[Music] the unique and independent American woman Adventurer Pioneer poet mother educator artist Freedom Fighter a history of Wom women's achievement in America is an incredible 400-year story of American women's inspiring accomplishments and victories destined to play an essential role in the shaping of the United States American women forged an identity unlike any other in the world that identity found a voice as they created great literature and science American women led the fight to ins sla
very limit corporate power provide education for all and to protect the poor the disenfranchised the immigrants and the insane at the same time these unique American women would have to fight tirelessly for their own equality in politics education and the workplace even the right to vote the 35 years from 1890 to 1925 Mark the end of America's geographical Frontier Americans now had to look in other directions to channel their pioneering energies I'm Donna Mills and welcome to the fourth episode
of a history of women's achievement in America no other period of time in America's history was so transformational Americans would would take up leadership roles on the international scene while at the same time the nation would begin to reform itself internally from the excesses of a hundred years of unfettered capitalism American women Rose to the challenge in both Arenas Mary Cassat Ma Rainey and isidora Duncan transformed the world of the Arts Juliet Gordon low and Nelly Blye open new door
s for girls and women Jane Adams and B Wells Barnett pioneered social reform in America it was a remarkable time of achievement for American [Music] women large cities and unchecked capitalism had created a new class of Americans the urban poor Jane Adams pioneered the idea of a safety net for this growing class of Americans Teddy Roosevelt was America's first Nobel Peace Prize laurat and America's first Nobel Prize winner she was America's first woman Nobel Prize winner and America's first woma
n Nobel laurate Roosevelt was America's reformed president fighting against the excesses of business and industry by taking on industrialists like Morgan and Rockefeller and taming the monopolistic power of the trusts she took on the same excesses at the Grassroots level and professionalized social work taking care of the poor the homeless and the immigrants who was this great American reformer Jane Adams in the last quarter of the 19th century American industry and Technology were transforming
the way Americans lived and work worked men and women by the thousands were leaving the farms for factories and businesses at the same time millions of immigrants poured into America's cities the cities unprepared for the new societal patterns were unable to cope with the large numbers of people except for wealthy neighborhoods America's largest cities became vast slums Health Care education housing and sanitation were practically non-existent Jane Adams saw the need for a different approach to
help the poor and the unfortunate Jane Adams was born in 1860 the eighth of nine children in an upper middle class home in Cedarville Illinois after an uncertain young adulthood Adams had a moment of profound Insight in 1888 while traveling with her friend Ellen G Star in England she visited toin be Hall a settlement house in London's impoverished East End Settlement houses were places in London's slums where social activists worked to help the poor and needy when Adams and star returned to Chic
ago in 1889 they opened Hull House located in an abandoned mansion on Hallstead Street Hull House provided a nursery and kindergarten for young children lessons in cooking and sewing for young girls and a club for teenage boys in an attempt to prevent the formation of tenement gangs there Adams gave book readings and slideshows on Art she also invited speakers such as John Dewey Susan B Anthony and Clarence Darrow to give public lectures to workingclass people Adams Florence Kelly and others est
ablished the women's Trade Union League which Contin continued the effort to provide safe working conditions and living wages for factory workers Adams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 Jane Adams died 4 years later however her vision led to the professional core of social workers that still fight the battle against poverty discrimination and violence in every American city investigative journalism is the most common aspect ECT of the news today it's a balance to the excesses of corporate and po
litical power a daring and adventuresome American woman opened the door for all future investigative journalism she was Nelly [Music] Blye from the beginning newspapers have been a part of the American Experience by the middle of the 19th century every American city boasted at least one newspaper however mainstream newspapers were a man's business journalists and reporters were men that changed with the arrival of the ambitious and flamboyant Nelly Blye Not only would Nelly blly lead the way for
