A Usable Past

Emma Goldman, political cartoon, From the Yiddish Press c. 1901

Some new women’s history resources are available for you!

Women’s History Research in Archives at the University of Wisconsin has a new guide out that allows researchers to access a large number of digital primary sources. Topics include:

• birth control
• bookmobiles
• clothing
• courtship
• pregnancy tests
• race relations
• women in the armed forces

The bookmobile 1931 -1940. The 1931 Dodge was "manned" by two ladies at all times: one to drive and one to stand on the running board to keep it from tipping over. Proper attire included "a long-sleeved dress, a broad brimmed hat and gloves" to prevent tanning.

Recruitment poster for the Women's Army Corps (WAC) dated 1965, printed in green and black, and featuring an illustration of a woman in a WAC uniform. The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project.

Via Women’s Collections Roundtable.

Also…

Passive Resistance Training, SNCC, Atlanta, 1960, by James Karales, courtesy Duke University Library.

PASSIVE RESISTANCE TRAINING, SNCC, ATLANTA, GA, 1960, BY JAMES KARALES, COURTESY DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Scheveningen (La Haye)

Albacete

The FJ Holden, December 1953.

Glory-box girls, newlywed wives, mothers with food-conscious families, young-in-heart grandmothers, even bachelor girls and bachelors gay love Pyrex. 1953.

“Lesbians in Revolt” by Charlotte Bunch and the Furies Collective, 1972

Lesbianism is the basic threat to male supremacy

Lesbianism is a threat to the ideological, political, personal, and economic basis of male supremacy.  The Lesbian threatens the ideology of male supremacy by destroying the lie about female inferiority, weakness, passivity, and by denying women’s ‘innate’ need for men (even for pro-creation if the science of cloning is developed).

The Lesbian’s independence and refusal to support one man undermines the personal power that men exercise over women.  Our rejection of heterosexual sex challenges male domination in its most individual and common form.  We offer all women something better than submission to personal oppression.  We offer the beginning of the end of collective and individual male supremacy.  Since men of all races and classes depend on female support and submission for practical tasks and feeling superior, our refusal to submit will force some to examine their sexist behavior, to break down their own destructive privileges over other humans, and to fight against those privileges in other men.  They will have to build new selves that do not depend on oppressing women and learn to live in social structures that do not give them power over anyone.

Heterosexuality separates women from each other; it makes women define themselves through men; it forces women to compete against each other for men and the privilege which comes through men and their social standing.  Heterosexual society offers women a few privileges as compensations if they give up their freedom: for example, mothers are respected and ‘honored’, wives or lovers are socially accepted and given some econoimc and emotional security , a woman gets physical protection on the street when she stays with her man, etc.  The privileges give heterosexual women a personal and political stake in maintaining the status quo.

Read the whole thing here!  H/T to Liza Cowan and The University of Michigan’s “Lesbians in the Twentieth Century” project.

Marianne Schnall at Fem 2.0 has dropped some fabulous quotes from extraordinary women on us which she excerpted from her book Daring to Be Ourselves: Influential Women Share Insights on Courage, Happiness and Finding Your Own Voice.  Here’s a peak into some of the thoughts of awesome women:

We need to help them really internalize the message that good enough is good enough. We don’t need to be perfect. We’re not supposed to be perfect; we’re supposed to be complete. And you can’t be complete if you’re trying to be perfect.
– Jane Fonda

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.
–Madeleine Albright

Just be what it is that you are, and that is just fine. You don’t have to be what you’re not in any way. Live that and live that fully, and that is where you discover ecstasy. You can’t really have ecstasy as something other than yourself.
–Alice Walker

Check out the rest of the post here and pick up the book for your favorite woman here!

Julie Z at the fbomb created a nifty reproductive rights timeline. Here are some excepts:

1870’s: The Comstock Laws are passed, making contraception illegal and declaring that all attempts to make contraception and family planning available are, “obscene.” These laws resulted in a lot of unwanted pregnancies, and increasing poverty because families of lower classes often had more children than they could support. The Comstock Laws led to illegal abortions. While wealthy women could find a way to obtain safer abortions under the radar, poor women had to resort to causing themselves extreme physical strain or inserting sharp devices (like clothes hangers) into themselves. Such methods commonly resulted in, “cervical wounds, serious bleeding, infections, shock and death.”

1936: Sanger is arrested when postal authorities find that she is illegally ordering contraception. Her case was reviewed by Judge Augustus Hand, writing for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, how overrode the Comstock Laws, and ruled that contraception could no longer be considered obscene. The ruling applies to New York, Connecticut and Vermont. It isn’t until the 1960’s that married couples in the United States can obtain contraceptives from licensed physicians.

1967-1970: Colorado becomes the first state to liberalize abortion laws by developing the “Model Penal Code on Abortion” which advocated for legal abortion in cases of “rape, incest, severe fetal defects, and when the women’s life or health was at risk.” Hawaii (which made abortion totally legal), New York (which allowed abortion through the 24th week of pregnancy if the procedure was preformed by a licensed physician), Alaska and Washington soon followed.

2009: Dr. George Tiller is murdered because of his standing as one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late-term abortions. His murder came after years of threatened violence, witnessing his clinic being bombed, being shot in both arms and facing multiple law suits against his operation.”

Check out the whole post here!