HerStory Launches - Prizes and Giveaways

In ancient times, women were regarded as sacred. They were thought to hold the mystical power of creation—responsible for the continuation of our species. With the rise of Science and Religion, these myths were dispelled and their plight began.

HerStory: Fiction Honoring Women’s History Month is a collection of Flash Fiction and Short Stories from today's top authors featuring female characters that exemplify strong strength of mind, body, and character. Some of these tales are based on real people while others are purely fictional. However, all are standing up for themselves and what they believe in.

Grab yourself a glass of wine or favorite hot beverage and get comfortable as you read about the lives of women who will light the fire in your soul.

It's finally here. HerStory. Available to the masses. And to honor release day, we're having a party. Use the Rafflecopter below to enter to win some terrific prizes. *U.S. residents only*

Here's what's up for grabs.

GRAND PRIZE

First Grand Prize

First Grand Prize

Because they have the same agenda: empowering girls/women, Keira's Kollection owner Mr. Wagstaff has graciously agreed to donate a Strong is Beautiful T-shirt. One very lucky woman is not only going to walk away with a paperback copy of HerStory and be empowered through words, but she will also be showing her empowerment right there on her shirt.

And that's not all, the grand prize winner also gets a pair of earrings from Cathy from Etsy, who runs Yesware. The earrings sparkle one side and have a message on the other side: the greatest story never told.
Only, we're telling it, the authors of HerStory. We are telling it.

SECOND GRAND PRIZE

Author Laura DeLuca has donated an incense diffuser to go along with some handmade soap from Greenchild Creations.

And we're throwing an e-book into this mix. Why soap and diffusers? What does that have to do with women's history?

In HerStory, Mathilda of Ringelheim runs a bath house. It seems appropriate to honor herstory this way.

AND as Mathilda seems to know, every woman needs soap and every woman needs time to relax. So one lucky winner will take a nice long shower with her fantastic handmade soap, set her diffuser on a table, and curl up with HerStory on her kindle. Who says you can't be relaxed and empowered at the same time? (and smell good)

THIRD GRAND PRIZE

Another donation from Laura DeLuca: an ebook, a Japanese tea set, and an Oriental incense diffuser. How does this tie into HerStory?

In Please Stay, Asuka, a Japanese wife of the 1600s, is preparing the evening meal while awkwardly trying to discuss a matter--somewhat delicate--but of great importance with her husband.

As you get lost in your ebook, in Asuka's story (penned by Becca Diane), you can pretend you are there. Perhaps you feel your husband's penetrating stare. But you serve him his tea, straighten your spine, and say what needs to be said...then wait, breath held, for his reply, incense lightening the tension in the air...

FOURTH GRAND PRIZE

One lucky winner will have a chance to make their voice heard on the radio...with a $25 Amazon gift card burning a hole in their pocket!

HerStory goes behind the scenes to locate the stories of women who lived, laughed, and touched the lives of generations...

Now, here is your chance to have your story told to the world....or your mother's...it's your chance to talk about the most inspiring woman or women in YOUR life. Shout it out! Tell listeners everywhere about this amazing person. Honor her!

This prize is being donated by Indie Reviews Behind the Scenes.

PRIZE 5, FOUR WINNERS, FOUR TINS OF EMPOWERMINTS

Four of these tins of mints are being donated by the Unemployed Philosophers Guild. That means four lucky winners are going to win a tin of mints to carry around in their pockets and every time they look at the tin, they'll be empowered!

The tin is also the perfect size to serve as a pillbox once the mints are gone. This is something you can keep for a LONG time.

PRIZE 6, TWO WINNERS, CROSS STITCH WALL HANGINGS

Author and editor Tara Chevrestt has a secret addiction and hobby. It makes her feel like an old lady, so she keeps it under wraps, but now the truth is out...

She likes to cross stitch!!!

And with the suffragette tales (Sister Suffragettes by Dahlia DeWinters and Chevrestt's own From You No and Silent Suffragette) in the back of her mind, she found a pattern on Etsy by Patternbird and set to stitching.

Two lucky winners will walk away with these. They are 3.25" by 6" and have a hard backing so they may be placed on a wall.


PRIZE 7, ONE WINNER, FLAPPER-STYLE HAT

Donated from Rakestraw Book Design.

Toni Rakestraw, one of the HerStory contributors, is stitching this hat so one lucky reader can--in her mind--march in a suffragette parade as she reads HerStory. Or perhaps this is something Margaret Sanger would have worn as she leaves the workhouse in The Woman Rebel.

PRIZE 8, ONE WINNER, ONE PAINTING

You've heard the term multi-published and many of HerStory's authors can place that before their name, but how about multi-talented?

