Did you know…
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| …the first American-born saint was a woman (Elizabeth Ann Seton, canonized in 1975). | ||
| …Frances Perkins, President Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, was the first woman appointed to a U.S. Cabinet position. | ||
| …Gertrude Ederle was not only the first woman to swim across the English Channel—she beat the fastest man’s record by 1 hour and 49 minutes! | ||
…in order to escape slavery, Harriet Jacobs hid in a room that was 9x7x3 feet high for seven years before reaching the North and freedom. | ||
| …American women won the vote in 1919, but they fought for it for 70 years before that. | ||
| …the first person born in America to an English parent was a woman (Virginia Dare). | ||
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| …in 1889, Jane Addams opened the Hull House in Chicago to help immigrants flocking to the city to find jobs during the Industrial Revolution. Her work toward social improvements in Chicago, coupled with the work of other reformers, marked the beginning of the Progressive movement in America. | ||
| …in 1950, first female Senator Margaret Chase Smith was one of the first to challenge the brutal tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Most of her fellow senators walked out of the Senate as she was speaking. | ||
| …in 1920, The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was formed to collect information about women in the workforce and safeguard good working conditions for women. | ||
…the first female doctor, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, was admitted into the Geveva Medical College as a joke—the all-male student body voted her in because they thought it would be funny! | ||
| …today the number of women registered to vote exceeds the number of registered men by 8.3 million. | ||
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| …Elizabeth Gurley Flynn—Rebel Girl of Joe Hill song fame, feminist, and labor organizer—was a key founder of the ACLU. She was later expelled from its membership for joining the Communist party. | ||
| ...In 1844, the Lowell Mill factory workers organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA). The LFLRA was the first organization of working women in the United States to try to bargain collectively for better conditions and higher pay. | ||
...Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", became America's first book to sell over 1 million copies. | ||
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