving education, Barton worked for the government from 1855-1861. Secretary of the Interior Robert McClelland opposed women working in government, and Barton was demoted from her position. Therefore another turning point in her life came on April 19th, 1861 when she left government service for good.

An attack on the Massachusetts infantry resulted in Barton providing care with bandages and supplies to soldiers from her house.

Barton left her office work and focused on providing care for the soldiers. This work continued through the rest of the Civil War.

After falling ill from diseases contracted in the Civil War, Barton recuperated in Europe. She learned about the Red Cross and encouraged President Hayes to join the Geneva Convention. She established the U.S. Red Cross in 1881.

While the environment that we grow up in shapes who we are and what we become, we choose our own method of how we respond with our actions. Barton chose to act in a political manner to effect change for women. If society didn’t approve of her position in a man’s role, that wasn’t enough to stop her from following her heart.

Barton demonstrated throughout her life that women had the power to affect change in policy. From changing military policies regarding battlegrounds to presidential influence on foreign policies Barton was able to show women were able to stand for their beliefs and create change within their environments.

From an explicit challenge to politics to passively changing womanhood through natural individuality

ANNIE OAKLEY(1860-1926)

WHY IS SHE SIGNIFICANT?

Her extraordinary skill in shooting, which exceeded that of most male shooters, helped to change Americans’ views about women’s involvement in sports.

“It is largely a matter of determination and practice that makes good marksmen or women.” – Annie Oakley

INFLUENCES ON OAKLEY’S LIFE

Her father allowed her to play like a boy and even encouraged her to gain skill in trapping small game.

INFLUENCES ON OAKLEY’S LIFE

Oakley’s Quaker upbringing instilled the belief that women could make important contributions as well as men.

INFLUENCES ON OAKLEY’S LIFE

Poverty allowed her to get a job shooting and trapping game, to earn income for her family.

FAME VS. SHAME

Oakley appealed to male and female audiences alike because she dressed modestly and had a very ladylike manner.

CHALLENGES TO “TRUE WOMANHOOD”

She excelled at a sport in which women were not generally allowed to participate, and made a considerable amount of money during her career.

CHALLENGES TO “TRUE WOMANHOOD”

She married Frank Butler, but never had any children, which was expected of women in the Victorian Era.

CHALLENGES TO “TRUE WOMANHOOD”

She was an outspoken advocate, in her later years, for a woman’s right to bear and use firearms for both sport and self-defense.

“God intended women to be outside as well as men, and they do not know what they are missing when they stay cooped up in the house enjoying themselves with a novel.” – Annie Oakley

THE ANNIE OAKLEY MOTTO “Aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not

the first time, nor the second, and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you’ll hit the Bull’s Eye of Success.”

A change in attitude toward women in sports paved the way for differently abled African American women to excel in sports

Wilma Rudolph

(1940-1994)

EARLY YEARS

Wilma Rudolph was born in a poor African American family in Tennessee. She had many illnesses since childhood. One of them was paralytic polio. It crippled her legs, and her doctors predicted that she would never walk again. But her mother still encouraged her, as did her family. Rudolph once said, “My doctors told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.”

FIRST VICTORIES

Rudolph overcame that disease by the age of 12. She surprised the doctors when she took off her braces and walked. "By the time I was 12," she told the Chicago Tribune, "I was challenging every boy in our neighborhood at running, jumping, everything." She started to be deeply involved in sports. She played basketball and ran track in high school.

In high school, Rudolph was noticed by the Tennessee State University track coach Ed Temple. He started training her during the summers.

COMPETITION

COMPETITIONRudolph had to work hard in order to win. She said once, “The triumph can't be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.”

COMPETITION

“I loved the feeling of freedom in running, the fresh air, the feeling that the only person I'm competing with is me.”

THE TIME OF GLORYAt the 1960 Olympic Games, Rudolph won 3 gold medals in the 100 and 200 meter sprints and the 400 meter relay. She was named “La Gazelle” and other names by astonished viewers. At the finish line, she was always ahead of her followers by at least 3 yards. She got very many fans. People asked her for her autograph a lot. She became instantly famous all around the world.

