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MRS. HOFFMAN'S HODGEPODGE OF HISTORICAL FACTS
This blog was created in May of 2011, so several months do not have facts yet. They will be under construction until I reach that month.
Disclaimer - please keep in mind these facts are not listed in chronological order. Just as the page states - it is a hodgepodge of American History Facts. This month it's Women's History Month. For more information go to Women's History Month.
Think of this as a treasure hunt. You never know what delightful fact you might learn that day.
Enjoy
Mrs. Hoffman
March 1, 2012 - I figured since the Articles of Confederation were ratified today by the last of the original 13 colonies on this day in 1781, that I would pick a cool fact from the Articles to share. One of the most important aspects of the Articles is where it declares that each state shall remain sovereign. The states shall also come to each other's aid when needed.
March 2, 2012 - Today's tidbit of information is for Mrs. Cochrane - today is Dr. Seuss' birthday. He was born in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel. He attended Dartmouth College and was the editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, the college's humor magazine. This is when he first began to use the pseudonym of Seuss. To all those aspiring writers - his first book was rejected by 27 publishing houses before being picked up by Vanguard Press.
March 3, 2012 - Have you ever heard of Belle Boyd? She was a spy for the Confederacy who convinced Union officers to give over their military secrets. She would ride through the night to deliver messages to JEB Stuart and Stonewall Jackson. She was arrested more than 6 times and was even put into prison twice. Years later she married a Union officer and lived in England.
March 4, 2012 - Who was Mary Katherine Goddard? She was a businesswoman who lived from 1738-1816. She helped her brother run the Providence Gazette which was a weekly newspaper. She took charge of the Pennsylvania Chronicle in 1768. Of course she was never given credit for running those, but in 1774, she was finally on the masthead of the Maryland Journal. In 1777, she was given the order to print the first official copy of the Declaration of Independence with all 56 signers' names.
March 5, 2012 - Who is Annie Oakley? She was a sharpshooter who was born in 1860 in Ohio. She began hunting for food at a young age and soon was able to support her mother and other siblings by the money she made. She became famous when she went against Frank Butler. He lost after the 25th shot and eventually married Annie. She joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and was nicknamed "Little Sure Shot".
March 6, 2012 - Who is Mary Brant? Mary Brant was an Iroquois leader. During the Revolutionary War, she helped loyalists and passed information to the British. Forced to move to Cayuga, she continued to work with the Native Americans to keep them loyal to the British. After the war, she lived in Kingston and was given a large government pension.
March 7, 2012 - Have you ever wondered why Thomas Jefferson was chosen to write the Declaration of Independence? - According to John Adams, Jefferson was chosen to be part of the committee first. Jefferson proposed that Adams write it, but he did not want to write it. The members of the Congress had read some of Jefferson's works - one in particular - The Summary View of the Rights of British Americas - which he had written in Virginia. Britain named the author to be punished for sedition. The members of Congress felt Jefferson "brought with him a reputation for literature, science, and a happy talent for composition." The three reasons Adams lists are: 1 - He was from Virginia; 2 - Adams felt he himself was obnoxious, suspected and unpopular, but Jefferson was the opposite; and 3 - Jefferson wrote ten times better than him.
March 8, 2012 - where did the term Manifest Destiny come from? The phrase was coined by John O'Sullivan. Manifest Destiny is the belief that the white people in the United States feel that the US was destined to rule and manage the entire North American continent.
March 9, 2012 - the Embargo Act of 1807 - The United States could not transport weapons and freight. the embargo closed all American ports and controlled all imports and exports to resist Britain and France.
March 10, 2012 - Mary McLeod Bethune - she was the 15th of 17 children. Her parents were former slaves and she grew up during the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. She founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial School for Negro Girls in 1904. She was an educator and civil rights leader.
March 11, 2012 - Clare Boothe Luce was born in 1903 and hoped to become an actress some day like Mary Pickford. Instead she traveled Europe and began to work for women's suffrage and rights. She began writing and was the assistant editor of Vanity Fair. Later she married Harry Luce who founded Time and Fortune magazines. She wrote plays - one called "The Women" was a huge success. During WWII she traveled around Europe again and reported on what she saw. She ran for the House of Representatives in 1942 and won. Her life continued to break boundaries, even up until her death in 1987.
