Dorcas Cavett - Lady Leatherneck

I was astonished to learn that a member of my family was one of the very first women to be enlisted in the Marine Corps during World War II.  Dorcas Cavett was born shortly before the end of the First World War and was raised in rural Nebraska.  After graduating from the University of Nebraska, she became a teacher.  Two years after World War II broke out, Dorcas immediately felt that “every single unencumbered person ought to help out in any way he or she could, that we [Americans] were actually in a fight for our lives” (Cavett 71).  For five days, she rushed from her job to the Federal Building to enlist with the women’s reserve branch of the U.S. Navy, but by the time she got there, the office was closed.  On the fifth day, a member of the United States Marine Corps asked her what she was doing.  When she told him, he responded that she should come to the Marine office, as they were going to start enlisting women into the Marine Corps the next day.  That is how she became a Lady Leatherneck.  Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit the Lady Leathernecks during their last week of training, and she was so inspired by these women that she referred to them as, “the real women of America” (73).  During her time in the Marine Corps, Dorcas was often mistaken for a man because of her name.  In one incident, she was sent to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina to teach weaponry.  The moment she got to the base, she was faced with much opposition.  One commanding officer questioned her because no women were allowed on base.  Dorcas stated, “That’s about to change!” as she showed him her orders (75).  As it turned out, the Marine Corps Headquarters noticed on her enlistment information that she had teaching experience and assumed that she was a man – just the person to teach weaponry! 

Dorcas Cavett pictured on right.

Dorcas was even given a letter of commendation from Col. J. MacArthur for her outstanding service in the Women’s Reserves of the United States Marine Corps.  Dorcas also became one of the first female commanding officers in Marine Corps; she was in charge of Company K of the Women’s Reserves.  After the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Company K was asked to march in the funeral procession down Pennsylvania Avenue.  Throughout all of the amazing things that Dorcas accomplished during her time in the service, nothing stood out to her more than the words of Marine Corps director of the Women’s Reserves, Major Ruth Cheney Streeter: “Never before have the women of America had such a real opportunity to serve their country.  May it be given to us to wear with integrity the uniform that has been covered with glory from Tripoli to Guadalcanal" (74).  And Dorcas Cavett did just that.

Works Cited

Cavett, Dorcas.  My First 81 Years. Lincoln: Dageforde Publishing Inc., 1999. Print.

Heather Carlson

Guerrilla Girls: Shaking up the (all male, all white) art world


(My project is this animated presentation. All the text below is found in the movie above, I repeated below for quick read or re-read if you need it.)

Guerrilla Girls:  Shaking up the (all male, all white) art world

1985: Outrage at MoMa

In 1985, the Museum of Modern Art held a show of contemporary artists featuring 169 artists, but only 17 of them were women.

"Any artist who is not in my show should rethink HIS career"  -Curator

A small group of women artists held a protest outside the museum, but the response was  disappointing. So they switched tactics, plastered SoHo in sassy street art, donned gorilla masks,  adopted pseudonyms of famous female artists,  and thus the Guerrilla Girls were born. 

Using a mixture of fine art, statistics, and sarcasm, the Guerrilla Girls sent ripples through the art world.

But they didn't stop there...

"They make culture hacking look good. Really good."  -Wired 

"The Guerrilla Girls took feminist theory, gave it a populist twist and some Madison Avenue pizazz and set it loose in the streets."  - Roberta Smith, The New York Times

"The Girls are quippy as well as lippy. They are the Fun-Guard of feminism."  - Ginny Dougary, The Times (London)

"Their message celebrates each woman's uniqueness. By insisting on a world as if women mattered, and also the joy of getting there, the Guerrilla Girls pass the ultimate test: they make us both laugh and fight; both happy and strong." - Gloria Steinem

In the last few years, the Guerrilla Girls have appeared at over 100 universities and museums all over the world. With wit and outrageous imagery they expose sexism, racism and corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture.

Want to keep up with the girls?  Visit guerrillagirls.com. Do it now!!!!!

Works Cited

Toobin, Jeffery. "Girls Behaving Badly." The New Yorker, Conde Naste., 30 May. 2005. Web. 3 March. 2012.

