Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mocking Bird” turns 50

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.  They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” – Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird

I clearly remember 8th grade reading assignments being anything but interesting, until “To Kill a Mockingbird” was assigned. Even for our developing minds, the narrative and deep set humanity of the book touched us, or at least I can say it touched me. Recently, I decided to look for my old copy and was saddened by its disappearance. So I sit here, typing, looking at the copy I picked up at the used book store with a strange cover I’ve never seen.There is something nostalgic for me about the cover I stared at wondering about whild trying to pay attention in english class(shown above.)  And maybe someday, I’ll find my old, whethered and much loved copy.

Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, AL in 1926. She was the youngest of 4 and childhood friends with Truman Capote, whom she later helped write In Cold Blood. She attended Alabama University and studied law, but dropped out 6 months early to pursue a literary career.

In 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was published. It was a momentous success and within a year, it had been translated into 10 languages. In 1961 it won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. I 1962, it was adapted to the screen, causing its popularity to grow to new heights.

The themes will remain in our hearts until we can no longer identify with what it feels like for a child to experience injustice. I hope you pick it up again. It’s worth it.

Joan of Arc: One Very Rebellious Teenager…

HISTORY OF JOAN OF ARC

Insistent voices: AD 1428-1429

A sixteen-year-old peasant girl, growing up and tending the cattle at Domrémy, has for some years been hearing voices. She sometimes sees the speakers, and recognizes them as St Michael, St Catherine and St Margaret. But in this winter of 1428-9 they have been giving her a very specific instruction. She must raise the siege of Orléans so that the king of France, Charles VII, can go to Reims to be anointed in the cathedral.

The girl is Jeanne Darc, known in English as Joan of Arc. Her voices reflect a shrewd political perception which no one but she, it seems, has appreciated.

This perception relates to the common people’s idea of their king. Thanks to a long tradition, much fostered in the previous century by Charles V, it is believed that each French king acquires a divine quality once he is anointed with the sacred oil from the Sainte Ampoule at Reims.

At present, in the middle of the Hundred Years’ War, there are two rival claimants to the French crown. One is Henry VI, the young king of England, whose forces – in alliance with the Burgundians – control the entire north of France, including Reims itself. The other is Charles VII, king by rightful descent but a weak figure, confined to the region round Bourges.

Neither of these claimants has been anointed – Henry VI because he is a child of seven in England, Charles VII because he cannot get to Reims.

Joan sees with the clarity of passionate faith that if Charles can fight his way to Reims to be consecrated, France will have a king again. This becomes her mission. But first she must reach Charles himself. Dressed in a man’s clothes, with six male companions, she travels for eleven days to Chinon. It is two more days before her request to see Charles VII is granted. (He is often still referred to as the dauphin at this stage; he has been crowned at Poitiers in 1422, but Joan does not yet consider him a proper king).

American Women Suffrage Anniversary!

One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview

Compiled by E. Susan Barber

---

1776

Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John, who is attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, asking that he and the other men–who were at work on the Declaration of Independence–”Remember the Ladies.” John responds with humor. The Declaration’s wording specifies that “all men are created equal.”

1820 to 1880

Evidence from a variety of printed sources published during this period–advice manuals, poetry and literature, sermons, medical texts–reveals that Americans, in general, held highly stereotypical notions about women’s and men’s roles in society. Historians would later term this phenomenon “The Cult of Domesticity.”

1821

Emma Hart Willard founds the Troy Female Seminary in New York–the first endowed school for girls.

1833

Oberlin College becomes the first coeducational college in the United States. In 1841, Oberlin awards the first academic degrees to three women. Early graduates include Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown.

1836

Sarah Grimké begins her speaking career as an abolitionist and a women’s rights advocate. She is eventually silenced by male abolitionists who consider her public speaking a liability.

1837

The first National Female Anti-Slavery Society convention meets in New York City. Eighty-one delegates from twelve states attend.

1837

Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, eventually the first four-year college exclusively for women in the United States. Mt. Holyoke was followed by Vassar in 1861, and Wellesley and Smith Colleges, both in 1875. In 1873, the School Sisters of Notre Dame found a school in Baltimore, Maryland, which would eventually become the nation’s first college for Catholic women.