other women into journalism but in the process her celebrity would spawn Games books and cartoons all based on her real life exploits since the first women colonists stepped ashore in the 17th century American women had established themselves as independent thinkers and leaders throughout these early years many women desired to be more than Housewives and daughters their calls for equality were often resisted still many persevered establishing their own institutions redefining themselves and at
times even redefining the professions they entered Nelly blly would do exactly that she turned newspaper reporting into investigative journalism Nelly Blye was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5th 1864 in Apollo Pennsylvania she's better known by her pen name which she took from the Steven Foster song Nelly blly Nelly's career began in 1885 at age 19 with a letter to the Pittsburgh dispatch the editor George Madden impressed by her style gave her a chance blly used that chance to tackle issue
s important to working women factory conditions and divorce after a couple of columns Madden put her on staff at $5 a week 2 years later blly was at work in New York City at Joseph pitzer's New York world then in her first assignment she had herself committed to the women's lunatic asylum on Blackwells Island where she witnessed how nurses abused the patients 10 days later the world sprang its reporter from the Asylum the story broke the next Sunday in what came to be known as bl's hard-hitting
style thus did Nelly blly launch investigative journalism and begin what came to be known as the stunt age women risking their lives in order to break stories for newspapers now the door was thrown wide open for women in 1889 Nelly cemented her place in the history of Journalism when she demanded the editors of her newspaper send her around the world in an attempt to beat the fictional record set by Jules Verns character Phineas fog in Vern's story Around the World in 80 Days she departed New Yo
rk on the hurg American company liner Augusta VI Victoria from the Hoboken Pier at exactly 9:40 a.m. November 14th 1889 72 days 6 hours 11 minutes and 14 seconds after her Hoboken departure Nelly arrived home on January 25th 1890 she was greeted with fireworks parades and Brass bands and was catapulted into the world's Spotlight Nelly Blye lived a daredevil and fearless life style of which most women could only dream and dream they did as they read of cartoon female heroins like Brenda star and
Lois Lane who were based on the Intrepid Adventures of Nelly Blye Mary cassad is America's first and greatest International [Music] painter impressionism was the first and many will say the greatest movement in modern art its artists captured their impressions of the everchanging play of light one of the finest Masters was American Mary Cassat a woman whose Unique Style would Place her alongside the French Masters Edgar dega August renois Claude Monae and Edward mané Mary Cassat was born on May
22nd 1844 near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania her Early Education was typical however when she was a child her family spent several years in Europe soon Cassat began to think of Paris as a second home at 16 she attended Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts one of America's leading art schools for 4 years Cassat devoted herself to sketching watercolor and oil Techni techniques despite the Prejudice of male students at the age of 21 she left for Europe over the objections of her father who de
plored the idea of his daughter becoming a professional artist saying he'd rather see her dead than become a Bohemian she traveled throughout Europe studying The Works of the Old Masters in 1874 after two of her portraits were accepted by the Paris salon an annual exhibition of artworks she settled there permanently one day she spotted some pastels by Edgar dega in an art dealer's window and she knew there were others who painted in the same style as she did later she wrote I used to go and flat
ten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his art it changed my life I saw art then as I wanted to see it she and dega became became friends and she joined his group of Impressionists in 1879 Cassat debuted 11 of her paintings with other Impressionists from the group the show was a huge success critically and commercially over the next decade her style evolved her subjects were much different from the French Impressionists who favored Landscapes and Street Scenes she preferred po
rtraits of women and children in casual domestic surround sound ings and she became famous for her candid sometimes awkward poses such as her girl arranging her hair 1886 or little girl in a blue armchair 1887 then in 1891 she opened her first solo show of paintings at Paul Durand ruel's Paris gallery and her International Fame was secured the creative genius of her body of work speaks for itself and over the decades art lovers and critics applauded her Mastery kasat continued to paint until 191