AWARDS United Press Athlete of the Year 1960 Associated Press Woman Athlete of the Year 1960 James E. Sullivan Award for Good Sportsmanship 1961 The Babe Zaharias Award 1962 European Sportswriters' Sportsman of the Year Christopher Columbus Award for Most Outstanding

International Sports Personality 1960 The Penn Relays 1961 New York Athletic Club Track Meet The Millrose Games Black Sports Hall of Fame 1980 U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame 1983 Vitalis Cup for Sports Excellence 1983 Women's Sports Foundation Award 1984

LATER YEARS

After Rudolph retired from the Olympic competitions, she returned home. There she taught at her old elementary school, and was the track coach at her old high school. Later, she moved on to coaching positions, first in Maine, and then in Indiana. She was invited to be a guest speaker at many schools and universities. She also started to do broadcasting and became a sports commentator on national television and the co-host of a network radio show. She organized an organization for young athletes, especially minorities, called the Wilma Rudolph Foundation.

DEATH

Unfortunately, Rudolph died from brain cancer in 1994 when she was 54, shortly after her mother’s death.

IMPACT AND SIGNIFICANCE

Wilma Rulolph’s achievements in personal life (overcoming polio), sports, and helping others in different ways influenced today’s society strongly. Now, more people are fighting their diseases, and go into sports than before. Also, many women and African American athletes in general were inspired by Rudolph, and many athletes today view her as their motivation and role model. Wilma’s Foundation has also helped many young athletes to overcome barriers in order to achieve their dreams. Women athletes got more respect and recognition and more chances because of what Rudolph accomplished.

A medical evolution pioneered the need for more medical professionals and healthier working environments

ALICE HAMILTON(1869-1970)

WHY IS SHE SIGNIFICANT?

◘ Research and evidence by Dr. Hamilton pioneered occupational epidemiology and industrial hygiene in the United States.

SIGNIFICANCE

◘ Her findings were scientifically persuasive and influenced reforms, both voluntary and regulatory, to improve the health of workers.

INFLUENCES ON HER LIFE◘ While working in Hull House, Hamilton

overheard many awful stories about carbon-monoxide gassing in steel mills, lead palsy poisoning in the painting industry, and pneumonia from work in the stockyards.

◘ Hamilton went to medical school and became a physician instead of taking the “traditional” role of being a teacher, nurse, or housewife.

CHALLENGES TO “TRUE WOMANHOOD”

CHALLENGES TO “TRUE WOMANHOOD”

◘ In 1910, Hamilton was appointed to the Occupational Diseases Commission of Illinois- the first one in the United States.

◘ This was a position of power for a woman in a time when ideally, women were supposed to be subordinate to men.

CHALLENGES TO “TRUE WOMANHOOD”

◘ In 1919, Hamilton was hired as assistant professor in the new Department of Industrial Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

◘ She was the first woman to be hired into a male- dominated school of higher education as Assistant Professor Emeritus of Industrial Medicine.

“A Woman on Harvard Faculty-The Last Citadel Has Fallen-The Sex Has Come Into Its Own” – New York Tribune Headline

A culmination of medical advancement and women’s rights leads to a legal and educational challenge in the freedom of choice

NORMA MCCORVEY

Roe v. Wade and the struggle for freedom of choice

NORMA MCCORVEY

Born September 22, 1947 in Simmesport, Louisiana. From an early age McCorvey struggled with emotional, and

physical abuse from both parents. These abuses undoubtedly were the reasons for McCorvey’s trouble with the law and her education; indeed, McCorvey would be sent to several reform schools and eventually drop out in the 9th grade

In her early teens, McCorvey had a lesbian experience with a friend who later accused McCorvey of raping her

McCorvey would be obscure if it were not for her participation in the Roe v. Wade decision and thus any study of her life is incomplete without discussing it.

MCCORVEY, CONTINUED

From an early age McCorvey would struggle with her sexual identity, bouncing back and forth between dating men and women, never sure whether to follow her heart or do what society told her to and date a man.

McCorvey would bear three children; all three were given up for adoption

ABORTION: A STATUS QUO

In 1812 Massachusetts a woman could have a legal abortion before quickening (that is, the first sign of movement by the fetus).

An 1871 study by the American Medical Association found that nearly 20% of all pregnancies were deliberately terminated (O’Connor 2006).

By 1910, however, every state except for Kentucky had made abortion a felony (O’Connor, 2006).

