Alfonsina Storni

The struggle against discrimination, prejudice and double standards has been long for women. Latin American culture has been known to be a sexist culture. However, many incredible women have struggled to overcome the sexist whiplash of the Hispanic culture. Alfonsina Storni was one of the famous female writers of the Hispanic community. She gave women a voice in a time that women had none.

Born in April of 1892, Alfonsina was the third of four children born to Paulina and Alfonso Storni. Due to her father’s alcoholism, her parents left San Juan, Argentina, where they had a prominent business manufacturing soda, ice and beer, and they moved to Switzerland where Alfonsina was born. When Alfonsina was four years old they moved back to San Juan, Argentina and then to Rosario. Seven years later, her parents had their fourth child. Shortly after the birth of her younger brother, her family’s business declined and went into bankruptcy. In order to provide for her family, Alfonsina’s mother, Paulina, wanted to run a small private school; however, her father wanted to start a Café. Alfonso Storni’s café also ended in failure placing an even greater dent in his family’s economy.

When Alfonsina was only eleven years old, she began writing and contributing to her family. She toured Argentina at twelve and later she went back to school and received a diploma in teaching. Alfonsina taught at Rosario where she fell in love with a married newspaper journalist. This romance produced a child and, due to this, Alfonsina left Rosario because her lover’s reputation was in jeopardy. She moved to Buenos Aires where her son was born in 1912. Soon after, while working at an oil importing firm where she held a high position, she wrote La Inquietud del Rosal ("The Disquietude of the Rosebush"-1926). This was her first book of poetry filled with poems of love and politics. Because Alfonsina was unmarried, her book was considered scandalous and caused her to loose her job at the oil importing firm. She soon gained another job as a teacher.

Alfonsina held a chair in El Teatro Infantile Municipal Labarden 1921 and the Nacional de Música y Declamación in 1923. She became a "Lectura y declamación" profesor at the Escuela Normal de Lenguas Vivasen 1923.

Alfonsina published several other books such as El amo del Mundo ("The Master of the World"- 1927), Ocre ("Okra"- 1925), Poemas de Amor ("Love Poems"- 1926), Mundo de Siete Pozos ("World of Seven Wells"- 1934), and Mascarilla y Trebol ("Mask and Clover"- 1938).

In 1935 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to go through painful operation that did not improve her condition. She suffered from severe depressions that led to her drowning herself in the ocean on October of 1938. Her last poem was "Voy a Dormir" (I Am Going to Sleep).

Though her poetry, articles and essays, Alfonsina advocated for equality and “balance” between men and women. Even though she gave up and defeated herself in the end, it was the openness, independence, and self reliance she had during her life that set her apart from the women of her time and gave us a model of the intellectual woman for the generations to come.

Books by Alfonsina Storni:
La inquietud del rosal
El dulce diario
Irremediablemente
Languidez
Ocre

Mundo de siete pozos
Poemas de amor

Books about Alfonsina Storni:
Alfonsina Storni
Sonia Jones

Alfonsina Storni: From Poetess to Poet
Rachel Phillips

Alfonsina Storni
Jose D. Fogione

Luisa Capetillo

Capetillo was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico on October 28, 1879. Her mother, Luisa Margarita Perone, a French immigrant, arrived in Puerto Rico in search of employment as a tutor for the children of a prominent family in Arecibo. Instead, she was hired to do domestic work. Her father, Luis Capetillo Echevarria, arrived in Puerto Rico from Spain. Although he’d planned to make his fortune in Puerto Rico, he ended up working in various trades.

Capetillo’s parents shared the same philosophical and political ideology. They lived together and raised Luisa, their only child, but never married. Capetillo was educated at home where she received a more liberal education than what young women could expect at that time. Both her parents encouraged open and free debate on many issues which opened her mind to different ideas and philosophies. She adopted an anarchist philosophy and it was those ideals that she lived by. She was baptized a Catholic, but rejected religion. However, she was not an atheist.

At the age of 19, she met and fell in love with Manuel Ledesma, a young man from a prominent family in Arecibo. They became lovers, and in 1898 their first child, Manuela, was born. Two years later their son Gregorio was born. Luisa and Manuel never married, and after three years their love affair ended.

Now a single mother, Capetillo left her children in the care of her mother and took a job in the textile industry. Subsequently, she became a reader in the tobacco factories in Arecibo. A reader sat or stood at a podium on the factory floor and read aloud so that the workers who stemmed the tobacco leaves and rolled the cigars could hear. It was there in the tobacco factory that Capetillo had her first contact with the union — La Federacion de Torcedores de Tabaco (The Federation of Tobacco Rollers) which was affiliated with La Federacion Libre de Trabajadores (The Free Federation of Labor).