Author Morgan Summerfield can not only write as she shoes us in Adella, but she can paint too! She is kindly donating a painting 27" wide by 11" high, titled Morning Poppies. The frame is handmade with real wood and she stretches all her own canvases. It is hand-painted-by her!-in multi media.

And last, but certainly not least, we have a lovely Coco Chanel quote pendant donated by the lovely Jewelry Designs by Lula. One winner will win this delightful pendant that says  A girl should be things: WHO and WHAT she wants.

I could not have said it better.

Enter for all prizes using the Rafflecopter form below. Giveaway is for three weeks. Winners will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to respond with their snail mail addresses. After 48 hours, new winners will be chosen.

Thank you and enjoy HerStory! Be empowered! Learn something. Believe in yourself and womankind.


Buy links:

Amazon

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Barnes and Noble

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Guest Blog: Tara Chevrestt

This week, we're welcoming historical fiction author Tara Chevrestt. Her novel  RIDE FOR RIGHTS chronicles the journey of two sisters during the women's suffrage movement and has its basis in historical events.  Tara is here to talk about the novel and give away a copy. Leave your comment for a chance to win. Here's the blurb:

In the summer of 1916, women do not have the right to vote, let alone be motorcycle dispatch riders. Two sisters, Angeline and Adelaide Hanson are determined to prove to the world that not only are women capable of riding motorbikes, but they can ride motorbikes across the United States. Alone.

From a dance hall in Chicago to a jail cell in Dodge City, love and trouble both follow Angeline and Adelaide on the dirt roads across the United States. The sisters shout their triumph from Pike’s Peak only to end up lost in the Salt Lake desert. 

Will they make it to their goal of Los Angeles or will too many mishaps prevent them from reaching their destination and thus, hinder their desire to prove that women can do it?

 **Q&A with Tara Chevrestt**

Where did you first come across Augusta and Adeline Van Buren, the real-life sisters that inspired Ride for Rights?

The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame. They have a little area dedicated to women in the history of motorcycling. At the time I went there, a mere posterboard of pictures and a timeline type thing was up about them. As my husband and I left the museum, I was blabbering away about how I wanted to see if I could find a novel about the women. There wasn't one so I wrote one.

How similar is the novel to what happened to the real sisters?

I took some liberties as I couldn't find detailed information about the real ride. I do know that the real sisters were arrested for wearing pants, giving birth to that Dodge City bit. They got lost in the Salt Lake City Desert. They summited Pike's Peak, but it probably didn't coincide with the Hill Climb.

The dancing, the earthquake, the Nevada desert, the romance with a reporter, their abduction. That's all figments of my imagination.

You have actually visited Glen Eyrie, the castle in Colorado Springs. Tell us about it. 

It's a 67-room English Tudor style castle built by General William Jackson Palmer, the founder of Colorado Springs. His wife was from England and so he built this for her, to mimic an English castle. It contains 24 fireplaces, all them brought over from England. My best friend and I went there for a tour and tea. It's really very lovely. I got to see the real Elsie's room. (Elsie is a brief character in my book, a lady equestrian with spunk.)

How did you decide where the sisters were going to travel to next? 

I had a map of the Unites States out...and as I couldn't find exact details of the trip, I just literally traced a line from New York to Lose Angeles and let my finger randomly choose places of interest that were along the way. I then researched that place to see if there was anything particular significant about that town during that time. If not, I made something up OR moved to a different town.

What message do you wish to convey with Ride for Rights?

Women can be and do anything they set their minds to. If two women could ride motorbikes across the Unites States in a time when they weren't even allowed to wear pants, why should we deny ourselves anything now? Take advantage of the fact you have rights. If you don't want to be a housewife, don't be one. If you want to fly planes, go fly planes. Dream it and do it. Don't let society or anyone else tell you that you can't.

Thank you, Tara, and best of luck with Ride for Rights!

Excerpt Thursday: Ride for Rights by Tara Chevrestt

This week on Excerpt Thursday, we're welcoming historical fiction author Tara Chevrestt. Her novel  RIDE FOR RIGHTS chronicles the journey of two sisters during the women's suffrage movement and has its basis in historical events.  Join us Sunday, when Tara will be here to talk about the novel and give away a copy. Here's the blurb:

In the summer of 1916, women do not have the right to vote, let alone be motorcycle dispatch riders. Two sisters, Angeline and Adelaide Hanson are determined to prove to the world that not only are women capable of riding motorbikes, but they can ride motorbikes across the United States. Alone.

From a dance hall in Chicago to a jail cell in Dodge City, love and trouble both follow Angeline and Adelaide on the dirt roads across the United States. The sisters shout their triumph from Pike’s Peak only to end up lost in the Salt Lake desert. 


Will they make it to their goal of Los Angeles or will too many mishaps prevent them from reaching their destination and thus, hinder their desire to prove that women can do it?

