127: The Self-Empowered Woman: Annie Edson Taylor

Dear Followers,

Today's post is about an amazing woman who was born in 1838, and 63 years later became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Annie Edson Taylor was born in Auburn, New York and her father (who left behind enough money to support his widow and eight children) died when she was twelve years old (1: No Paternal Safety Net). As a teenager, she attended a four year course in order to become a school teacher, and graduated with honors (10: The Critic Within). During her training, when she was 17 years old, she met David Taylor, who became her husband. They had a baby boy, but he died within days of being born. When Annie was only 25 years old, she became a widow when her husband was killed in the Civil War (15: Forget About Prince Charming).

For a number of years she changed jobs and locales frequently. In addition to working as a music teacher (9: Music), she also worked as a dance instructor. During her 30s and 40s she lived in both Bay City and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, San Antonio, Texas, and even Mexico City (14: Selective Disassociation), but eventually returned to New York.

In a bad financial state, she decided to try to be the first person to ever successfully ride over Niagara Falls in a barrel (11: Risk Addiction). She had the barrel custom made out of Oak and Iron, weighted with a 200-pound anvil, and padded with a mattress and a leather harness. It was four and a half feet high and three feet in diameter. She and her barrel were taken by rowboat to Grass Island, where she crawled inside with her "lucky" heart-shaped pillow (3: Belief in the Unbelievable). At 4:05 a.m. on the morning of her 63rd birthday, the barrel was set adrift, and passed over Horse Shoe Fall.

By 4:40 a.m. the barrel was captured, and much to every one's surprise "Mrs. Taylor was alive and conscious" (13: More Than Meets the Eye).

A portion of the barrel had to be sawed off for her to emerge, but she walked along the shore to a boat that took her to Maid of the Mist Dock where she was taken by carriage into the City of Niagara Falls. Three doctors examined her and found a three-inch cut behind her right ear to be her only injury.

Annie earned money speaking about her experience, but she never became financially stable. What little money she did earn from her lectures was (along with the barrel) stolen by her manager. She used her savings to pay for detectives to track him down; he and the barrel were eventually discovered in Chicago.

Annie's last years were spent posing for photographs with tourists at her Niagara Falls Souvenir stand. She died destitute (12: Hard Times) in Lockport, New York at the Lockport Home and Infirmary. Currently, a play about her (called "Queen of the Mist") is being staged at the Gym at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, NYC.

Looking forward to your comments...

126: The Self-Empowered Woman: Dao Ngoc Phung

Dear Followers, First of all, a great big THANK YOU to everyone who helped me celebrate my birthday. Lucky, lucky me to have so many kind, thoughtful and (amazingly) generous friends. Each of you made getting older more fun than I could ever have imagined!

Today I'd like to introduce you to an amazing 14 year old Vietnamese girl named Dao Ngoc Phung, pictured above with her younger brother and sister. My hero, Nicholas Kristof, wrote about her in his New York Times column as a way of illustrating the difference between the Vietnamese culture and ours. I won't be highlighting The Self-Empowered Woman traits that this young girl has, but I'll bet that you'll be impressed by the time you've finished reading this blog.

Phung is only 4'11" tall and weighs 97 pounds. Her passion is school, and in order to continue her education and meet her family obligations, she sets her alarm clock (six days a week) for 3 a.m. On Sundays, she sleeps until 5 a.m. Last year, her mother died of cancer and the family was left with $1,500 worth of debts. That's why her father has had to take jobs in the cities even though the family lives in a remote area of the Mekong Delta. So from Monday through Friday, Phung - who is in the ninth grade - lives like a single mother.

Each morning she wakes her siblings (Tien, who is nine and Huong, who is twelve), prepares breakfast, and they bicycle to school. For her it's a 90 minute ride each way, but she makes sure to arrive 20 minutes early so she won't be late for her classes. After school all three kids go fishing for their dinner, and then there is homework or chores. Everyday Phung helps her brother and sister with their homework first, and then she does her own. She rarely gets to bed before 11 p.m., and wakes up four hours later.