Luisa Capetillo was the first Puerto Rican woman to commit to writing her feminist ideas and theories on the rights of women. In 1909, Luisa wrote and published Mi opinion sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer (My opinion about the liberties, rights and responsibilities of women) which is the first feminist thesis written in Puerto Rico. Although she considered herself a feminist, she did not join any of the feminist organizations that emerged during that time. She instead dedicated all her efforts to the labor movement, believing that the union was the vehicle for poor working women to obtain justice and equality. She wore pants in public, challenging the social mores of the time. She advocated for free and liberal education for all men and women. Perhaps one of her most controversial ideas was "free love," which many misinterpreted as encouraging promiscuity. In her essays she explains that women should choose whom they will love freely, without legal interference or matrimony. In 1911, Capetillo gave birth to her third child, Luis Capetillo. She published the first edition of her book entitled Mi Opinion.

In 1912, Capetillo traveled to New York City where she established ties within the Cuban and Puerto Rican tobacco workers. She wrote for various radical and anarchist papers. A year later she moved to Tampa, Florida where she worked as a reader in one of the tobacco factories. During her stay, she published the second edition of Mi Opinion. The next stop in her travels was Cuba where she joined the sugar cane workers in their strike which was organized by la Federacion Anarquista (the Anarchist Federation of Cuba). She circulated a manifesto which advocated violence and was ordered to leave the county. She was later arrested for "causing a public disturbance" by wearing men’s clothes in public. She challenged the court, arguing that there was no such law that prohibited her from wearing men’s clothing. The judge agreed, and the charges were dropped. News of this episode was published in all the major newspapers in Cuba and Puerto Rico.

She returned to Puerto Rico where she organized and participated in several strikes, including the Sugar Cane Strike of 1916. Over 40,000 workers in 32 municipalities participated in this strike which resulted in an average salary increase of 13%. The period of 1916-1918 was the most intense in terms of strike activity in Puerto Rico’s history. During this period Luisa traveled back and forth to New York City where she had established a guest house and café. She also traveled to the Dominican Republic in support of striking workers in 1919.

Luisa Capetillo was overcome by tuberculosis and died on October 10, 1922. From all accounts, she lived intensely — almost until the moment of her death she fought for workers causes and the emancipation of women.

Some books by Luisa Capetillo:
Mi Opinión
Ensayos Libertarios
La Humanidad en el Futuro
Influencias de las Ideas Modernas

Books about Luisa Capetillo:
Amor y Anarquia
By Julia Ramos

The Story of Luisa Capetillo, a Pioneer in Puerto Rican Feminist
By Norma Valle Ferrer

Sojourner Truth

"Slave and Abolitionist"

Born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 she was the daughter of slave parents, and a slave herself. Was sold away from her family at the age of eleven and resold many times after that. Freed with the help of Isaac Van Wagener in 1827, she worked in New York as a servant in religious homes. Convinced she had heard a voice from God she began to preach in the streets with Elijah Pierson. In 1843 she changed her name to Sojourner Truth because she wanted to travel and tell the truth about God.

Truth was an abolitionist, a suffragist; she spoke for prison reform, and she also addressed the Michigan Legislature against capital punishment. In her lifetime she had the privilege of working with prominent figures such as Frederick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, and Olive Gilbert. Truth continued speaking against what she believed to be wrong and was very involved in her work until illness fell upon her and no longer allowed her to keep on preaching and helping the women’s suffrage movement.


SOJOURNER’S QUOTES:
“If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it.”

“It is the mind that makes the body.”

“Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.”


BOOKS ABOUT SOJOURNER:
-Truth Sojourner, Helen Frost
-Truth Sojourner: A life symbol, Nell Irvin Painter

Marie Curie

“The Nobel Prize winner”

Marie Sklodowska was born on November 7, 1957 in Warsaw. As a young girl, her father trained her in science sparking her interest in the subject. Marie Sklodowska left her homeland to seek higher education opportunities in Paris, France. In Paris, she met Pierre Curie, a professor at the School of Physics, and they got married in 1895. They had two daughters named Irene and Eve.

Both Pierre and Marie teamed up to make some of the most innovative research in radioactivity. They both won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1903, as well as, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Later, in 1906, her husband Pier died in a horse wagon accident.

After her husband’s accidental death, she took his position at the university, becoming the first women to hold this position. Marie continued to do research and, in 1911, she won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for her work on radium. She was the first person who won two Nobel Prizes. In 1914, she became the director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris. In 1921, she was recognized for her contributions to science by American women; thus, she was presented one gram of Radium by the president of the United States at the time, President Harding.