**An Excerpt of Ride for Rights**

There was a twinkle in Francisco’s eyes as he looked the women up and down, taking in their dirty riding attire and the motorbikes behind them.

“We are just moving some of our caballos and mules to a more desirable location,” he said smoothly. “You must be the famous sisters riding to Los Angeles and getting into muchas problemas!” He laughed boisterously and, turning to the conversing men waiting on their horses and mules behind him, said something in Spanish to them all. The men began laughing and slapping their thighs with their large hats.

Angeline didn’t like this and stepped forward. “What are you saying?” she demanded.

Francisco gestured for his men to be quiet. “I read your American papers. You are quite famous. You brought trouble upon a man with many wives.” He shook his head and raised his hands in the air as though in supplication. “More than one espousa. Por que?  Hombre loco!”

The men behind him roared their approval once again. Finished with his antics, Francisco turned a serious face to the women in front of him. “Crazy man, I say. One woman is enough.” He held up a single digit. “Any more woman than that, and I would be drowning in my José Cuervo!”

The men behind him began yelling amongst themselves, and Angeline had no idea what they were saying but decided it sounded rather bawdy and thus related to women and a man named José, and it seemed harmless enough. The men looked dirty and disheveled, and she noted they carried weapons, but the man called Francisco was smiling and did not seem to intend them harm, so she permitted herself to relax.

Adelaide was quite charmed by this foreign man in front of her. She liked his smooth movements and the way he spoke with a twinkle in his eye. She also liked the idea of being famous. She asked the man to tell her more about what he had heard.

“You are representing women, yes?” Francisco asked them. “You aretropas and rebels!”

“Well, I don’t know what a tropa is, but I suppose you could say that.” Adelaide blushed again. Angeline was watching from the corner of her eye.

“Tell me more.” Francisco placed her hand in the crook of his arm. “Maybe we can help you.” He gestured to his men to dismount, and they all rushed to obey, pulling saddlebags off their horses or mules. “We have food and water and José Cuervo.”

Angeline was looking around for this mysterious José they all seemed to worship so, but no man in particular seemed to respond. She shrugged and reluctantly followed Francisco and her sister as they walked. The men obviously under Francisco’s command were all resting on their colorful bedrolls and chatting, occasionally looking in their direction in curiosity.

She caught up to her sister and new companion and grabbed her sister’s free arm, forcing her to stop her chattering and turn around. “We really should be going. We must reach the next town before dark,” she said in a warning tone.

Adelaide’s eyes were bright with excitement, and her cheeks were flushed. “Francisco says we will not make the next town before dark. He says we may join him and his men when they set up camp.”

“Absolutely not!” Angeline hissed, glancing discreetly at Francisco who was now directing orders at his men. “What has gotten into you?  We are two women alone surrounded by strange, foreign men! Do you have any idea what could happen?”

“Mujures, I assure you no harm shall come to you. Here…” Francisco came up to them and pressed a Colt dragoon into Angeline’s hands, “for your safety.”

The dragoon was heavy, and she struggled not to show surprise or dismay. She had never shot a weapon. She attempted to exhibit a confidence she did not feel as she looked Francisco in the eye. “Why?” she asked defiantly. “Why do you want us to stay with your camp?”

“My men and I would love the company. We have been traveling for days with nothing but ourselves, our horses, our smelly mules, and José for company. We will not harm you, but I will not stop you from leaving if wish you wish to do so.”  He gallantly bowed once again.

A camp was being set up near a formation of rocks, and the men were unpacking cooking utensils as Angeline looked at the setting sun. She sighed. They had wasted too much time. She did not want to get lost again.

She looked at the dragoon in her hand, and its weight reassured her. She looked at a hopeful Adelaide and nodded her consent at Francisco. They would camp one night, but if any of the men bothered her or her sister, she was putting this dragoon to use even if it meant shooting her own arm off.

Real Life Heroes: Harriet Tubman

By Lisa Marie Wilkinson

The accolade of hero is appropriate when applied to Harriet Tubman, a woman born into slavery whose activities ranged from abolitionist during the Civil War era to staunch supporter of the women's suffrage movement during the early 1900s.

Born Araminta Ross during a time when neither year nor place of birth was recorded for most slaves, various historical documents place Tubman's birth date somewhere between 1815 and 1825. One of "Minty's" first responsibilities at age 5 or 6 was as a child's nurse. After learning she would be whipped if the baby in her charge cried, she adopted the practice of wrapping herself in extra layers of clothing to minimize the damage inflicted by the beatings she endured.

