#whm2015

Let's raise a glass in a ‪#‎TuesdayToast‬ to the last day of Women's History Month! We wanted to share the story of Daisy Simpson, known as the “lady hooch hunter." This document is currently on display in our new "Spirited Republic" exhibit.

The Prohibition Bureau hired a handful of women agents, usually assigned to office work. Daisy Simpson’s background as a former member of the San Francisco Police morals squad, her acting ability, and her skill at disguises allowed her to pose as a variety of characters and attempt to buy liquor at speakeasies, hotels, and restaurants.

Daisy went undercover in several well-publicized stings, including one in which she pretended to faint outside a bar. When the owner took her inside and revived her with a sip of whiskey, she arrested him.

Simpson served from 1921 until 1925 when she resigned after the head of the San Francisco bureau declared women could no longer work as agents.

Image: Prohibition Bureau identification card for Daisy Simpson, September 6, 1921 (National Archives, Records of the Internal Revenue Service)

“A woman’s place is on the money” is the catchy tagline of a growing national movement to put an American woman trail blazer on the $20 bill. It’s pretty fitting timing given that it’s Women’s History month and a long overdue improvement if you consider that the Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollars (when’s the last time you used one of those?) are the only places women are represented on our currency.

In December 1945, President Harry S. Truman appointed Eleanor as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, and the following April, she became the first chairperson of the preliminary United Nations Commission on Human Rights, playing an important part in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She stayed on at that position until 1953.

In early 1952, she undertook a personal tour through the Middle East, southern Asia, and the Pacific from February through the end of March. She stayed in India for a month, and from that experience wrote "India and the Awakening East," in which she celebrated India's first general elections as an independent nation:

"Though India has far to go, she has made a determined and inspired beginning. This new democracy seems to evoke the kind of passionate devotion among its leaders that our forefathers had for the democratic government they were establishing here. Perhaps this is one of the great contributions the young democracies can make to the older ones such as ours. We have grown stale; we are inclined to take everything for granted. We find it hard to go to vote if it means we have to walk a considerable distance or if, because of the crowds, we have to stand in line to cast our ballots..."

We’ve spent the day with Smithsonian Institution Archives writing women in science (back) into Wikipedia. The event builds on previous years’ work, including edit-a-thons and the work of transcribing volunteers.

We have created articles for women (re)discovered through transcription and living science practitioners at the smithsonian. There’s still much work to be done but you can learn about our day below.

First we heard from Dr. Marcel LaFollette on the depiction and interpretation of women scientists in the Science Service photo morgue collection held by Smithsonian Institution Archives. Watch her discussion here and read more about Dr. LaFollette’s research here.

Then we saw a draft of James Smithson’s will, the work of women in science, and beautiful sketches, thanks to Chief Archivist Tammy Peters. See these artifacts here. 

Finally, we learned from Deputy Chief of the Media & Technology at Smithsonian American Art Museum on the best practices and principles of editing Wikipedia. Listen in here and find her slides here. 

Here are some of the women in science who now have articles:

Mary Lura Sherrill - Chemist

Miriam Elizabeth Simpson - Anatomist, MD

Sandra Welner - Physician, Inventor

Pauline Gracia Beery Mack - Chemist

Eva J. Pell - Plant Pathologist, Science Administrator

Marjorie Van de Water - Science Journalist

Christine Jones Forman - Astrophysicist

Alice Haskins - Botanist

Charlotte Gower Chapman - Anthropologist

Dr. Christine Jones Forman - Astrophysicist [206][207][208][209][210]

Mary Hagedorn- Physiologist and Research Scientist

Wanda Margarite Kirkbride Farr - Chemist, Botanist. Wanda Kirkbride Farr already existed, so added a redirect page.

Nellie A. Brown - Botanist

In celebration of Women’s History Month, join us for "Temperance and Woman Suffrage" with the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum.

Tuesday, March 31, at 7 p.m. National Archives Building Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHwHZAufuYk

The temperance and woman suffrage movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries created opportunities for women to organize for social, economic, and political change.

Page Harrington, executive director of the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum, leads a discussion on how these reform movements provide a fascinating study of the individuals who participated in both movements, the organizations they created, and women as the driving force behind significant change in the United States.

 Lori Osborne, archivist and president of the Frances Willard Historical Association; Dr. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, University Professor Emerita, Morgan State University; and Kristina Myers, program director at the Alice Paul Institute, will also participate.

Details here: http://www.archivesfoundation.org/…/temperance-woman-suffr…/

Mabel Deutrich faced discrimination because of her gender during her long career at the National Archives.

Competition for promotions in her unit was intense. The final sentence typed on the bottom of a comparison of the candidates summarizes the attitude of the time: “Deutrich’s only disadvantage in this respect lies in her being a woman.”

But ultimately she earned her PhD and became Assistant Archivist for the Office of the National Archives in 1975. 

She chaired the SAA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Archival Profession when it was established in 1972, and wrote “Ms. vs. Mr. Archivist” for the Women in Archives issue of "The American Archivist" in 1973. After she retired in 1979, she co-edited a book in the new field of Women’s Studies.

The most well-known lighthouse keeper in the world was an American woman who was a Federal civil servant. Ida Wilson Lewis, lighthouse keeper of Rhode Island, saved somewhere between 13 and 25 lives.

In 1853, Ida’s father, Capt. Hosea Lewis, was appointed the first lighthouse keeper at Lime Rock, an island in Newport Harbor. A few months after his appointment, Captain Lewis was stricken by a paralytic stroke. His wife, Zorada, and Ida began to carry out the lighthouse duties in addition to their everyday household chores.

Ida’s first rescue occurred in 1854. The 12-year-old girl came to the aid of four men who had capsized a small sailboat. But it was the 1869 rescue of Sergeant Adams and Private McLaughlin of Fort Adams that made her famous. Because Ida (a woman) saved two men from drowning in the midst of a squall, she was deemed the “Grace Darling of America,” after Grace Darling, a famed English lighthouse keeper’s daughter who helped save several people from a 1838 shipwreck.

For her bravery, Ida was awarded a silver medal from the Life-Saving Benevolent Association of New York and presented with a new boat by the citizens of Newport. She was featured on the cover of Harper’s Weekly magazine (the only lighthouse keeper ever to receive such a distinction).

Throughout her life, Ida received numerous other awards, including the Gold Lifesaving Medal  and the congressionally awarded American Cross of Honor.

The official personnel folder documenting Ida Wilson Lewis’s remarkable Federal serviceis open to the public.

Visit http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/archival-programs/civilian-personnel-archival/ to learn more about requesting this and other official personnel folders of former civil servants from the National Archives at St. Louis

Read more about Ida here: http://go.usa.gov/3ry9W

The papers of this artist were processed with funding from the National Public Historical Publications and Records Commission, part of the National Archives.