Phung wants to attend college and become an accountant, and while she is too poor right now for that to seem feasible, her astonishing work ethic just might make it possible. She recently asked her father to pay for extra tutoring, but he cannot afford the annual $40 fee.

Kristof feels that the 2,500 year old legacy of Confucius (which includes respect for teachers, scholarship, and the belief that "education can change destinies") works in her favor. In that part of the world, education is generally a top priority.

Phung's father never misses a parent-teacher conference even though he has to take off work to attend. He told Kristof "If I don't work, I lose a little bit of money. But if my kids miss out on school, they lose their life hopes. I want to know how they're doing in school. I tell my children that we don't own land that I can leave them when they grow up. So the only thing I can give them is an education."

If you would like to help this remarkable girl, a fund has been established in her name by an aid group called Room to Read.

Looking forward to your comments...

125: The Self-Empowered Woman: Dorothy Rodham

Dear Followers:

Many of you might think that this blog would focus on Hillary Clinton, who is wearing gray in the above photo, because she was First Lady for eight years, a former US Senator, Presidential candidate, and our current Secretary of State. But, instead, I'd like to pay tribute to her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, who died on November 1st at the age of 92.

Dorothy Rodham had a childhood that has been described as "Dickensian." She was born in Chicago in 1919 and her sister, Isabelle, was born in 1924: Dorothy's father (Edwin Howell) was a fireman and her mother (Della) was a neglectful parent. The couple had an unhappy, often violent marriage, and in 1927 Dorothy's father filed for divorce. Della did not show up in court, but her sister (Frances Czeslawski) appeared and testified against her. Edwin was granted custody of his daughters, but was either unwilling or unable to care for them.

When Dorothy was only eight years old, she was put in charge of her three-year old sister for their four-day train trip (on their own) from Chicago to Alhambra, California (1: No Paternal Safety Net). Unfortunately, her paternal grandparents were ill-prepared to take care of two young girls. Her grandmother (whom she remembered as a strict woman who wore black dresses, punished the girls severely for small mistakes, and wouldn't let them have visitors or attend parties) was once so angry at Dorothy for going trick-or-treating on Halloween that she ordered the girl to stay in her room for one full year - except for attending school. Fortunately, when the grandmother's sister learned about the punishment, Dorothy's "restriction" was lifted after four months.

At age 14, Dorothy moved out of her grandparents' home (14: Selective Disassociation) and accepted a job as a housekeeper, cook and nanny for a family that gave her room, board, and $3.00 a week. They encouraged the young teenager to read and go to school, so Dorothy enrolled at Alhambra High School where she joined both the Spanish and the Scholarship clubs.

In High School her speech and drama teacher (Miss Drake) and her English teacher (Miss Zellhoefer) let Dorothy know that they really believed in her. She paid tribute to them both in a book marking the school's centennial in 1998 (4: Supportive Someone). But after graduating in 1937, she made the brave decision to return to Chicago - where she hoped to enroll at Northwestern University - because her mother had told her that her new stepfather would help her pay for college (11: Risk Addiction).

Unfortunately, Della only wanted her daughter to be nearby in order to work as her housekeeper, so Dorothy found work as a secretary at a textile company and in 1942 married a travelling salesman named Hugh Ellsworth Rodham.

They moved to the suburbs and had three children (Hillary, Hugh and Tony), and even though Dorothy never had a career of her own she encouraged her daughter (as well as both her boys) to get a good education and engage in meaningful work. In spite of a miserable childhood, she managed to make the most of life as a mid-century American housewife. Hillary once paid this tribute to Dorothy: "I'm still amazed at how my mother emerged from her lonely early life as such an affectionate and levelheaded woman" (8: Turning No into Yes).