1839

Mississippi passes the first Married Woman’s Property Act.

1844

Female textile workers in Massachusetts organize the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) and demand a 10-hour workday. This was one of the first permanent labor associations for working women in the United States.

1848

The first women’s rights convention in the United States is held in Seneca Falls, New York. Many participants sign a “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” that outlines the main issues and goals for the emerging women’s movement. Thereafter, women’s rights meetings are held on a regular basis.

1849

Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. Over the next ten years she leads many slaves to freedom by the Underground Railroad.

1850

Amelia Jenks Bloomer launches the dress reform movement with a costume bearing her name. The Bloomer costume was later abandoned by many suffragists who feared it detracted attention from more serious women’s rights issues.

1851

Former slave Sojourner Truth delivers her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech before a spellbound audience at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio.

1852

Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which rapidly becomes a bestseller.

1859

The successful vulcanization of rubber provides women with reliable condoms for the first time. The birth rate in the United States continues its downward, century-long spiral. By the late 1900s, women will raise an average of only two to three children, in contrast to the five or six children they raised at the beginning of the century.

1861 to 65

The American Civil War disrupts suffrage activity as women, North and South, divert their energies to “war work.” The War itself, however, serves as a “training ground,” as women gain important organizational and occupational skills they will later use in postbellum organizational activity.

1865 to 1880

Southern white women create Confederate memorial societies to help preserve the memory of the “Lost Cause.” This activity propels many white Southern women into the public sphere for the first time. During this same period, newly emancipated Southern black women form thousands of organizations aimed at “uplifting the race.”

1866

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the American Equal Rights Association, an organization for white and black women and men dedicated to the goal of universal suffrage.

1868

The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, which extends to all citizens the protections of the Constitution against unjust state laws. This Amendment was the first to define “citizens” and “voters” as “male.”

1869

The women’s rights movement splits into two factions as a result of disagreements over the Fourteenth and soon-to-be-passed Fifteenth Amendments. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the more radical, New York-based National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe organize the more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which is centered in Boston. In this same year, the Wyoming territory is organized with a woman suffrage provision. In 1890, Wyoming was admitted to the Union with its suffrage provision intact.

1870

The Fifteenth Amendment enfranchises black men. NWSA refuses to work for its ratification, arguing, instead, that it be “scrapped” in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment providing universal suffrage. Frederick Douglass breaks with Stanton and Anthony over NWSA’s position.

1870 to 1875

Several women–including Virginia Louisa Minor, Victoria Woodhull, and Myra Bradwell–attempt to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the courts to secure the vote (Minor and Woodhull) or the right to practice law (Bradwell). They all are unsuccessful.

1872

Susan B. Anthony is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York, for attempting to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot; she is turned away.

1874

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded by Annie Wittenmyer. With Frances Willard at its head (1876), the WCTU became an important force in the fight for woman suffrage. Not surprisingly, one of the most vehement opponents to women’s enfranchisement was the liquor lobby, which feared women might use the franchise to prohibit the sale of liquor.

1878

A Woman Suffrage Amendment is introduced in the United States Congress. The wording is unchanged in 1919, when the amendment finally passes both houses.

1890

The NWSA and the AWSA are reunited as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. During this same year, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr found Hull House, a settlement house project in Chicago’s 19th Ward. Within one year, there are more than a hundred settlement houses–largely operated by women–throughout the United States. The settlement house movement and the Progressive campaign of which it was a part propelled thousands of college-educated white women and a number of women of color into lifetime careers in social work. It also made women an important voice to be reckoned with in American politics.

1891

Ida B. Wells launches her nation-wide anti-lynching campaign after the murder of three black businessmen in Memphis, Tennessee.

1893

Hannah Greenbaum Solomon founds the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) after a meeting of the Jewish Women’s Congress at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. In that same year, Colorado becomes the first state to adopt a state amendment enfranchising women.

1895

Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes The Woman’s Bible. After its publication, NAWSA moves to distance itself from this venerable suffrage pioneer because many conservative suffragists considered her to be too radical and, thus, potentially damaging to the suffrage campaign. From this time, Stanton–who had resigned as NAWSA president in 1892–was no longer invited to sit on the stage at NAWSA conventions.