Girls, Guerrilla. The official site of the Guerrilla Girls. Fighting discrimination with facts, humor and fake fur!  n.p., 2011. Web. 3 March 2012.

-Natasha Alterici

Lydia Maria Child

"Such as I am, I am here ready to work according to my conscience and my ability; providing nothing but diligence and fidelity, refusing the shadow of a fetter on my free expression of opinion, from any man, or body of men and equally careful to respect the freedom of others, whether as individuals or societies."

Lydia Maria Child was well-known in her own time as a radical abolitionist. She had strong ideas about religion, politics, and the conditions of women and children. Child used her work as an author to promote her ideals, despite the fact that many people disagreed with her. 

Her novel Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times was published in 1824. Hobomok, her first novel, bore witness of her abolitionist attitude because it showed Native Americans as sympathetic characters, not as savages as was the common practice. Her Ladies Family Library, short biographies published from 1832 to 1835, promoted feminist ideas through the use of two independent female characters.

“Old dreams vanished, old associates departed, and all things became new."

Child continued her work through such publications as The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, involvement in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and other individual abolitionists. The major point of her career as both an author and an abolitionist was the publication of An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans in 1833. This publication told of Child’s stance against slavery, saying that is went against Christian teaching and brought degradation to both slaves and masters. 

"When there is anti-slavery work to be done, I feel as young as twenty."

Child continued her activism for Native Americans, women, and African Americans through organizations such as Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and Free Religious Association, her support for women’s suffrage, and by donating money to various worthy causes until her death in 1880. 

 Primary Works

Works Cited: 

Goodwin, Joan. Lydia Maria Child. UUA. Web. 05 March 2012. <http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/lydiamariachild.html>

Lydia Maria Child's Appeal. University of Virginia. Web. 05 March 2012. 

 <http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/childhp.html>

-Kiley Ging

Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix

     Dorothea Dix (April 4, 1802 – July 17, 1887) was an American activist who fought against the oppression of the insane. Barely known as a schoolteacher and sometime author of religious books, she submitted a petition to the Massachusetts General Court which claimed to expose the appalling condition of pauper lunatics throughout the state, county by county, town by town. She opened this petition with the words, "I proceed, Gentlemen," she announced, "briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!" (Gollaher).
   She personalized the plight of the insane, and never hesitated to expose the ineptitude or corruption of the officials in charge. Almost from the day her pamphlet appeared, it shocked the collective conscience, promoting a revolution in the perception and treatment of insanity. "The Memorial is a work of great force--a stirring call on behalf of the pauper insane to stop the abuses of the state's haphazard community-based approach to social welfare. Eloquent and impassioned, it defined the moral basis of lunacy reform for the rest of the nineteenth century" (Gollaher).
    She had good reason to want this reform. Upon closer inspection, Miss Dix had years before collapsed from depression and exhaustion. Traveling to England, not knowing a soul, collapsing again, the Rathbone family offered her a retreat in which to recuperate. "This was the turning point in her life. For the circumstances of her recovery furnish clues that not only help explain her personal interest in insanity and its cure, but also clarify both the form and meaning of the Massachusetts Memorial and her strongest convictions about social welfare" (Gollaher). Her own journey back to normalcy became her personal frame of reference for the process of curing mental disorders. She found a means to save her sanity, a way that was a model for others.
     News that her grandmother had died in Boston brought her reluctantly back to America. She had by then almost fully recovered her health, though in times of stress some of her old symptoms, including depression, would later resurface. It took her three years to compile her experiences and findings into something she could use to create change. She had embraced a radically new way of thinking about social problems and obligations. In her heartwrenching Memorial submitted to the Massachussetts Court, she described the conditions of people she had seen personally in these prisons, who were languishing away with no hope of recovery. The response was immediate and explosive.
     "Dorothea Dix played an instrumental role in the founding or expansion of more than 30 hospitals for the treatment of the mentally ill. She was a leading figure in those national and international movements that challenged the idea that people with mental disturbances could not be cured or helped. She also was a staunch critic of cruel and neglectful practices toward the mentally ill, such as caging, incarceration without clothing, and painful physical restraint" (Parry).