At age 12, she suffered a serious head injury when a heavy metal weight thrown by an angry overseer at another slave hit Tubman instead as she acted to protect the slave from injury. Historians speculate that Tubman suffered from epilepsy as a result of this injury, citing symptoms of headaches and seizures resulting in sudden sleep. After being brought up by deeply religious parents on Bible stories featuring themes of deliverance from oppression, Tubman believed the visions that accompanied her seizures represented direct communication from God.

She married free black man John Tubman in 1844, changing her name from Araminta to Harriet--her mother's name--around that time. Despite her husband's free status, Harriet's status as a slave dictated that any children born to her would also be slaves.

After reaching the decision, "Liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other," Harriet escaped and fled north with her two brothers on September 17, 1849, but after their owners posted a reward notice for the return of the three escaped slaves, her brothers began to fear the consequences of capture and forced Harriet to return with them.

She soon escaped again and fled to freedom alone, using an allied network of freed blacks, white abolitionists, and other antislavery activists known as the Underground Railroad, to escape into Pennsylvania. Traveling by night and using the North Star for guidance, she watched for signs such as lanterns on hitching posts indicating safe houses as she made her way north to freedom.

After her escape to Philadelphia, she worked as a cook and domestic in order to earn money to return to Maryland to guide her own family north and to help other slaves escape to freedom. As one of the most famous of the Underground Railroad "conductors," Harriet Tubman led numerous missions and it is estimated she rescued more than 300 slaves over a period of eleven years, constantly risking her own safety and freedom to aid others. Sadly, her sister Rachel died before she could be rescued, and Tubman did not have the funds to make the bribes necessary to free Rachel's two children, who remained enslaved.

After the Fugitive State Law was enacted by Congress in 1850 imposing penalties on law enforcement and providing for payment of bounties upon the return of escaped slaves, the risk of capture increased to the point where slaves began heading for the safety of Canada, a country which refused to extradite fugitives. In tribute to her fearless and selfless exploits, Tubman earned the nicknames, "General Tubman" and "The Moses of her People."

Years later, she told an audience: "I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say--I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." Her impressive record was mostly likely due in part to the fact that she allowed no turning back and she carried a loaded revolver to back up that policy during the trek north. As she told one runaway slave who began to lose courage on the journey north, "You'll be free or die." As she later explained, "a live runaway could do great harm by going back, but a dead one could tell no secrets."

When the Civil War broke out, Tubman saw a Union victory as the perfect means to end slavery. She joined the Union Army, first working as a cook and a nurse, and then later as a scout and a Union spy. Giving up government rations after others grumbled she was receiving special treatment, she began selling pies and root beer to support herself. In June of 1863, she led the Combahee River Raid, freeing more than 700 slaves and becoming the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war.

After her first husband did not join her in freedom, she married a man 22 years her junior in 1869, and they adopted a daughter. During her lifetime, her humanitarian efforts included teaching newly freed blacks how to become self-sufficient, raising funds for schools, and finding housing and clothing for the poor and disabled. Her humanitarian works kept her mired in poverty and she worked various jobs and took in boarders to offset her expenses. Friends and supporters from her abolitionist days raised funds to help support her.

Tubman retired in Auburn, NY after the war, and became active in the women's suffrage movement, working alongside Susan B. Anthony. She spoke out publicly in favor of women's rights, and used her own experience to illustrate that women were equal to men, citing having received such "man honors" as having a ship named for her. Illness eventually forced her to be admitted to the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, a home for elderly African Americans she had helped open years before. She died of pneumonia on March 10, 1913 after telling those assembled, "I go to prepare a place for you." She was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Lisa Marie Wilkinson is an IPPY Gold Medal winning author of historical adventure-romance. Her latest novel, STOLEN PROMISE, featuring vibrant Gypsy characters and breath-taking romance, is available now.

Money Matters: What's Love Got to Do With It?

By Amanda McIntyre

The worth of a woman--what establishes it? Is it gold or diamonds? Is it the success of her career or her kindness to others? These days, the worth of a woman can be a compilation of many things and not only comparable, but in many ways equal to that of her betrothed. But a look back into history shows this was not always the case. In many cultures, there was in place the custom of a dowry.

The "dowry" is different from "bride price" in that it is what the woman brings to the marriage. Bride price, in contrast, is the amount of wealth paid to the family of the bride by the groom's family upon marriage. In terms of marketability, "bride price" means the perceived value of the bride to the groom and his family. A custom still practiced, though often despised, in some countries today.

Throughout history there have been many forms of determining the worth of a woman to a marriage arrangement, the operative word being, and "arrangement." As far back as the Babylonian "Code of Hammurabi," the oldest written law known to man, the dowry is accepted as part of many societal systems. Back in the day, the most recognized forms of dowry might range from sheep and cows, to property and gold. In times of war (a constant occurrence) alliances were made to strengthen political alliances, combine armies and land against opposing forces. This often led to a proverbial chess game of sons and daughters being used by their father's to jockey themselves into greater positions of wealth and power.