Because of the extensive exposure to radiation, Marie Sklodowska Curie died of leukemia on July 4, 1934; she was 67 when she died. Her daughter Irene also won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Favorite Quotes:

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the sametime, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty beingto aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
“I was taught that the way of progress I neither swift nor easy.
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”

Books about Marie Curie:

Marie Curie: A Life
by Susan Quinn

Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie
by Barbara Goldsmith

Alice Paul

"Female rights activists and hero"

Quaker family in Moorestown, New Jersey on January11th, 1885. Educated in the United States at Swarthmore College and Pennsylvania University, where she earned a master's degree in sociology. In 1907 Paul she moved to England where she was a Ph.D. student at the School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

In 1908 Paul heard Christabel Pankhurst make a speech at the University of Birmingham. Inspired by what she heard, Paul joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and her activities resulted in her being arrested and imprisoned three times. Like other suffragettes she went on hunger strike and was forced-fed. After one arrest Paul met Lucy Burns, another American who had joined the WSPU while studying in England. Paul returned home in 1910 where she became involved in the struggle for women's suffrage in the United States.

In 1913 Paul joined with Lucy Burns to form the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage (CUWS) and attempted to introduce the militant methods used by the Women's Social and Political Union in Britain. This included organizing huge demonstrations and the daily picketing of the White House. After the United States joined the First World War, Paul was continually assaulted by patriotic male bystanders, while picketing outside the White House.

In October, 1917, Paul was arrested and imprisoned for seven months. Paul went on hunger strike and was released from prison. In January, 1918, Woodrow Wilson announced that women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure". However, it was not until 1920 that the 19th Amendment secured the vote for women.

Paul continued to campaign for women's rights and in 1938 founded the World Party for Equal Rights for Women (also known as the World Women's Party). Paul also successfully lobbied for references to sex equality in the preamble to the United Nations Charter and in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Alice Paul died in Moorestown, New Jersey, on 9th July, in 1977.

Some books by Alice Paul:

Two Paths to Equality

Favorite quotes:

“When you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row. “

“I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”

“It is better, as far as getting the vote is concerned I believe, to have a small, united group than an immense debating society.”

“I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.”

“We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.”

“The Woman's Party is made up of women of all races, creeds and nationalities who are united on the one program of working to raise the status of women.”

“There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it.”

Books about Alice Paul:

The Story of Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party.
By Inez Hayes Irwin

From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party By Christine A. Lunardini

Isabel Allende

Born in Lima, Peru (1942) Daughter of Diplomatic father Tomas Allende. After her mother Francisca Llona annulled her marriage to Tomas Allende, she moved her family back to Santiago, Chile. In 1965 Isabel Allende began working for FAO, a United Nations organization, and continued working there till 1968. She married Miguel Frias in 1962, and later divorced him in 1985. Isabel Allende is a journalist, novelist, and short story writer. In 1975 Allende began to work in Venezuela as a journalist and remained there for thirteen years. She is one of the most prominent literary figures of the Hispanic culture and as many writers of her time, most of her literary works are filled with magical realism, a technique used mostly by Hispanic writers.

Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell

“The first female minister”

Born into a farming family of seven children in 1825, Antoinette Louisa Brown (later Blackwell) was a strong dynamic girl. Even in her young age, she would rather do the “male chores” instead of the traditional women chores such as sewing. At the age of eight she decided to become a minister and, though she was discourages by others, her mother supported her dreams.

Driven by sheer determination and the support of her family, she entered the Theology Department at Oberlin College, regardless of the obstacles and objections of her professors. She finished her studies in 1850; however, she received her diploma 28 years later in 1878 along with an honorary master (M.A). She also obtained an honorary D.D. in 1908. In 1953 she was ordained at Congregational Church of South Butler, New York and became the first American female minister.

Beyond her ministry she was a reformer and an activist in the fight for women’s rights. She married abolitionist Samuel Blackwell, brother-in-law of fellow activist Lucy Stone, in 1856 and has five girls. Samuel supported her work in the ministry and the women’s right’s movement. He followed her in her speech tours and helped in raising and caring of their five girls.

At a time were female ministers was unthinkable even by her own women peers, Blackwell excelled and she ordained two more women ministers, Olympia Brown and her daughter Florence Blackwell.

Among her many roles as mother, wife, minister, activist, abolitionist, she also was a leader. She was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Unitarian Association, World's Temperance Convention and first national women's rights convention. In 1920, Blackwell was able to finally cast her vote and later died in 1921.


Books by Antoinette Blackwell

The Sexes Throughout Nature
Studies in General Science
The Physical Basis of Immortality
The Island Neighbors

Quotes

Mr. Darwin ... has failed to hold definitely before his mind the principle that the difference of sex, whatever it may consist in, must itself be subject to natural selection and evolution.

Work, alternated with needful rest, is the salvation of man or woman.

If woman's sole responsibility is of the domestic type, one class will be crushed by it, and the other throw it off as a badge of poverty. The poor man's motto, "Women's work is never done," leads inevitably to its antithesis -- ladies' work is never begun.

Books about Antoinette Blackwell

Antoinette Brown Blackwell: A Biography
by Cazden, Elizabeth

Friends & Sisters
Letters Between Lucy Stone & Antoinette Brown Blackwell
by Carol Lasser; Marlene D. Merrill; Lucy Stone