March 12, 2012 - Since it's Women's History Month, I thought it would nice to remember something written during the Revolutionary War on this day in 1776. A public notice declares "The necessity of taking all imaginable care of those who may happen to be wounded in the country's cause, urges us to address our humane ladies, to lend us their kind assistance in furnishing us with linen rags and old sheeting for bandages." The ladies were solicited to help with the wounded by preparing bandages from materials they had at home. Soldiers and others were asked to be good to the ladies who helped.
March 13, 2012 - Who was Christiana Campbell? If you travel to Williamsburg, you may visit her tavern and meet a wonderful interpreter who will recreate this lovely woman for you. But who is she? When her husband died in 1750, she opened the tavern. George Washington often dined here. The Masons often held balls at her establishment.
March 14, 2012 - Sojourner Truth was born a slave sometime around 1797. Her life story was dictated by a friend and called "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth - A Northern Slave.
March 15, 2012 - Mae Jemison was born on October 17, 1956. She was the first African American female woman to travel into space. She was on the Space Shuttle Endeavor on September 12, 1992. She holds 9 honorary doctorates in science, engineering, letters, and humanities.
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| actual pistol carried by female spy in Civil War |
March 16, 2012 - Sarah Edmonds disguised herself as a man and became a soldier for the Union Army under the name of Frank Thompson. She worked in a hospital and mail carrier. Then she became a spy in the South by pretending to be a woman (because she really was a woman, but no one knew). Later she wrote a book "Nurse and Spy in the Union Army" in 1865. She received a pension of $12 a month.
March 17, 2012 - the first St. Patrick's Day celebration in America happened in 1737. It took place in Boston. In 1762, the celebration spread to New York City. So, Happy St. Patrick's Day to all the leprechauns out there.
March 18, 2012 - Ever hear of Martha Jane Cannary? Probably not, but I bet you've heard of Calamity Jane. She was born in Princeton, Missouri on May 1, 1852. She moved around as a child - from Missouri to Utah to Wyoming. She was a scout for General George Custer. She was an excellent horsewoman and often wore the clothes of a man. She even became a rider for the Pony Express. She became good friends with Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. She died in 1903.
March 19, 2012 - This years marks the 100th anniversary of the cherry blossoms in Washington, DC so I decided to look them up. For many years Eliza Scidmore wrote to Congress about the lovely blooms and wanted to bring them to our country. It wasn't until David Fairchild, who worked for the Department of Agriculture was visiting Japan and spied them that the plans actually started. He was in charge of bringing foreign species of plants to the US. In 1902 he ordered 75 of the blooms and planted them on his Chevy Chase estate in Maryland. They flourished so in 1907 he ordered 450 more. DC schoolboys planted 150 of them for Arbor Day and the rest were planted in Maryland neighborhoods. Remember Eliza Scidmore? She wrote to First Lady Helen Taft who visited Japan. In 1909, 2,000 trees arrived from Japan but they had scale, rootgalls, and wood-boring insects and had to be destroyed. The mayor of Tokyo offered to replace them and sent 6,000 trees (that were thoroughly inspected) to DC. In 1912, they were shipped to DC and 3,020 were planted in DC, the rest were sent to New York. To reciprocate the kindness, the US sent pink dogwood trees and seeds to Japan, where they still thrive.
March 20, 2012 - Who was Clara Barton? She was the founder of the American Red Cross. She was born on December 25, 1821 in Massachusetts, the youngest of five children. She became a school teacher and opened a free public school in New Jersey. Her medical experience came from nursing her sick brother. She started raising money for supplies for the soldiers. Major General Butler appointed her Superintendent of Nurses and she started locating missing soldiers. In 1881, she founded the American Red Cross.