Dowries served many different purposes, depending on the culture and in some cases, if a woman's family could not produce a suitable dowry for the groom's family, it was possible that she would be forbidden to marry and forced to become a concubine in the household of a wealthy man. Dowries were also seen as a sign of gratitude for accepting another mouth to feed in a household and in most circumstances, the dowry of the bride would be returned if the marriage ended. Very rarely, did the dowry improve or empower the bride other than to ensure her protection from ill treatment by her husband, who would forfeit his newly found wealth if found committing such a crime.

While doing research for my medieval tales for both "WINTER AWAKENING" (in WINTER'S DESIRE) and "SACRED VOWS" (in THE PLEASURE GARDEN), I discovered that the Gaelic countries were one of the few cultures where the daughter was the heir to her father's property as well as his army. Therefore, a marriage to a Gaelic woman was advantageous in terms of her husband receiving the benefit of her inheritance at her father's death. This made marriages between clans a political move in strengthening territories against warring clans.

In Rome, a bride and her dowry (usually money and property) even after marriage might remain under the control of her father. If given to the groom, he assumed full control. As was the case in most dowry agreements, if the marriage ended, the dowry would be returned.

In early England, dowries among nobles were often traded between families in grand public displays of a betrothal of their children, who might only be seven at the time. These engagements acted largely as a promissory note between the two kingdoms showing a solidarity to one another, but which often times fell apart along the way. Upon marriage, the male (sometimes as young as 14) would receive full rights over his bride (who might only be 12!) yet still lose everything should the marriage end, or he showed her harm in any way. Marriages could also be called off entirely if the dowry was not suitable to either kingdom. Dowries given by a noble for his son, might be of substantial gain to the bride's family as they would be losing a part of their lineage while the strengthening the prospect of another.

In rural areas during the middle Ages, the brides were given items to set up their household, while a groom might be given the tools to begin a farm. By the Victorian era, a woman after being educated was presented as marriage material to society and usually a large dowry accompanied her as an enticement for the best possible suitor. Though both parties would disclose their wealth to the inspection of both families, once the marriage took place, the woman no longer had any say over her property or possessions. A woman was not even allowed to draw up a will for her children. Her husband, if he so chose, could leave her property at his discretion to any illegitimate children he might have as opposed to his own.

Even into the American movement west, dowries had a place in cultures, but became more of a preparation of the inevitability of marriage with mothers teaching their daughters to quilt and sew, making things to be placed in keeping until the day of their wedding. This custom later turned to the advent of Hope Chests, which for a time was popular, but died out in the late sixties.

Though the practice of bride pricing still takes place in some countries even today, the custom of dowries given as a form of enticement has given way to pre-nuptial agreements protecting the wealth and properties of both the bride and groom involved. As for me? I like to think that romance is the attraction and passion and hard work to build a lifetime together is the glue that holds a relationship together.

Question to ponder: How do you measure a persons' worth? Is it stature, wealth, character? Share your thoughts!

Researching history, listening to all types of music from classical to Kamelot, spending time with family & friends, and appeasing her strange infatuation with the Great Lakes, Amanda McIntyre to challenge her characters and her readers to look beyond the ordinary to the extraordinary, where anything is possible! Til next time, be well.

Women Did It Better: Elizabeth Blackwell

By Jennifer Linforth

Elizabeth Blackwell listened.

She possessed the trait of a good doctor from the start, before ever entering medicine. When a dying friend said her worst suffering would have been spared had her doctors been female--Elizabeth Blackwell took that to heart...and all the way to a medical degree.

Graduating from Geneva Medical College in New York in 1849, Blackwell became the first American woman to earn a medical degree. By 1857 she established the New York Infirmary and helped foster medical education for women.

She started out having no idea how to become a doctor. It was just not done for woman of her era. She turned to several physicians associated with her family who warned her it simply was not done, it was too expensive and, frankly, impossible for a woman.

Blackwell felt otherwise.

Convincing two physicians to allow her to essentially apprentice under them for a year, reading all she could of medicine, she applied to schools in New York and Philadelphia. Twelve schools later she was accepted—as a joke--into Geneva Medical College. The faculty allowed the student body to vote her in. The all male class agreed as a jest, assuming she would never succeed.

Two years later, she became the first woman to receive an MD. Blackwell worked in clinics in the State and abroad but contracted purulent ophthalmia from a patient. She returned to New York in 1851 when it caused her to lose her sight in one eye, thus forcing her to give up her dream of becoming a surgeon.