1896

Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Margaret Murray Washington, Fanny Jackson Coppin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Charlotte Forten Grimké, and former slave Harriet Tubman meet in Washington, D.C. to form the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).

1903

Mary Dreier, Rheta Childe Dorr, Leonora O’Reilly, and others form the Women’s Trade Union League of New York, an organization of middle- and working-class women dedicated to unionization for working women and to woman suffrage. This group later became a nucleus of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU).

1911

The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) is organized. Led by Mrs. Arthur Dodge, its members included wealthy, influential women and some Catholic clergymen–including Cardinal Gibbons who, in 1916, sent an address to NAOWS’s convention in Washington, D.C. In addition to the distillers and brewers, who worked largely behind the scenes, the “antis” also drew support from urban political machines, Southern congressmen, and corporate capitalists–like railroad magnates and meatpackers–who supported the “antis” by contributing to their “war chests.”

1912

Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive (Bull Moose/Republican) Party becomes the first national political party to adopt a woman suffrage plank.

1913

Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union, later known as the National Women’s Party (1916). Borrowing the tactics of the radical, militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in England, members of the Woman’s Party participate in hunger strikes, picket the White House, and engage in other forms of civil disobedience to publicize the suffrage cause.

1914

The National Federation of Women’s Clubs–which by this time included more than two million white women and women of color throughout the United States–formally endorses the suffrage campaign.

1916

NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt unveils her “winning plan” for suffrage victory at a convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Catt’s plan required the coordination of activities by a vast cadre of suffrage workers in both state and local associations.

1916

Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first American woman elected to represent her state in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1918 to 1920

The Great War (World War I) intervenes to slow down the suffrage campaign as some–but not all–suffragists decide to shelve their suffrage activism in favor of “war work.” In the long run, however, this decision proves to be a prudent one as it adds yet another reason to why women deserve the vote.

August 26, 1920

The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified. Its victory accomplished, NAWSA ceases to exist, but its organization becomes the nucleus of the League of Women Voters.

1923

The National Woman’s Party first proposes the Equal Rights Amendment to eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender. It has never been ratified.

Sources:
William H. Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970; Nancy Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism; Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860; Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America; Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States, rev. ed.; Debra Franklin, The Heritage We Claim: College of Notre Dame of Maryland, 1896-1996; National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Collection, Rare Books Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Anne Firor Scott and Andrew Scott, One Half the People: The Fight for Woman Suffrage; “From Parlor to Politics,” permanent exhibit at the Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and Dorothy Sterling, ed. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. Zophy, Angela Howard and Frances M. Kavenik, eds. Handbook of American Women’s History.

International Women’s Suffrage

Some countries in this list will make you proud, and some, very very angry. Switzerland did not allow women to vote in national elections until 1971! But in a very wonderful way, look at Massachusetts! 1756. How disappointing that our nation’s revolution took that right away. And sadly, there are still countries where women cannot vote today. See the list below. [And one very big disclaimer: this list did come from Wiki. I looked all over for a comprehensive list and came up empty handed. I have verified as much as possible and listed references below. And do feel free to look further into this topic on your own.]

18th century

• 1718
  • Sweden Female taxpaying members of the citite’s guilds are allowed to vote in local elections (rescinded in 1758) and general elections (rescinded in the new constitution of 1771) ^[2].
• 1755
  • Corsica (rescinded upon annexation by France in 1769)
• 1756-1778
  • Colonial Massachusetts, Lydia Taft, Uxbridge, Massachusetts town meeting
• 1776
  • New Jersey (rescinded in 1807)

19th century

• 1838
  • Pitcairn Islands
• 1861
  • South Australia (Only property-owning women for local elections, universal franchise in 1894)
• 1862
  • Sweden (only in local elections, votes graded after taxation, universal franchise in 1918, which went into effect at the 1921 elections)
• 1864
  • Women in Victoria, Australia were unintentionally enfranchised by the Electoral Act (1863), and proceeded to vote in the following year’s elections. The Act was amended in 1865 to correct the error.^[3]
• 1869
  • United Kingdom (only in local elections, universal franchise in 1928)
• 1869-1920
  • States and territories of the USA, progressively, starting with the Wyoming Territory in 1869 and the Utah Territory in 1870, though the latter was repealed by the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887. Wyoming acquired statehood in 1890 (Utah in 1896), allowing women to cast votes in federal elections. The United States as a whole acquired women’s suffrage in 1920 (see below) through the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; voting qualifications in the U.S., even in federal elections, are set by the states, and this amendment prohibited states from discriminating on the basis of sex.