Works Cited:

Gollaher, David L. "Dorothea Dix And The English Origins Of The American Asylum Movement." Canadian Review Of American Studies 23.3 (1993): 149. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.

Parry, Manon S. "Dorethea Dix (1802-1887)." American Journal of Public Health Apr. 2006: 624+. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.

Stephanie Robertson

Edmonia Lewis: 19th century Sculptor of African American and Native American Hertiage.

Edmonia Lewis was a nineteenth century sculptor. She was part Native American (Chippewa) and part African American. Her parents died when she was a very young girl.She studied art in Boston in 1863 and traveled to Rome in 1865 where she lived til her death. Her sculptures were done in the neoclassical style, but she included human rights and racial themes in her pieces. Lewis was very popular in Europe and America in the 1860s and 70s. One of her popular pieces was called Old Indian Arrowmaker and His Daughter. It was inspired by The Song of Hiawatha a poem by Longfellow. Lewis was a big fan of Longfellow. She was the first major sculptor of African American and Native American heritage. Facts about Edmonia Lewis's life are few and her history. The date and place of her death is still unknown. "Edmonia Lewis pursued her goals and insisted upon being a part of the period and a part of that movement and she...fits now brightly into history" said by art historian David Driskell.

 


















 Old Indian Arrowmaker and his Daughter                                         Death of Cleopatra



Works Citied
Kleeblatt, Norman L. "Master Narratives/ Minority Artists." Art Journal 57.3 (1998): 29.
        Academic Search Premier.
' The Incredible Edmonia Lewis: The First Major Sculptor of African American and Native
        American Heritage'. 1999, New Crisis (15591603), 106,1,p.62. Academic Search Premier.
Richardson, Marilyn." Edmonia Lewis At Mcgrawville: The Early Education of a
       Nineteenth- Century Black Woman Artist', Nineteenth- Century Contexts 22.2 (2000): 239.
       Academic Search Premier.
Written by: Britany Burris

Ruth Benedict

Ruth Fulton was born in New York on June 5, 1887 to a surgeon and a teacher. A childhood illness left her partially deaf, causing a shyness that she carried with her throughout her life and achievements. She attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York for her undergraduate study. In 1914 she married Stanley Benedict, a biochemist at Cornell Medical College in New York City. Heartbroken upon finding she couldn’t conceive, Benedict became absorbed in intellectual activity and she found the discipline that would enrich her life: Anthropology.

Ruth Benedict was one of few women in the field of Anthropology at the time. In 1921, she began to study under Franz Boas, the “Father of American Anthropology,” at Columbia University. Her approach to anthropology was revolutionary and holistic and was motivated by her belief in cultural relativity, a rare perspective even today. She quickly achieved her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1923.

In 1922, she began teaching at Bernard College where she met the fascinating Margaret Mead with whom she had a life-long friendship. From 1922-1939, Benedict did field studies of the Serrano, the Zuni, the Cochiti, the Pima, and the Blackfoot Indians. Benedict’s husband wasn’t supportive of her career and in 1931 they split up. It is generally thought that she and Mead were lovers at this time. Stanley died in 1936.

The relationship between Mead and Benedict has been the source of much curiosity.

Her book, Patterns of Culture, was published in 1934 and “remains one of the most widely read books in the social sciences ever written” (webster.edu). She rose quickly in the field of academia to recognition taking several positions throughout the next few years including acting executive director of the Department of Anthropology and Columbia and president of the American Anthropological Association. She also did some work for the government during World War II studying Japanese and German culture. Ruth Fulton Benedict died in 1948.

Benedict's Patterns of Culture

Hochman, Susan K. "RUTH FULTON BENEDICT." Webster.Edu. N.P., N.D. Web. 03/04/2012. <http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/ruthbenedict.html >

"Ruth Benedict." Vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu. Vassar Encyclopedia. N.D. Web. 03/04/2012.                 <http://vcencyclopedia.vassar.edu/alumni/ruth-benedict.html >

"Ruth Benedict." Columbia.edu. Columbia University Department of Anthropology. N.D. Web. 03/04/2012. < http://www.columbia.edu/cu/anthropology/about/main/one/benedict.html >

--Brittany M Fisher