She went on to open her own dispensary and saw patients three afternoons a week. She wrote several books on medical reform, and in 1854 opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. This medical college for women was opened in 1867 and provided training and experience for women doctors. She continued to campaign for reform after her health declined and she gave up the practice of medicine in the late 1870s.

Women Did It Better: Mountain Climbing

By Zoe Archer

Mountains have been luring men for centuries, if not millennia. A man sees a giant, intimidating mountain, and he longs to climb it and prove his mastery over nature. But the need to conquer mountains does not belong to men alone. As the sport of mountaineering developed during the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, women looked up at these massive natural structures and thought, "Why not me, too?"

Even though mountains provided these female climbers with plenty of obstacles, the greater risks often came on a social and societal level. Climbing mountains was not "respectable," requiring physical and emotional strength, immodest clothing, and a desire to prove that women were just as capable as men.

Henriette d'Angeville (1794-1871) was the first woman to ever climb Mont Blanc. She was given the nickname "La Fiancée du Mont Blanc," and was meanly said to love the mountain because, as a spinster, she had no one else to love. She scaled Mont Blanc for the first time in 1838 after undergoing rigorous comprehensive training. There was no ascribed mountaineering clothing for women, so d'Angeville work red flannel underwear, woolen stockings on top of silk stockings, tweed, flannel-lined knickerbockers, a fur hat, a straw hat, a velvet mask, a veil, a fur-lined pelisse and green spectacles. When d'Angeville reached the summit, she drank a toast to the Comte de Paris and then released a carrier pigeon to announce her victory.

Another celebrated female climber was Isabella Bird (1831-1904). Bird did not begin her career as an adventurer until she was forty one years old, when persistent illness took her from Britain to Australia in search of a better climate. Australia didn't improve her health, but she next voyaged to the Sandwich Islands (later known as Hawai'i). Here, Bird's health underwent a dramatic improvement, and she climbed Mauna Loa, the world's largest volcano at 13,650 feet.

Newly invigorated, Bird traveled to the Rocky Mountains in 1873. She lived for several years in the wilderness of Estes Park and had a (possibly romantic) relationship with a trapper called Rocky Mountain Jim. During her time in the Rockies, Bird wrote many letters to her sister, which were published in 1879. These detailed her hardy mountain life and her numerous climbing expeditions. She climbed the 14,255 feet high Long's Peak, and then went on to travel to and write about such far-flung places as Japan, the Malay Peninsula, Persia, Tibet, Korea, Sinai, China and Morocco. Clearly, bad heath never regained its hold on her.

The dashing Elizabeth Le Blond, née Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed (1861-1934), was the daughter of a baronet. Her upper class background made her an even less likely candidate for becoming a mountaineer, and her family heartily disapproved of her unconventional climbing mania. Like Bird, Le Blond first traveled to the mountains for heath reasons, and insisted that, at the time, she knew nothing about mountaineering, nor did the sport interest her at all.

That lack of interest did not last long, and she made many ascents of the Alps, wearing breeches under her skirt. As she neared the higher parts of the mountains, she would remove the skirt, but always put it back on before returning from her expeditions. Le Blond founded the Ladies' Alpine Club in 1907 and became their first president. She also made numerous films of life in the Alps and was one of the first female filmmakers to garner attention for her work.

There were American female mountaineers, such as Fanny Bullock Workman (18-59-1925), who made ascents of the Himalayas, and Annie Peck (1850-1935) climbed in Peru and Bolivia. Miriam O'Brien Underhill (1898-1976; pictured) was considered for years to be the best American female climber, and she organized and led "manless" climbs: all-women mountain climbing expeditions. The Australian Freda du Faur (1882-1935) was the first female mountaineer to climb Mount Cook, New Zealand's tallest mountain. Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was not only a known adventurer and explorer, but a mountaineer, as well, and Miriam Underhill replicated many of Bell's climbs in the Alps.

These women braved natural threats and social scorn. They did it because they loved the mountains. They loved freedom, and the liberty to push themselves to the very edge of their physical and emotional capacity, rather than sit safely, decorously, in a parlor.

Perhaps the best symbol of why women climbed mountains--and why they continue to do so today--can be seen in this photo of Fanny Bullock Workman. In it, she stands atop a mountain in the Karakorum range, brandishing a sign that reads: VOTES FOR WOMEN.

Women Did It Better: Dr. Mary Walker

By Lorelie Brown

The Congressional Medal of Honor has been on my mind lately because of SSG Salvatore Giunta. He's the very first person to be awarded the Medal of Honor for participation in Operation Enduring Freedom OR Iraqi Freedom. My husband served with him at one point--though not at the time of the actions that have earned him the MoH--and he's a great guy. So it's only right that he's earned the United State's top honor for military personnel.