Statue of Esther Hobart Morris in front of the Wyoming State Capitol

• 1881
  • Isle of Man (only property-owners until 1913, universal franchise in 1919.)
• 1884
  • Canada Widows and spinsters granted the right to vote within municipalities in Ontario (later to other provinces).^[4]
• 1886
  • Republic of Tavolara grants universal suffrage.^[5][6] Monarchy restored 1899.
• 1889
  • Franceville grants universal suffrage.^[7] Loses self-rule within months.
• 1893
  • New Zealand September 19 (including Maori women, although barred from standing for election.)
  • Cook Islands
• 1894
  • South Australia grants universal suffrage, extending the franchise to all women (property-owners could vote in local elections from 1861), the first in Australia to do so. Women are also granted the right to stand for parliament, making South Australia the first in the world to do so.
  • United Kingdom extends right to vote in local elections to married women.
• 1899
  • Western Australia

20th century

1900s

• 1902
  • Commonwealth of Australia (The Australian Constitution gave the federal franchise to all persons allowed to vote for the lower house in each state unless the Commonwealth Parliament stipulated otherwise. Thus, South Australian and Western Australian women could vote in the first federal election in 1901. During the first Parliament, the Commonwealth passed legislation extending federal franchise to non-Aboriginal women in all states.)
  • New South Wales
• 1903
  • Tasmania
• 1905
  • Queensland
• 1906
  • Finland First country to give both the right to vote and stand for elections. First country to give both rights to all women regardless of wealth, race or social class.^{[citation needed]}
  • New Hebrides Perhaps inspired by the Franceville experiment, the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides granted women the right to vote in municipal elections and to serve on elected municipal councils. (These rights applied only to British, French, and other colonists, not to indigenous islanders.)^[8]

The argument over women’s rights in Victoria was lampooned in this Melbourne Punch cartoon of 1887

• 1908
  • Denmark (only in local elections)
  • Victoria

1910s

• 1913
  • Norway
• 1915
  • Denmark (full voting rights, with Iceland)
• 1916
  • Canada (Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan only, others later on)
• 1918
  • Azerbaijan
  • Austria
  • Canada on federal level (last province to enact women’s suffrage was Quebec in 1940)
  • Estonia
  • Germany
  • Latvia
  • Poland
  • Russian SFSR
  • United Kingdom (see Representation of the People Act 1918: women above the age of 30, compared to 21 for men and 19 for those who had fought in World War One. Various property qualifications remained.)
• 1919
  • Belarus^{[citation needed]}
  • Belgium (only at municipal level)
  • Georgia
  • Hungary (full suffrage granted in 1945)
  • Luxembourg
  • Netherlands (right to stand in election granted in 1917)
  • New Zealand (along with voting rights, women now allowed to stand for election into parliament)
  • Ukraine

1920s

• 1920
  • Albania
  • Czechoslovakia
  • United States (all remaining states)
• 1921
  • Lithuania
  • Romania (with restrictions)
  • Sweden
• 1922
  • Irish Free State – now known as the Republic of Ireland – (equal suffrage granted upon independence from UK. Partial suffrage granted as part of UK in 1869 and 1918)
  • Burma
  • Yucatán, Mexico (regional and congress elections only)
• 1924
  • Ecuador
  • Mongolia (No electoral system in place prior to this year)
  • Saint Lucia
  • Tajik SSR
• 1925
  • Italy (local elections only)
  • Dominion of Newfoundland – franchise only at age 25, men could vote at age 21
• 1927
  • Turkmen SSR
• 1928
  • United Kingdom (franchise equal to that for men)
• 1929
  • Puerto Rico (to vote)