March 21, 2012 - What do we know about Mary Todd Lincoln? She was a Kentucky belle born in 1818. Many believed she was the power behind the man. During the Civil War, she was under suspicion because she was from the South and her brothers fought for the Confederacy. She had a difficult time when one son died. Another son was born with a cleft pallet and another was born with crossed eyes. she was thrown from a carriage and never felt quite right afterwards. The death of her husband practically destroyed her, and she spent several years traveling Europe. One she returned, she spent most of her life in seclusion.
March 22, 2012 - Sojourner Truth was an abolitionist, but more importantly she was born into slavery even though she was born in New York in 1787. Many people think slavery was only in the South, but many Northern states also had slavery (of course back in 1787, we were just beginning our journey as a country). The New York State Emancipation Act of 1827 made her a free woman. This is when she took on the name of Sojourner Truth (sojourn means to travel). She was the first woman to speak publicly about abolition. A brilliant speaker, she was able to rally people to her side through her passion. Her most famous speech is "Ain't I a Woman" which she made at the National Woman's Suffrage Convention in 1852. She died in 1883.
March 23, 2012 - Who was Charlotte Ray? She was a lawyer who was born in 1850. She applied to Howard University as CE Ray and was accepted. No one knew at the time she was a woman. In 1872, the graduated and was the first woman African American lawyer in the United States. She also became the first woman allowed to practice law in the District of Columbia. Many people would not come to her, so she moved to New York city and became a teacher. On the side she worked for equal rights for African American women and for women's suffrage.
March 24, 2012 - Ever wonder who wrote America the Beautiful? Katherine Lee Bates wrote the words in 1893 after she finished climbing 14,000 feet up Pikes Peak in Colorado. "Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain; for purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plane. America, American, God shed His grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea."
March 25, 2012 - Better working conditions were being fought for across the country. One event pushed for safety in factories. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City caught fire. Because the fire hose was rotted and the valve rusted, the fire could not be contained. Almost 50 people died in the fire. Only one stairwell worked. Only one elevator worked and it could only hold 12 people at a time. The owners had refused to install sprinklers. Reform began after this - the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law was passed.
March 26, 2012 - Sandra Day O'Connor was the first female Supreme Court Justice in the United States. Ronald Reagan appointed her in 1981 to serve on the Supreme Court. She has written two books: Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest which was a memoir of her life as a child. Her other book was called The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice which deals with her years as a justice of the supreme court. She was born in 1930 and is still alive today. She has retired from the Supreme Court in 2006.
March 27, 2012 - Rose O'Neal Greenhow was a Confederate spy. She was born in Maryland in 1817 and was nicknamed the "Wild Rose". She sent a 10 word secret message to General Pierce Beauregard that helped him win the Battle of Bull Run. She was sent to the Old Capital Prison but she kept getting messages to the Confederacy. She toured Europe to convince the people to support the South. She even met Queen Victoria and became engaged to the Earl of Granville. While traveling back to the United States, her ship was capsized and she drowned, pulled down by the weight of the gold she held.
March 28, 2012 - Edith Wharton - she is the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. She won for the book "The Age of Innocence" which was a book about upper-class New Yorkers and how they lived. The book was turned into many plays and even movies.
March 29, 2012 - Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867 in Pepin, Wisconsin. Most people know her as the author of the Little House on the Prairie series. She became a teacher and wrote about her life living with her parents and sisters.
March 30, 2012 - Virginia Apgar - So why does this name sound familiar? Think of the Apgar score every newborn is given. She created this in 1949 - a five-category observation-based assessment of newborn health. The score includes - appearance (skin color), pulse (heart rate), grimace (reflex irritability), activity (muscle tone), and respiration (breathing).
March 31, 2012 - On this late day of March, Women's History Month, I thought Sally Ride would be the perfect woman to report. Sally Ride - the first woman to travel into space. She beat out 1000 other applicants to win a spot in the astronaut program. She went into space on June 18, 1983 on the Challenger shuttle. She received degrees in physics and English in 1973, then earned a masters in physics in 1975, and finally a Ph.D. in 1978. She was also the youngest person to travel into space at the age of 32.
We end Women's History Month with the knowledge anything is possible for women in this world. Dare to dream big and not just anything in the world is possible, but anything in the universe as well.
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