It was kind of a lucky coincidence that I'd already signed up to chat about Dr. Mary Walker--the first and only woman to have ever been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Mary Walker was born in 1832 and she forged her own path fairly quickly. Her parents had a farm in upstate New York and she frequently did her field work wearing men's clothes. Today that doesn't seem like such a big deal. Who'd want to plow a field wearing a skirt and petticoats, seriously? Um, everyone but her. She taught at the local school for a while, but only until she could gather up the funds to attend Syracuse Medical College.

She graduated in 1855. She was the only woman in her class. (Really, there's a lot of "only" and "first" in Dr. Walker's story.) A year later she married a fellow student, Albert Miller, while wearing male dress. She didn't take his name either. They tried to start up a local practice but people were still wary of being treated by female doctors, so it didn't do well. At all. The practice died.

When the Civil War began, Dr. Walker tried to volunteer as a surgeon, but they wouldn't have her. Can you believe it? Turning down a doctor just because she was a woman? But she ended up having to volunteer her services as a nurse. Despite being called a nurse she was at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861. At the battles of Fredericksburg and Chickamauga she served as a volunteer--as in unpaid, unacknowledged--assistant field surgeon.

Finally in 1863 the Army of the Cumberland (in Ohio) awarded her a position as Contract Acting Assistant Surgeon (civilian). Duh. Guess they finally pulled their heads out of their bums. She had a modified officer's uniform made for herself to commemorate the occasion. Not long afterward she was made an assistant surgeon for the 52nd Ohio Infantry. She was still technically a civilian and she regularly went back and forth across the battle lines to treat anyone she could.

She was captured on April 10, 1864, by Confederate troops. They even charged her with spying. She spent four months in a Confederate prison near Richmond, Virginia before being released in an organized prisoner exchange. (Honestly, this is the part of her story that fascinates me the most. Was she the only female in that prison? What must that have been like? She apparently advocated for a more balanced diet, including grains and fruit, and the Confederate guards agreed.)

Dr. Walker kept working for the 52nd Infantry for a while, but after a while she moved on to first a prison and then an orphanage in Tennessee. In June of 1865, she left the Army and November she received the Medal of Honor from President Andrew Johnson.

But Dr. Walker didn't stop there. She spent the rest of her life advocating for women's rights, along with the better known Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Eventually she was pushed off to the side because her views were rather extreme; she thought women were already granted the right to vote by the Constitution and only legislation to ensure their rights were lacking. She also regularly dressed in men's style top coats and trousers, all the way to the hat and tie.

There's a down side to her story. In 1911, a reorganizing of the rules pertaining to the Medal of Honor declared her MoH invalid. A military tribunal decided that only those who'd received it due to actual combat experience were entitled to wear it. Dr. Walker was ordered to return the ribbon. She refused. I picture her as a crotchety old lady, telling the Army's representatives to stick their revocation up their bum. She wore it every day until her death on February 21, 1919.

President Jimmy Carter reinstated her medal in 1977.

Women Did It Better: Higher Education

By Blythe Gifford

I'm going to approach this subject in a roundabout way. Instead of starting with something that women have done better, I'm going to start with something they were originally not allowed to do at all: go to college.

For most of recorded history, women were excluded from institutions of "higher learning." And when I say excluded, I mean that in the strictest sense. At Cambridge in the 14th century, for example, it was forbidden for a female laundress to even enter the hostels where the young scholars lived. A female student couldn't even be imagined.

The reasons for putting the "No Girls Allowed" sign on the tree house were, on the surface, "logical." The medieval explanation, as Thomas Aquinas stated it, was that women were "deficient," and needed to be ruled by men, who were rational. This was all part of God's plan, particularly at Cambridge, which I researched for IN THE MASTER'S BED. Cambridge did not confer its first degrees on women until 1948.

Nearly 600 years later, little had changed. In the mid-19th century, women-only institutions were created because women were still kept out of the "men-only" schools. The first women allowed to study beside men at a four-year, American college attended Oberlin in Ohio, graduating in 1841. In Britain it wasn't until 1880 that the first women were awarded degrees from a coeducational institution (the University of London), although women were allowed to study at Queen's College as early as 1848.

But even then, "everyone knew" that women were unsuited by nature for the physical and mental rigors of the higher forms of learning. A few unusual women might have been allowed to attend college, but medical school, law school and the like continued to be off limits. By then the reasons were attributed to science, not the Almighty, but the rationale was much the same. Women had measurably smaller brains. Their reproductive organs would draw away blood from the brain, rendering their mental faculties incapable of processing academic information. Not their fault, of course. They were simply, physically incapable of understanding such complex material.