After her death, President Obama said "Ms. Rodham was a remarkable person. Anybody who knows her history knows what a strong, determined and gifted person she was. For her to have been able to live the life that she did, and to see her daughter succeed at the pinnacle of public service in this country [was] I'm sure, deeply satisfying to her."

Looking forward to your comments...

124: The Self-Empowered Woman: Royal news

Dear Followers,

Those of you who know me are well aware of what an Anglophile I am. Who else would give up a cushy L.A. Times job to move 6,000 miles away to spend five years working as a journalist in London? And my framed invitation (plus menu card) to have dinner with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on the Royal Yacht Britannia is among my most-treasured life souvenirs.

So, naturally, I felt it was worth special notice to share the news that leaders of Commonwealth countries decided at their summit meeting on Friday (in Perth, Australia) to change Royal Succession Laws. This represents a major paradigm shift for gender issues. The Commonwealth decision means that first-born daughters of future British monarchs now have an equal right to the throne. Previously, a younger male heir would inherit the crown rather than his older female sibling. What this means is that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (pictured above) have a daughter as their first-born child, she would be the next monarch before any younger brothers. This new ruling would also allow any future rulers to marry a Roman Catholic.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that "Attitudes have changed fundamentally over the centuries. The idea that the younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter, simply because he is a man, or that a future monarch can marry someone of any faith except a Catholic, this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we have become."

The discussion about changes in Royal Succession Laws was prompted by Prince William's marriage to Catherine Middleton earlier this year. Queen Elizabeth's opening statement at the summit did not directly address the Succession Laws, but she did say that women should play a greater role in society. There are 54 Commonwealth States, and twelve of the 20 countries have the highest rates of "child brides" are in the Commonwealth.

Looking forward to your comments...

123: The Self-Empowered Woman: Tyra Banks

Dear Followers,

Today’s remarkable woman is beautiful, a multimillionaire, only 37 years old, and has become a household name in America. Most women know Tyra Banks as the TV host of America’s Next Top Model or of the past program The Tyra Banks Show, while most men remember her as the first African-American model to be chosen as a Cover Girl for Sports Illustrated Magazine.

Banks was born in Southern California in 1973, to a mother who worked as a medical photographer and a father who worked in the computer industry, but her parents divorced when she was only six years old (1: No Paternal Safety Net). Carolyn London-Johnson has always been exceptionally close to her daughter, and has been there with love, advice and guidance ever since she became a single mother, three decades ago. Banks openly acknowledges that her mother was a great example of an independent woman (4: Supportive Someone). Tyra Banks graduated from L.A.’s Immaculate Heart High School, and was accepted by both USC and UCLA, but decided—instead—to pursue a modeling career.

She began modeling in the eleventh grade (2: An Early Sense Of Direction), but was told by many agencies that she “wasn’t photogenic.” Fortunately, she had a good runway walk and scored a great victory when she was chosen for extensive work as soon as she landed in Paris. She broke the record by being booked for an unprecedented 25 shows as a newcomer, and modeled for (among others) Badgley Mischka, Chanel, Christian Dior, Dolce & Gabbana and Donna Karan (8: Turning No Into Yes.) Soon, however, as she began to mature she also began to gain weight, and (very upsetting for Tyra) her mother was told that Banks needed to slim down in order to get work.

Instead of trying to please the high-fashion agencies, they began to explore different job possibilities where her curves were not considered a liability (5: Life Is Not A Popularity Contest). To this day, Banks considers the day that she landed the contract to pose for Sports Illustrated as a professional turning point. After succeeding as a cover model for GQ and Victoria’s Secret catalog, Banks expanded into film and music work. She made a number of TV, music video (remember George Michaels' "Too Funky" with the supermodels?) and movie appearances (11: Risk Addiction), and started her own production company, Bankable Productions. The time had come where she knew that her future would have more to do with other forms of media, and less to do with modeling (14: Selective Disassociation).

