Dates
in
Women's History
|
|
January 2007
is
National Mentoring Month
(Learn about
mentoring
on
EducatingJane.com)
National Blood Donor Month
National Braille Literacy
Month (updated last
2004)
National Hobby Month
Hot Tea Month
(updated last 2004)
|
January Dates in
Women's History Herstory
brought
to you by Susan
Butruille
- January 1 New Year's Day. "New Year" is
celebrated at different times throughout the world. Before the
adoption of the Gregorian calendar, beginning in 1582, the
Julian calendar declared the New Year to be March 1st.
Whenever it is celebrated, the festival of the New Year greets
a new beginning and re-enacts the creation of the earth.
Ancients believed that making noise would help to expel
harmful spirits of the "Old Year," and they greeted
the "New Year" with singing, dancing, feasting and
merrymaking.
- January 1, 1992 Death of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper: Computer Whiz (Famous Inventors)
 , credited with development of the COBOL
system of computer language.
- January 3, 1793 Birth of Lucretia Mott, Quaker
minister who, with
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women's Rights Pioneer
 , organized the first women's rights
convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848.
- January 6 Birth of Jesus celebrated on the Julian
Calendar, and still observed in some parts of the world.
- January 6 Greek Feast of Persephone/Kore, the Divine
Maiden.
- January 6 Feast of Epiphany, Twelfth Night, ending the
Twelve Days of Christmas. The Epiphany commemorates the
baptism of Jesus and the visit of the Three Wise Men. In Spain
and Italy, gifts are exchanged on this day instead of December
25 to honor the coming of the Magi. In France, England and
Mexico, women bake special cakes to celebrate the day. Often,
a bean, pea or tiny doll is hidden in the twelfth piece of
cake to designate the king or queen of the celebration.
- January 6, 1412 Birth of Joan of Arc
 , heroine of the
siege of Orleans who saved the French crown of Charles VII.
Later convicted in an English court for challenging male
authority and wearing men's clothes, she was burned as a
heretic in 1431.
- January 7 Christmas (Eastern Russian Orthodox).
- January 7, 1901 (?) Birth of
Zora Neale Hurston's,
African-American novelist, folklorist, who was exonerated for
running a red light after she explained, "I had seen
white folks pass on green so I assumed the red light was for
me."
- January 8 Midwives Day, ancient Greek celebration of
Saint Domenika, when midwives are honored with gifts of food
and wine, and bawdy jokes exchanged.
- January 8, 1859 Birth of world traveler and adventurer
Fannie Bullock Workman, who carried a "Votes for
Women" banner into the Himalayas on one of her many
climbing expeditions. At age 53, she was still clambering
around the Himalayas at 20,000 feet with her husband.
- January 11, 1885 Birth of
Alice Paul, shy young
radical leader of the revitalized campaign for woman suffrage
in 1913, and author of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923.
- January 12, 1932
Hattie Wyatt Caraway (D-Arkansas) became the first
woman elected to the US Senate.
- January 14, 1893
Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning
monarch of Hawaii, nullified the US-authorized legislature
and proclaimed a pro-Hawaiian constitution, leading to her
house arrest and dethronement.
- January 15, 1929 Birth of
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Civil Rights activist.
- January 17, 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts Women Textile
Workers Strike
"Better to starve fighting than to starve working" is what
they said after having their pay cut by 30 cents. -
January 18, 1777 Baltimore newspaper publisher and
postmaster
Mary Katherine Goddard produced the first
printed copy of the Declaration of Independence.
- January 20, 1920 Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin
helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
- January 22, 1973 The US Supreme Court legalized abortion
in the Roe vs. Wade
decision.
- January 25, 1851 Abolitionist and reformer
Sojourner
Truth addressed the first Black Women’s Rights
Convention in Akron, Ohio.
- January 26, 1872 Birth of
Julia Morgan, first female
member of the American Institute of Architects, and
architect of more than 800 structures including the famous
Hearst Castle.
- January 27 Birth day of
Ruth Hendricks Greffenius,
educator, poet, and mother of Susan G. Butruille.
- January 30 Roman Festival of Peace, honoring the
Roman Goddess Pax.
Anna
Perenna & Grace Hopper
Linking Past & Future
by Susan G. Butruille
|
|
|
|
by