1930s

• 1930
  • South Africa (only granted to white women on the same basis as white men; black women did not qualify for the vote even though some black men did)
  • Turkey
• 1931
  • Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
  • Chile (only at municipal level for female owners of real estate; Legislative Decree No. 320)
  • Portugal (with restrictions following level of education)
  • Spain
• 1932
  • Brazil – Berta Lutz
  • Maldives
  • Thailand (Siam)
  • Uruguay
• 1934
  • Chile (only at municipal level; Law No. 5,357)
  • Cuba
  • Portugal expands suffrage
  • Turkey expands suffrage
  • Tabasco, Mexico (regional and congress elections only)
• 1935
  • British Raj (same year as men) (Retained by India and Pakistan after independence in 1947).
  • Myanmar (Burma)
• 1937
  • Philippines
• 1938
  • Bolivia
  • Uzbek SSR
• 1939
  • El Salvador

1940s

• 1940
  • Quebec becomes the final Canadian province to give female suffrage.
• 1941
  • Panama (with restrictions)
• 1942
  • Dominican Republic
• 1944
  • Bermuda (property-holding whites only)
  • Bulgaria
  • Jamaica
• 1945
  • France (October 21)
  • Indonesia (Dutch East Indies)
  • Italy ^[9]
  • Japan (with restrictions)
  • Senegal
  • Togo (French Togoland)
  • Yugoslavia
• 1946
  • Cameroon
  • Djibouti (French Somaliland)
  • Guatemala
  • Kenya
  • North Korea[1]
  • Liberia (Americo women only; indigenous men and women were not enfranchised until 1951)
  • The British Mandate of Palestine
  • Portugal expands suffrage
  • Romania (with restrictions)
  • Venezuela
  • Vietnam
• 1947
  • Argentina
  • Republic of China (includes Taiwan) (with restrictions)
  • Malta
  • Mexico (only at municipal level)
  • Nepal
  • Pakistan (Pakistan declared independence on the 14th of August 1947)
  • Singapore
• 1948
  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN includes Article 21: The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
  • Belgium
  • Israel (Upon its establishment)
  • Iraq
  • South Korea
  • Niger
  • Dutch Guiana (now Suriname)
• 1949
  • Chile (right expanded to all elections on January 8 by Law No. 9,292)
  • People’s Republic of China
  • Costa Rica
  • Syria

1950s

• 1950
  • Barbados
  • Haiti
  • India (Same year as men)
• 1951
  • Antigua and Barbuda
  • Dominica
  • Grenada
  • Nepal
  • Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla
  • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• 1952
  • United Nations enacts Convention on the Political Rights of Women
  • Bolivia
  • Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
  • Greece
  • Lebanon
• 1953
  • Bhutan
  • British Guiana (now Guyana)
  • Hungary
  • Mexico (extended to all women and for national elections)
• 1954
  • British Honduras (now Belize)
  • Colombia
  • Gold Coast (now Ghana)
• 1955
  • Cambodia
  • Ethiopia (and Eritrea, as then a part of Ethiopia)
  • Honduras
  • Nicaragua
  • Peru
• 1956
  • Dahomey (now Benin)
  • Comoros
  • Egypt
  • Gabon
  • Mali (French Sudan)
  • Mauritius
  • Pakistan (right extended to national level, previously only literate women could vote[2])
  • Somalia (British Somaliland)
• 1957
  • Malaya (now Malaysia)
  • Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
• 1958
  • Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso)
  • Chad
  • Guinea
  • Laos
  • Nigeria-South-
• 1959
  • Brunei
  • Madagascar (Malagasy Republic)
  • San Marino
  • Tanganyika (now Tanzania)
  • Tunisia

1960s

• 1960
  • Cyprus
  • Gambia
  • Tonga
• 1961
  • Burundi
  • Mauritania
  • Malawi
  • Paraguay
  • Rwanda
  • Sierra Leone
• 1962
  • Algeria
  • Australia: franchise extended to Aboriginal men and women.
  • Brunei Revoked (including men)
  • Monaco
  • Uganda
  • Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia)
• 1963
  • Congo
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Fiji
  • Iran (See Iranian constitutional referendum, 1963)
  • Kenya
  • Morocco
• 1964
  • Bahamas
  • Libya
  • Papua New Guinea (Territory of Papua & Territory of New Guinea)
  • Sudan
• 1965
  • Afghanistan (revoked under Taliban rule 1996-2001) ^[10]
  • Botswana (Bechuanaland)
  • Lesotho (Basutoland)
• 1967
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Kiribati (Gilbert Islands)
  • Tuvalu (Ellice Islands)
  • South Yemen
• 1968
  • Bermuda (universal)
  • Nauru
  • Portugal claims to have established “equality of political rights for men and women”, although a few electoral rights were reserved for men
  • Swaziland