In 2008, she won a daytime Emmy Award for The Tyra’s Bank Show, which ran from 2005 to 2010. America’s Next Top Model started in 2003 and remains popular today: Banks serves as the show’s hostess, judge and executive producer. In addition, she is credited with performing the theme song for the program (9: Music).

Tyra Banks openly admits that in grammar school she was a true “mean girl,” who taunted her classmates in the worst way. But when - at eleven years old - she grew three inches and lost 30 pounds in a single year the tables turned and she became the one being bullied. Ever since that experience she has tried to help girls and young women to make good choices and live wisely. In 1999, she established the TZONE program, which became a public charity (The Tyra Banks TZONE Foundation) in 2005 (7: Magnificent Obsession).

Banks, who is 37 years old, has never married and has no children. Today, the woman who was once told that a) she wasn’t photogenic enough to be successful and that b) she weighed too much to make it as a model is attending Harvard Business School’s Owner/President Management Program.

Looking forward to your comments…

122: The Self-Empowered Woman: Nobel Prize Winners

Dear Followers,

Instead of focusing on one amazing woman, today's blog will introduce you to the three women who received - on Friday - this year's Nobel Peace Prize . Their selection highlights not only the "Arab Spring" movement, but the increased power and influence women are experiencing globally. President Obama said that the winners pictured above are "a reminder that when we empower women around the world everyone is better off, that countries and cultures that respect the contributions of women invariably end up being more successful than those that don't."

The woman on the left is 39 year old Leymah Gbowee, who was born in Liberia and experienced the horrors of the First Liberian Civil War in which Charles Taylor's army used child soldiers. A mother of six, she realized that "If any changes were to be made in society it had to be by the mothers." So she organized the Christian and Muslim women to pray for peace and holds non-violent demonstrations. By 2003, the women's movement brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War and led to the election of the woman pictured on the far right, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman to become president of an African country. Gbowee is the central character in the 2008 documentary film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" as well as the author of "Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War." Her group protested outside the presidential palace by sending politicians this statement of intent "In the past we were silent, but after being killed, raped, dehumanized, and infected with diseases, and watching our children and families destroyed, war has taught us that the future lies in saying NO to violence and YES to peace! We will not relent until peace prevails." She earned an Master of Arts in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. When told of her award she said "Three women receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is really overwhelming...It's finally a recognition that we can't ignore the other half of the world's population."

The second picture is of 32 year old Tawakkul Karman, who is a mother off three and has played a pivotal role in Yemen's political upheaval. To many, she is known as "Mother of the Revolution" and in 2005, she founded an advocacy group called Women Journalists Without Chains. Two years later, she began staging sit ins in front of Yemen's Parliament, and in January she took to the streets with several dozen protesters calling for Mister Saleh's resignation. She has been arrested, received death threats, been called a traitor, and criticized for the fact that three years ago she stopped wearing the full facial veil. She has been inspired to fight for marginalized groups by Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. She called her prize "A victory for the entire Yemeni Revolution" and she hopes that it would bring additional international support. The head of the Nobel Prize committee, Thorbjorn Jagland said that the committee "included the Arab Spring in this prize, but...if one fails to include the women in the new democracies, there will be no democracy."

The last photo is of Liberia's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who at age 72 is the mother of four sons and has eight grandchildren. Although she has transformed her country, she is facing a difficult bid for re-election. About 250,000 people were killed during the country's civil wars back when Liberia - Africa's first independent republic - was called "a poster child for Africa's ills." Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf, who was the first woman elected as an African head of state, managed to bring peace to the country. She holds degrees from: the University of Colorado, Boulder; the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Harvard. She also served as assistant United Nations secretary-general, and as a vice-president at Citibank. When she was inaugurated as her country's president, both Condoleezza Rice and first lady Laura Bush attended. The Liberian election is scheduled for this Tuesday, and her opponent is a popular soccer star. While admirers refer to her as the "Iron Lady" her political opponents have used the phrase "Too Old To Hold." After learning of her award she said "We are now going into our ninth year of peace, and every Liberian has contributed to it. We particularly give this credit to Liberian women, who have consistently led the struggle for peace even under conditions of neglect."

