Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, as well as the Nobel Prize in Literature. The first black woman of any nationality to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, her citation reads “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” As a tribute to Morrison who died in August of this year at age 88, we feature other women who have won the Pulitzer Prize: Edith Wharton and Margaret Mitchell. The Pulitzer Prizes were established by newspaper journalist Joseph Pulitzer. They honor excellence in writing, the arts, drama and music.
Writer Edith Wharton wrote novels, short stories and plays; she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. That occurred in 1921 for her novel The Age of Innocence.
The arts, including dance, are an important part of our culture. Women have innovated in dance theory, founded whole new schools of dance and thrilled us with their beauty and grace. Who can forget Ginger Rogers who did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels? Or the beautiful ballet of Maria Tallchief? In this month’s ENewsletter we profile two women who brought the art of dance to new levels: Ruth St. Denis and Judith Jamison.
Ruth St. Denis began acting and dancing in vaudeville and musical comedies when she was in her teens. In 1906, she premiered her first dance work in New York City; she incorporated Asian art and dance into her performance.
Newspapers have been important sources of information during much of this country’s history. In this month’s ENewsletter we profile two women who ran newspapers and made historic contributions in those roles: Mary Katherine Goddard and Katharine Graham.
Born in 1738, Mary Katherine Goddard learned the printing business from her brother in Providence, Rhode Island, after the death of her physician father. With her mother, she published the Providence Gazette.
Women’s contributions to education which include everything from endowing the schools to running them have occurred at every level from pre-school through graduate school. In this month’s ENewsletter we profile two women who served as college presidents, where they improved higher education with their groundbreaking accomplishments.
The second president of Bryn Mawr College, M. Carey Thomas,was raised in a Quaker family and overcame her father’s objections to attend college. She graduated from Cornell University in 1877 and then pursued graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Leipzig.
Until the mid-1800s, people were not able to purchase clothing commercially or in sizes to fit them. Maternity clothing would not be commercially available until the early 1900s. Two women who contributed enormously to advances in dressmaking and clothing are Ellen Curtis Demorest and Lena Bryant. Let’s learn more about these two groundbreaking fashionistas.
Ellen Curtis Demorest is widely credited for being the first woman to create paper patterns for making clothing. She worked in a millinery shop after completing her schooling.
It’s springtime and for many sports fans, thoughts turn to baseball. In a previous ENewsletter, we profiled two amazing women in baseball – Effa Manley and Linda Alvarado. Effa Manley was the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame (2006); she managed and co-owned the Newark Eagles of the Negro Baseball League. In 1946, her team won the Negro League World Series. Linda Alvarado is the current co-owner of the Colorado Rockies. She is an inductee into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame and the National Women’s Hall of Fame. This month, we profile two other baseball pioneers – Edith Houghton and Nancy Lotsey.
Edith Houghton’s father played semiprofessional baseball and taught her to play at a young age. By age 10, she was the starting shortstop for the Philadelphia Bobbies. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, she played for the New York Bloomer Girls and the Boston team.