1970s

• 1970
  • Andorra
  • Yemen (North Yemen)
• 1971
  • Switzerland (on the federal level; introduced on the Cantonal level from 1958-1990)
• 1972
  • Bangladesh
• 1974
  • Jordan
  • Portugal (all restrictions were lifted)
  • Solomon Islands
• 1975
  • Angola
  • Cape Verde
  • Mozambique
  • São Tomé and Príncipe
  • Vanuatu (New Hebrides)
• 1977
  • Guinea-Bissau
• 1978
  • Marshall Islands
  • Micronesia
  • Moldavian SSR
  • Nigeria-North-
  • Palau

1980s

• 1984
  • Liechtenstein
• 1986
  • Central African Republic
• 1989
  • Namibia (South-West Africa)

1990s

• 1990
  • Samoa (Western Samoa)
  • Switzerland (the Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden is forced by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland to accept women’s suffrage)
• 1994
  • Kazakhstan^{[clarification needed]}
  • South Africa: franchise extended to black men and women.
• 1997
  • Qatar (municipal elections in 1999)

21st century

• 2002
  • Bahrain (Bahrain did not hold elections prior to 2002^[11])
• 2003
  • Oman
• 2005
  • Kuwait
  • Qatar (national elections in 2010)
• 2006
  • United Arab Emirates (limited; to be expanded by 2010)

Countries where women have limited or no voting rights today:

* Bhutan – One vote per house. Although this applies to both men and women, in practice it currently prevents many more women from voting than men. If the new proposed constitution is voted and ratified, then no restrictions will apply by 2008.

* Lebanon – Partial suffrage. Proof of elementary education is required for women but not for men. Voting is compulsory for men but optional for women.

* Brunei – No suffrage for women. Neither men nor women have had the right to vote or to stand for election since 1962 because the country is governed by an absolute monarchy.

* Saudi Arabia – No suffrage for women. The first local elections ever held in the country occurred in 2005. Women were not given the right to vote or to stand for election.

* United Arab Emirates – Limited, but will be fully expanded by 2010.

* Vatican City – No suffrage for women; while most men in the Vatican also lack the vote, all persons with suffrage in Papal conclaves (the Cardinals) are male.

References

1. ^ * Åsa Karlsson-Sjögren: “Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten : medborgarskap och representation 1723-1866″ (Men, women and the vote: citizenship and representation 1723-1866) (in Swedish)
2. ^ * Åsa Karlsson-Sjögren: “Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten : medborgarskap och representation 1723-1866″ (Men, women and the vote: citizenship and representation 1723-1866) (in Swedish)
3. ^ Women in Parliament – Parliament of Victoria
4. ^ Canada-WomensVote-WomenSuffrage
5. ^ “Smallest State in the World,” New York Times, June 19, 1896, p 6
6. ^ “Tiny Nation to Vote: Smallest Republic in the World to Hold a Presidential Election,” Lowell Daily Sun, Sep 17, 1896
7. ^ “Wee, Small Republics: A Few Examples of Popular Government,” Hawaiian Gazette, Nov 1, 1895, p 1
8. ^ Bourdiol, Julien (1908), Condition internationale des Nouvelles-Hebrides, p 106
9. ^ (Italian) Extension to the women of the right to vote
10. ^ Woman Suffrage Timeline International – Winning the Vote Around the World
11. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/bahrain/1411264/Bahrains-women-vote-for-first-time.html

• http://www.hist.uu.se/historikermote05/program/Politik/52_Karlsson_Sjogren.pdf
• Åsa Karlsson-Sjögren: “Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten : medborgarskap och representation 1723-1866″ (Men, women and the vote: citizenship and representation 1723-1866) (in Swedish)

Happy Birthday Coco Chanel!!!