5 when halted by blindness she was forced to give up her beloved art she died in France in 1926 at the age of 82 during this time the South through Jim Crow laws returned to its preil War ways idab Wells Barnett exposed the horrors of these ways when it came to its black [Music] citizens it was the most heinous of Acts the lynching of black people by whites there was no due process guaranteed by the Constitution it was a practice that could only happen because that sense of other that sense that
blacks were inferior were property had not disappeared with the passage of the 13th 14th and 15th amendments If This Were to change and blacks were to get the rights and Justice laid out by the Constitution they would have to make it happen themselves after reconstruction ended in 1876 more than 4,700 black men women and children were dragged from their homes strung up and murdered often for no more an offense than speaking their minds or being successful someone needed to make these dark and h
idden Deeds known to the entire country that person was Ida B Wells Barnett Ida B Wells Barnett was born in Mississippi in 1862 growing up during Reconstruction and its aftermath she witnessed the depth of hatred against blacks and the gradual dissolving of their civil rights particularly due process under law Wells Barnett began her Crusade against lynching in 1892 after three of her friends Thomas Moss Calvin McDow and Henry Stewart were lynched in Memphis Tennessee simply because they ran a g
rocery store that was more successful than their white competitors in 1893 using her small Memphis newspaper as a Pulpit Wells Barnett courageously attacked the white supremacists who incited the lynching of blacks Ida Wells was as her biographer refers to her the lonely Crusader she spent a good deal of time trying to publicize lynching both to uh whites particularly in the north to politicians and to blacks throughout out the country what she wanted to do was to force the government to deal wi
th the lynchers to make lynching illegal bring them to justice and she did this in a variety of ways she did it first as a newspaper reporter and an owner and she was so charismatic and so vital that her first newspaper in Memphis uh was too strong for the white population and they ran her out of town but she then went to work for one of the best known black newspapers of the time the New York age and continued to uh publicize lynching and as I said earlier what she wanted was a political respon
se that is the politicians to control and um punish or at least arrest people who committed the lynchings and her publicity campaign was also designed to tell the black community how they should respond to lynching and she's interesting in the sense that she says we need to publicize this we need to publicize this as being illegal we need to publicize this as being barbaric uh we also need to get the uh White political leaders at the local level the white economic leaders at the local level and
force them to control the white mobs that do the lynching and uh she also threw a little Wrinkle in there that she called part of the black response and that is migration and that was if the white political authorities didn't control lynching then blacks should leave the community and go find places where they could work and their Liberties would be respected and she not only publicizes lynching but she also starts to publicize what later becomes known as the great black migration when most Amer
icans learned of the lynching of blacks they were horrified consequently following Wells Barnett's campaign the number of lynchings lessened from a peak of 235 in 1892 to 107 by 1899 and anti- lynching legislation was enacted in parts of the south in the next segments two American women revolutionized the Performing Arts Mar rainy founded the blues and Isidor Duncan modern dance two achievements that would begin the process of uniting America's diverse [Music] cultures the year was 1904 and Amer
ica was experiencing the exuberance of Teddy Roosevelt the most dynamic president since Abraham Lincoln Roosevelt was a reformer and would begin the process of bringing black and white cultures together it was also the year that Gertrude Bridget the mother of of the Blues took the name Ma Rainey while the legal and economic standoffs between blacks and whites continued in the courts and streets another current was merging Americans into one culture American artists were creating a new voice that
was Soulful and searching it would be present in the novels of The Lost Generation the plays of Eugene O'Neal the photography of Alfred stiglet and the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe and in music black music in 1904 Ma Rainey was a rising star she was born Gertrude Bridget the daughter of a minstral family in 1886 in Columbus Georgia in 1904 she married William PA Rainey and for the next 20 years Ma and Pa Rainey traveled across the country performing on the minstral circuit having perfected a ne
w style of music called the blues ma rainy in 1923 signed a recording contract with Paramount records and began a short but remarkable recording career thereafter influencing all black Divas from Bessie Smith to Ella Fitzgerald to Whitney Houston however ma rainy's greatest contribution was the effect her music had on the formation of American popular culture constantly Reinventing itself popular culture Drew from all walks of life to create music art and literature that appealed to all American