While this may seem like ancient history, it was only within the last 30 years that there was any requirement that men and women be treated equally in higher education. We think of Title IX, passed in 1972, as requiring girls to have the opportunity to play sports, but the language of the act is much broader. Now called the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, it says "No person...shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

What's been the result of this? The number of women in all levels of higher education has grown by leaps and bounds. In 1972, women earned 7% of law degrees and 9% of medical degrees. In 2001, women earned 47% of law degrees and 43% of medical degrees. And in 2006, women earned 58% of the bachelor's degrees and 60% of the master's degrees. Not only do women earn the majority of bachelors and masters degrees, recurring reports indicate that women maintain higher grade point averages than men. (Truman College, for example, reported in 2002 a consistent gap, which that year was between a 2.87 GPA for male freshmen and. a 3.19 GPA for female freshmen.)

We can put forward many arguments as to why women are, arguably, more successful than men in higher education. Explanations have ranged from the earlier onset of maturity in women to a male tendency to party more. (I do not cast aspersions on our brothers. I simply report a hypothesis.) Once again, we look to science for answers. And today's science has discovered that women's brains are larger than men's when it comes to the area governing the verbal skills so helpful to success in the classroom.

Will this look any more rationale in hindsight than the arguments of the 19th and 14th centuries? We'll see. But for now, it appears that women do higher education better.
Makes you wonder if we were excluded all those years because someone had a sneaking suspicion this might happen.

Tragic Tales: Chinese Slave Girls of the Barbary Coast

By Jacquie Rogers

The California gold rush of 1849 brought men from all over the world, including China, to find their fortune. The next gold rush was of a different nature--those who provided services to the miners...for a pinch or two of gold dust.

Barbary Coast was the section of San Francisco that harbored the red light district. It was rife with gambling, prostitution, pickpockets, and violent crime. The streets were crowded with brothels, gambling houses, saloons--this was where the rowdiest of the rowdy men went to kick up their heels. The Barbary Coast was also home to the cribs--low-class prostitution housing--and small Chinese girls pleading for the men walking by to use her services.

In China girls weren't valued, and many girls, even babies, were sold to "entrepreneurs" who took them to America to be used as sex slaves. In San Francisco, girls were bought and sold--a baby sold for a little over $100. These girls were raised to prostitute themselves.

This is from The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco, quoted from A la California: Sketch of Life in the Golden State by Albert S. Evans:

These poor creatures are all slaves, bought with a price in China, and imported by degraded men of their own race, who, despite our laws, contrive to hold them to a life-long servitude, which is a thousand times more hopeless and terrible than the negro slavery of Louisiana or Cuba could ever be. They have been reared to a life of shame from infancy, and have not a single trace of the native modesty of women left. They are, as we have said, mere children in point of intellect, having no education whatever, and no experience of the world outside of the narrow alleys in which they have always lived, and the emigrant ship in which they were brought over to this country...

The girls cost $40 each in Canton, but are valued here at about $400, if passably good-looking, young and healthy, and readily sell at that figure in cash, or approved paper. Each colony of half a dozen girls is under the immediate control of an "old mother," herself a retired prostitute, who jealously watches over each, and receives from them the wages of their shame as fast as earned.

Officials looked the other way for two reasons. First, they were paid off by the Chinese merchants, and second, they didn't consider the Chinese all the way human. Chinese girls were no more significant, and less valuable, than a horse. Once a girl was sold into slavery, there was no help for her.

These girls were also called sing-song girls and worked in small rooms lining the cribs alleyways. The girls would bare their breasts to passers-by. If they didn't attract enough customers, they were often physically punished. During their periods, if they had any, they were considered sick and that missed time was added to her contract.

This is from http://www.foundsf.org/:

Opium was administered to them for every ailment, and many girls were addicted. Once a girl's looks had faded and/or her health deteriorated, usually before age 20, she was placed in a room with a vial of narcotics. She could either take the overdose, starve, or if she wasn't dead when they came for her corpse, she was murdered. These murders weren't reported or even noted by the authorities.

One white woman who didn't look the other way was Donaldine Cameron, the Angry Angel of Chinatown. She was born in New Zealand and came to California with her parents when she was a child. At 18 she was engaged, but no one seems to know why she never married. In 1895 she took a position as a sewing teacher at the Occidental Mission Home for Girls and became a crusader for these abused girls no one else cared about. Over a period of 40 years, she was instrumental in the rescue and education of over 3,000 Chinese girls. Miss Cameron used sledgehammers and axes to get to the girls, and learned early on to find more girls in hidden in walls and under the floor boards. Of course the slavers hated her, calling her Fahn Quai--white devil.

History books teach that slavery ended in the United States with the Civil War, but that wasn't so for the sing-song girls of the Barbary Coast, who, in many cases, worked in worse circumstances than the slaves of the South, with a far shorter life expectancy. Finally, 75 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Chinese slave trade ended. It's a blight on American history that we should never forget.

Jacquie

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