Chanel: The Early Years

from Scandalous Women by Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

Today marks the birthday of one of the most influential women in the history of the fashion industry, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. Her clothes are iconic, the interlocking C’s, spectator pumps, knit suits, the little quilted black bag, the perfume Chanel No. 5. Chanel is probably one of the most knocked off designers on the planet; just take a visit down to Canal Street in New York where you can buy an imitation Chanel bag for a song. Her name came to mean female emancipation and feminine allure. She was the only fashion designer to be named on TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Before her death she was even the subject of a Broadway musical, Coco starring Katherine Hepburn as Chanel.

Chanel was not the first woman designer to break into the male dominated world of fashion in Paris, Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin were already designing by the time Chanel opened her first milliner’s shop. The first major fashion house was created by an Englishmen Charles Worth. He was soon joined by Jacques Doucet and finally Paul Poiret, the man who released women from the straightjacket of the corset early in the 20th century. But Chanel was the first designer to use ordinary fabrics such as jersey, and flannel that were normally associated with the working classes in her designs, and the first to use design element usually found in men’s clothing such as open collared shirts, and men’s ties.

Like many Scandalous Women, Chanel was a master of reinvention. Along the way, she disavowed anyone who knew the true story of her early life. Chanel was born on August 19, 1884 in a hospice to Albert Chanel, an itinerant peddler and Jeanne Devolle. Her parents were not married, making her illegitimate, a fact that she kept hidden out of embarrassment. She was named Gabrielle Bonheur after the nun who took care of her mother. When she was 11, her mother died suddenly and her father disappeared from her life for good. None of Chanel’s relatives were interested in taking in five children, so they were quickly separated; Chanel and her sisters were sent to an orphanage run by nuns in Aubazine, while her two brothers were sent to a work farm. Chanel would later claim that she had been raised by maiden aunts who were cruel to her. Chanel and her sisters lived at the convent for six years, during which Chanel learned how to sew, but it was her Aunt Louise who Chanel spent time with during school holidays who taught her how to sew with imagination..

New “Secret History” Mini-series by Oliver Stone

From the NY Daily News:

Oliver Stone has a secret . . . or ten.

The Academy Award-winning director is shooting a ten part nonfiction series for Showtime about “secret” events in U.S. history.

“Oliver Stone’s Secret History of America,” debuting in 2010, covers topics from the reasons behind the Cold War with the U.S.S.R. and changes in America’s global role since the fall of Communism to President Harry Truman’s difficult decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945.

Showtime says the project examines events that were “at the time under-reported, but crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history.”

Stone believes the series will become “the deepest contribution I could ever make in film to my children and the next generation,” he said in a statement to Reuters. “I can only hope a change in our thinking will result.”

The 62-year-old won a Purple Heart for his military service in Vietnam, and drew praise for his Oscar-winning war films “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July”.

But his historical takes in the feature film “JFK” and his Fidel Castro documentary “Comandante” drew criticism, with some slamming his material for being opinionated or flat-out imaginative.

Stone’s last foray into political movies, “W,” about President George W. Bush, opened in 2008 just weeks before the last U.S. presidential election.

He’s currently filming a sequel to his 1987 hit “Wall Street,” which highlighted the greed and corruption behind the stock market and financial industry.

Stone has been working on his “Secret History” series for almost two years, and will narrate each 60-minute episode. An air date for the debut has not been set yet.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2009/08/20/2009-08-20_in_.html#ixzz0OjVLf8J6

And The Pursuit of Happiness…

Below, find the beginning of a wonderful blog from Maira Kalman of the New York Times. She is a gifted and hilarious writer. Click any of the images to be taken to the blog to read it in its entirety. I now officially have a huge crush on her and thank her for making history that much sexier!

Fountain of Youth?

Fountain of Youth—Just Wishful Thinking?

By Willie Drye at National Geographic

During his twilight years, American author Mark Twain noted that “life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18.”

Enlarge

Painting of the mythical Fountain of Youth

Photograph by Fine Art Photographic Library/CORBIS

Twain’s quip was only one of many complaints about aging that have been recorded for as long as humans have dreaded the downside of a long life. The ancient Greek poet Homer called old age “loathsome,” and William Shakespeare termed it “hideous winter.”

