Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan’s early life and career were far from revolutionary. She was a college-educated housewife, mother of three children, and writer for women’s magazines. For her 15th college reunion, Friedan sent a questionnaire to members of her class (all women), asking them to describe their lives after college. Their surprising answers inspired her to write The Feminine Mystique, a book that ignited the women’s-liberation movement in 1963.

Friedan’s research revealed that many American women were not as happy as people told them they should be. Contrary to popular belief some women did not find fulfillment as housewives and mothers. The Feminine Mystique was an instant best-seller.
In 1966, Friedan was one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW). As NOW’s president, she fought for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), legalization of abortions, and better job opportunities for women.

In 1971, she helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus to encourage women to seek public office. A decade later, in 1981, Friedan looked at the progress of the women’s movement in her book The Second Stage. She stressed the important of family life for women and urged that more men be brought into the movement.

In 1993’s The Fountain of Age, Friedan wrote about discrimination against older people.

Wordless: The Battle of the Somme

Today in history…..

The Battle of the Somme ended on November 18, 1916. The Somme Offensive was one of the largest and longest battles during World War I….the battle raged from July 1 through November 18th.

Cashing in at 1.5 million casualties it is one of the most bloodiest military operations ever recorded.

The Wordless Wednesday hub can be found here

John James Audubon

In long hair and buckskin clothes, John James Audubon looked like other men on the American frontier in the early 1800s. But Audubon had a unique occupation. His work was the lifelike painting of birds and other wildlife in their natural surroundings.

Born on the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo, Audubon was the son of a French trader. He went to school in France, where he learned to paint. In 1803, he came to the uNited DStates to stud farming, but instead spent most of his time in the woods, oobserving and sketching birds and wildlife. Soon Audubon set himself an ambitious goal: to paint America’s bird in realistic settings. He traveled widely searching for birds and painting them. Eventuall, he made New Orleans his home painting portraits to help support his family while continuing to add to his great bird project.

Audubon made the first “banding” experiments on wild birds. He tied threads around their legs when they were babies and later tracked their nesting habits.

No American publisher was interested in Audubon’s work, but a publisher in Scotland recognized his genius. Birds of America was published in four large volumes beginning in 1827. It made Audubon famous. In the 1840s, two volumes of his studies of mammals appeared, adding to his reputation as a superb artist and pioneering naturalist.

The Liberty Bell

On July 8, 17776, a pealing bell in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House announced the first public reading of the declaration of Independence. Today, that iron bell is known as the Liberty Bell, and it is a treasured symbol of the nation’s devotion to freedom.

The Liberty Bell was made in England and shipped to Philadelphia in 1752. Inscribed on the bell were these words: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” But the first time the bell was tested, it cracked. It was recast and then hung in the State House, which was renamed Independence Hall after the Declaration of Independence was signed there. During the Revolution, the bell was hidden under the floor of a church in Allentown, Pennsylvania to keep it safe. After the war, it was rehung in Independence Hall and rung on important occasisions.

In 1835 while toiling for the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall, the bell cracked a second time. It was repaired once more, but in 1846, it cracked again as it rang in honor of George Washington’s birthday. This time the bell could not be repaired.

Today the Liberty Bell is enshrined in a special pavilion in Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia, just across from its original home.

The liberty bell weighs more than 2,080 pounds and has a circumference of 12 feet at its widest point. It is about three feet high.

Clara Barton

She was called the “angel of the battlefield” by those who saw her caring for wounded and dying soldiers during the Civil War. Her role there made her a national heroine. A strong-minded woman, Clara barton then devoted the rest of her life to helping others.
When the Civil war began in 1861, Barton was working as the first female clerk in the Patent Office in Washington D.C. But reports of suffering soldiers roused her to action. Besides nursing the wounded, she carried supplies and medicines to the battlefield.

Clara barton created a bureau to search for missing Civil War soldiers and mark the graves of the dead.

Barton’s war efforts left her exhausted and ill. In 1869, she went to Switzerland to recover. There, barton learned about the International red Cross, an organization devoted to the relief of suffering resulting from war. In 1870-1871, she took part in Red Cross activities during the Franco-Prussia war. Two years later, Barton returned home and set about forming an American red Cross. In 1881, she achieved her goal and served as the organization’s first president for 22 years. Before retiring in 1904, Barton expanded the efforts of the Red Cross to include aid to victims of peacetime disasters, such as floods and hurricanes.

The Alien and Sedition Acts

In the U.S., the right to speak freely is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But in 1798, the country’s leaders tried to limit free speech and freedom of the press. At that time, the new nation was on the brink of war with France. As an attempt to limit criticism of the government and support for France the Federalist Party of President John Adams pushed the Alien and Sedition Acts through Congress.

The Alien Act denied citizenship to anyone who had lived in the U.S. for less than 14 years and allowed the President to deport “dangerous” foreigners. The Sedition Act allowed the government to arrest anyone who criticized its policies. Among those tried and convicted under the laws were several newspaper editors and a congressman. Matthew Lyon, a congressman from Vermont was jailed for criticizing the Sedition Act in a letter to a newspaper.

In 1799, realtions with France improved dramatically, but critics of the government were still being put in jail. When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, he immediately pardoned everyone convicted of sedition during the previous three years. The Alien and Sedition Acts were allowed to expire in 1802, and freedom of speech returnmed to the U.S.

1620

On September 16, 1620, 101 men, women, and children set sail in a small ship – the Mayflower – from the port of Plymouth, England. They were leaving England to escape persecution for their religious beliefs. They wanted to be free to worship in their own way and to create their own community.

The Pilgrims’ goal was the shore of North America, a vast and little known coastline that had only a handful of small European settlements. For eight weeks they sailed, tossed by the stormy North Atlantic. Finally, on November 10, the Mayflower reached Cape Cod, a long sandy peninsula in present-day Massachusetts.

Inside the bay protected by Cape Cod, the Pilgrims found a site that seemed promising for settlement. Before they left the ship, they drew up an agreement to form a government that would pass laws “for the general Good of the Colony.” According to tradition, they stepped ashore on a large boulder, still known as Plymouth Rock. The first winter at Plymouth was terrible. Nearly half of the settlers died of disease or starvation. But the Pilgrims were determined, and their community survived as one of the first European settlements in North America. The first building erected by the Pilgrims at Plymouth was called the Common House, where religious services were held.