Important Dates in Women's History
November

November 1868

Legend has it that a California stagecoach driver known as Charley Parkhurst became the first woman in the world to vote in a presidential election. She disguised herself as a man, and kept up the disguise until her death when her true identity was first discovered.

November 3, 1970

Activist Bella Abzug was elected to Congress

November 4, 1965

The first woman war correspondent to be killed in action was Dickey Chappell, an anti-communist journalist. She was killed on this day by a land mine in Viet Nam

November 5, 1872

Susan B. Anthony was arrested for attempting to cast a ballot after successfully registering to vote in Rochester New York in November 1, 1872.

November 7, 1893

Following in the footsteps of Wyoming and Utah, Colorodo became the third state to allow women to vote.

November 7, 1962

Eleanor Roosevelt died

November 8, 1897

Birthday of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker.

November 11, 1744

Birthday of Abigail Adams, who urged her husband, John, to "remember the ladies." His reaction is reported to have been laughter.

November 11

Veterans Day (USA).

November 12, 1815

Birthday of Elizabeth C. Stanton who helped organize the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY. She went on to partner with Susan B. Anthony to continue the fight for women's rights. She was still denied the right to vote at the time of her death.

November 14, 1917

"Night of Terror" - Women picketed the White House for the right to vote and were imprisoned and brutalized.

November 17

Feast of St. Hilda, patron saint of business and professional women.

November 18, 1787

Birth of Sojourner Truth. The author of "Aren't I a Woman" a powerful anti-slavery speech which empowered an 1851 Ohio women's rights convention.

November 18, 1861

Julia Ward Howe and her husband Samuel Howe witnessed first hand a battle of huge importance in the outcome of the Civil War. As a songwriter and a poet she had been asked to write a song to replace "John Brown's body" as a "theme" song. After she witnessed the battle she was inspired to write "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"

November 22, 1990

Margaret Thatcher announced that she would step down as prime minister of England.

November 23, 1921

Passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act. This provided for federal funding for instruction in maternity and infant care.

November 25

An ancient celebration of Womanhood. Women's Merrymaking Day.

November 26, 1792

Birth of Sarah Grimke, abolitionist and women's rights advocate.

"If someone betrays you once, it's their fault; if they betray you twice, it's your fault."

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

"A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water."

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art."

Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

"There are practical little things in housekeeping which no man really understands..."

"...at any age it does us no harm to look over our past shortcomings and plan to improve our characters and actions in the coming year."

You always admire what you really don't understand.

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.