So it’s not hard to understand why there have always been hopes and rumors that something soon to be discovered—magic waters, say, or maybe stem cell research—will do away with old age.

Alexander the Great, who conquered most of the known world before he died around 323 B.C., may have been looking for a river that healed the ravages of age. During the 12th century A.D., a king known to Europeans as Prester John supposedly ruled a land that had a river of gold and a fountain of youth.

But the name linked most closely to the search for a fountain of youth is 16th-century Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, who allegedly thought it would be found in Florida. In St. Augustine, the oldest city in the U.S., there’s a tourist attraction dating back a century that purports—albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way—to be the fountain of youth that Ponce de Leon discovered soon after he arrived in what is now Florida in 1513.

There are a couple of problems with labeling St. Augustine’s natural spring as Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth, however. Elderly visitors who drink the spring’s sulfur-smelling water don’t turn into teenagers. And Ponce de Leon probably wasn’t looking for such a fountain and may not have set foot near present-day St. Augustine. Many historians now think he came ashore about 140 miles (225 kilometers) farther south near present-day Melbourne.

The Thrill of the Chase?

But the tale of the search for a fountain of youth is so appealing that it survives anyway, says Ryan K. Smith, a professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

“People are more intrigued by the story of looking and not finding than they are by the idea that the fountain might be out there somewhere,” Smith says.

No original documents survive from Ponce de Leon’s Florida expedition. Spanish historians writing long after he died in 1521 may have created the story that he was seeking the fountain to make fun of him because he was an old man who wanted to restore his sexual vigor, Smith says.

Still, a few grains of truth have helped sustain the story. Kathleen Deagan, a professor of archaeology at the University of Florida in Gainesville and a National Geographic Society grantee, says a cemetery and the remains of a Spanish mission dating back to St. Augustine’s founding in 1565 have been discovered near the so-called fountain of youth.

“It’s always been interesting and ironic that the site is, in fact, one of the most important historical sites in Florida,” Deagan says.

Michelle Reyna, a spokesperson for the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park in St. Augustine, says the fountain has been a tourist attraction since at least 1901 and may have been attracting visitors since 1860.

JOHN ADAMS-Declaration of Independence-Drafting in 1776

I just started watching this mini-series and am in LOVE. We were still sitting on the edge of our seats after 2 1/2 hours of disk one. Here is a great moment between Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.

more about “JOHN ADAMS-Declaration of Independenc…“, posted with vodpod

Who Killed Pocahontas?

I loved this little bit from History Confidential by Bacall. Do enjoy!

We all have heard or seen a movie about the notorious love affair between Pocahontas and John Smith. Well the story didn’t quite happen the way we’ve heard or seen in movies. Legend has it that Pocahontas saved John Smith from native warriors who were about to club him to death. The story goes that Pocahontas ran to John Smith, cradled his head in her arms, and the warriors let him live. This is questioned by historians as this story is nowhere to found in John Smith’s journals. As far as them having a love affair shortly after this incident may not be true, as Pocahontas is believed to have been just twelve at the time (1607) and John Smith was twenty nine. What apparently happened though was that Pocahontas developed a girl crush on the dashing John Smith. It is known that Pocahontas did visit the Jamestown settlement frequently. Evidently she had a crush on him as she stopped visiting the settlement when John Smith went back to England in 1609.

In 1612 Pocahontas was taken captive by the Englishmen. She asked about John Smith and was told he had died. She was told this lie by John Rolfe who unbeknownst to her wanted her for himself. And in 1614 John Rolfe married her, she learned English, and was given the Christian name of Rebecca. In 1616 she accompanied her husband to England and it is here she finds out that John Smith is in fact alive, is married and has several children. Her husband John lied to her.  John Smith went to see Rebecca and according to a note in his journal, it was a quick visit, and Rebecca was not well. He said: “After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face as not seeming well contented and in that humor…we all left her…”

The day she, her son and husband were going to return to America, at the age of 21, Rebecca lapsed into a coma and died. But what killed her? Was it a broken heart? Did her husband speak the truth when he said Rebecca developed a fever the same day of her departure? Or was she murdered by a husband who became consumed with jealously? We will never know. The answer lies in an unmarked grave in St. George Church cemetery, located some twenty miles east of London.