In 1970, Alaska, Hawaii, New York, and Washington joined Colorado as the only states that had liberalized their abortion laws to allow a self-initiated abortion (National Abortion Federation).

ABORTION, A SAD INSTITUTION

It is estimated that 200,000 to 1.2 million illegal or self induced abortions occurred in the 1950s and 1960s (O’Connor, 2006).

It is estimated that prior to the decision in Roe V. Wade, 5,000 women a year died from illegal “back alley” abortions (O’Connor). If extrapolated from 1950 until 1973 when Roe was decided that is 115,000 adult deaths, more than the combined Allied and German deaths on the D-Day landing.

ROE V. WADE, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) In September of 1969 Norma McCorvey attempted to obtain an abortion in

Texas because she was raped. Because there was no police record of her rape, her request was denied. She attempted to have an illegal abortion but found the clinic was shut down.

Texas Penal codes 1191-1194 and 1196 stated that abortions were illegal, except to save a mother’s life as defined by her physician.

McCorvey and her attorney Linda Coffee brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The court agreed with her but declined to issue an injunction allowing her to procure an abortion. The district attorney, Wade, appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually to the United States Supreme Court.

ROE: THE DECISION

The U. S. Court issued its opinion on January 22, 1973. The Court held that the Texas law that Norma McCorvey brought suit against violated the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution because it makes no exception other than maternal health in its prohibition of abortions, and that it was entirely too vague. Furthermore, the Court held that: women have a right to receive an abortion for any reason in the first trimester of pregnancy; a state may, at its own discretion in “promoting its interest” elect to restrict abortions during the second trimester except for cases involving maternal health ; and a state may, at its own discretion prohibit abortion in the third trimester unless compelling medical issue related to the mother’s health is present (Roe V. Wade).

SIGNIFICANCE IN HISTORY…?

It is difficult for anybody to maneuver their way through the American legal system, let alone a high school drop out with only a 9th grade education. McCorvey was constantly told as a child that she was worthless and would never amount to anything.

Though it is accepted that abortion is a divisive issue with both sides raising valid concerns, the legacy of McCorvey should not necessarily be Roe, but rather that she had the strength to persevere through a national 4-year trial and even bear the child she sought to have aborted.

Many studies find that women have immense reservations about procuring abortions and immense feelings of guilt about it; it is difficult to imagine having something as personal as a medical procedure put in the national spotlight and have to eventually bear that child. (citation?)

After McCorvey came out as the Roe in Roe v. Wade, she faced constant harassment; pro life supporters would frequently call her names and even scatter baby clothes on her lawn.

“CROSSING THE LINE” On August 8, 1995 McCorvey McCorvey was baptized and joined the radical pro-

life group, “Operation Rescue” McCorvey now claims she never would have obtained that last abortion, even if she

could have, because it was too late in the pregnancy. McCorvey is now a staunch pro-life supporter and blames all abortion clinic

violence on the pro-choice side. The fact is, however, that religious fanatics have murdered approximately 11 doctors who provided abortion services, bombed or set fire to more than 200 reproductive health care clinics since the mid-1970s, sent nearly 654 suspicious letters to reproductive health care clinics causing them to be shut down for days, and spilled Butyric acid in approximately 100 clinics. Butyric acid is a clear, odorless acid which makes humans sick and requires expensive, time consuming, clean up.

In 2008 McCorvey was arrested for protesting at the University of Notre Dame during the campaign debate of Barack Obama and again in 2009 during the confirmation hearing for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, both for their alleged pro-choice views.

THE LEGACY OF MCCORVEY AND ROE

Whatever your opinion is regarding the so-called “morality” behind abortion, we must understand that for someone in McCorvey’s place in the 1970s - scared, pregnant, uneducated and broke - it took great courage and strength to stand up to an entire edifice of anti-abortion laws.

Roe v. Wade paved the way for many women to procure, safe abortions by trained physicians in clean procedure rooms. Earlier it was mentioned that approximately 5,000 women a year died from unsafe abortions prior to Roe v. Wade. Today women still face harassment by religion fanatics at clinics even here in the Valley. Radical pro-life supporters spread lies about abortion claiming it undoubtedly leads to cancer.

From pretending to be male to assuming men’s responsibilities to excelling in male-dominated recreational sports to revolutionizing occupational medicine which leads to women’s rights, our women have been an integral part of the continually changing of mindset of and about women in America.