s musicians like Ma Rainey joined the sweeping tide of Mass Appeal and from then on black music and performers influenced All American Musical forms Blues led to Jazz and Jazz to swing and swing to rhythm and blues and finally rock and roll the music Baby Boomers white and black grew up listening to the generation that for the last 40 years has been shaping the idea of one America in 1990 Ma Rainey was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where her music can still be [Music] heard every
day across the country girls of all ages trundle off to their dance classes the popularity of dance in America goes back hundreds of years to carefully choreographed movements for the stage and Ballroom throughout the 19th century American dance performers followed the classical European models of ballet works such as chaikovsky Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty typify the ballet style using silent gestures and precisely timed movements to illustrate musical themes and narratives yet American dance
today has expanded well beyond the confines of Classical Ballet to include interpretive and expressive modern dance this dance form can trace its Origins back to the radical ideas of a former ballet dancer isidora Duncan her philosophy of the free and natural movement of the human body and her radical criticisms of conventional Society made her both the heroine of modern dance and a champion of women's rights in 1905 Duncan established the first school of modern dance in Grunwald Germany her sty
le celebrated the Elegance of natural movements using flowing loosefitting clothing and bare feet which shocked audiences into seeing the beauty of the human form in 1908 Duncan returned to America to tour her radical new dance style while critics panned her physical interpretations of Music audiences applauded the freeing new form Duncan's style of dancing spilled over into popular culture and produced dance crazes like jitterbugs and swing Duncan's unconventional and flamboyant life tragically
ended too soon in 1927 but Duncan's Legacy continues today in modern dance troops such as Martha Graham and Twi Tharp and on the dance floor where everyone dances with a bit of personal flare a lasting tribute to isidora Duncan in the Trad of building women's institutions for women Juliet Gordon Low's Boundless Energy founded the Girl Scouts of [Music] America in the 21st century perhaps the most influential institution run by women for women is the Girl Scouts not because of its political or l
egal power but because the cooperative and leader ERS ship skills it passes on to young women in their formative years that institution the Girl Scouts was founded by Juliet Gordon low indeed many of the most powerful women in America today were Girl Scouts the Girl Scouts of America's founder Juliet McGill Kinsey Gordon was born in Savannah Georgia on October 31st 1860 at age 26 she married William McKay low a British Aristocrat the couple lived in Great Britain for the next 19 years until Will
iam's death in 1905 then loow spent several years traveling through Europe and India in 1911 she met Sir Robert Boden Powell a British Cavalry General this meeting transformed loe's life Boden Powell was a veteran of the Boer War in colonial South Africa Africa Upon returning to England he transformed his military scouting tactics into Scouting For Boys in 1908 The Scouting philosophy used a military model to instill citizenship and introduce young boys and girls to the outdoor life their motto
be prepared Boy Scouts and Girl Guides were organized into formal troops they walked patrols saluted Superior learned Wilderness navigation and how to build fires and shelters loow was determined to bring the scouting movement to girls in America and for the rest of her life she put her heart her soul and her financial resources into creating the Girl Scouts of America a year later L returned to her hometown of Savannah to start America's first troop of Girl Guides the movement gained in instant
popularity and was incorporated as the Girl Scouts of America in 1915 low composed the first Girl Scout Handbook how girls can help their country and organized the first International Scout meeting in 1919 hearing impaired most of her adult life low opened the scouts to all levels of ability by the time of her death in 1927 there were 168 ,000 Girl Scouts by 1957 that number would reach 3 million countless women Educators professionals and entrepreneurs as well as over 40 senators and US repres
entatives were introduced to the celebration of women's leadership through the vision and Legacy of Juliet Gordon low and the Girl Scouts of America in the fifth episode of a history of women 's achievement in America women finally win the battle to vote at the same time American women demonstrate definitive excellence in all areas of achievement thanks for watching I'm Donna [Music] Mills n
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