Looking forward to your comments...

121: The Self-Empowered Woman: Wangari Maathai

Dear Followers,

Today I'd like to introduce you to an amazing woman who, sadly, died last week. Wangari Muta Maathai was best known as the force behind Kenya's Green Belt Movement, a program she developed to help women plant trees in order to conserve the environment and improve the quality of life.

Born in 1940 in the village of Ihithe, Kenya, Maathai’s first years were spent when the country was still a British colony. Her family was Kikuyu, which is the largest ethnic group in Kenya, and when she was seven years old she, her mother, and two brothers lived in one place while her father worked on a white-owned farm in a different part of the country (1: No Paternal Safety Net). Maathai moved to Mathari and entered St. Cecilia’s intermediate Primary School, which was a Catholic boarding school (3: Belief In The Unbelievable). At that time she became fluent in English and took the Christian name of Mary Josephine.

When she completed her studies at St. Cecilia’s, she was ranked first in her class (10: The Critic Within) and was admitted to Kenya’s only Catholic High School for girls - Loreto High School Limuru. During the 1960s, her country was undergoing upheaval, including the Mau Mau uprising and the end of Colonialism, 300 Kenyan’s were chosen to study at American Universities. They were part of a program known as “The Kennedy Airlift” or “Airlift Africa.”; Barack Obama was one of the recipients of this scholarship program.
Maathai studied at Mt. St. Scholastica College (now Benedictine College) in Atchison Kansas, majored in Biology, minored in Chemistry and German, and graduated in 1964. The Africa-American Institute provided a Scholarship for her to enroll at the University of Pittsburgh for her Masters Degree in Biological Sciences, which she received in 1966.

Told that she had been appointed as a research assistant at University College of Nairobi, she returned to Kenya only to learn that the position had been given to someone else. Her belief was that this was due to both tribal and gender bias. She found work at the School of Veterinary Medicine at University College of Nairobi under a German professor (Reinhold Hofmann), who encouraged her to peruse her doctorate; she studied at both University of Munich and The University of Giessen (4: Supportive Someone).

In 1969, she returned to Nairobi to work as an assistant lecturer and continue her doctorate studies. That year she married Mwangi Mathai, who had also studied in America. In 1971 she became the first East African woman to receive a PhD, and by 1977 she was named Associate Professor in Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi. During this time, she campaigned for equal rights for female staff members at the university, and joined the National Council of Women of Kenya. She began to see that the root of most of Kenya’s problems was environmental degradation, and it became her life's work (7 Magnificent Obsession).

She encouraged the women of Kenya to plant tree nurseries and search nearby forests for seeds to grow trees native to the area. In return, she paid the women a small stipend for each seedling that could later be planted elsewhere. In 1979, after ten years of marriage, she and her husband divorced (15: Forget about Prince Charming), and her activism on behalf of women and the environment led her to be the recipient of a campaign of hurtful name calling. Maathai (and everyone else) was told that she was: too strong-minded for a woman, cruel, ignorant, a mad woman, and a threat to the order and security of the country (5: Life is not a Popularity Contest).

Her divorce was costly, and there was no way she could afford to support their three children on her University salary alone. So she let them stay with their father for the next six years while she accepted a job in Zambia that required extensive travel. By 1992, her advocacy for the environment and her pro-Democracy activism made her a target for assassination (11: Risk Addiction). As a result, she barricaded herself in her home for three days before the police entered and arrested her. She was arrested again in 2001 in an attempt to save public land from deforestation.

In 2004, Maathai became the first African woman (and first environmentalist) to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Thanks to her determination and bravery, more than 30 million - WOW - trees (and women) are standing proud. Sadly, Maathai died at age 71, but her cause continues; for more information contact: www.greenbeltmovement.org

Looking forward to your comments . . .