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Women Who Made a Difference8 Articles

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The Good Work of Jane Addams417 words

Jane Addams, the Peacemaker324 words

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring549 words

The Consequences of Silent Spring539 words

Civil Rights on a City Bus464 words

Women's Rights324 words

Malala Yousafzai363 words

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony251 words

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Jane Addams wanted to help people wholived in slums like these.

At the National Progressive Convention in 1912,Jane Addams supported the party's nomination ofTheodore Roosevelt for president.

The Good Work of Jane AddamsT he text and imag es are fro m “America’s Sto ry fro m America’s Library” by the Library o f Co ng ress.

In the 1880s Jane Addams traveled to Europe. While she was in

London, she visited a settlement house called Toynbee Hall .

Settlement houses were created to provide community services to

ease urban problems such as poverty. Inspired by Toynbee Hall,

Addams and her friend, Ellen Gates Starr, opened Hull House in a

neighborhood of slums in Chicago in 1889. Many who lived there

were immigrants from countries such as Italy, Russia, Poland,

Germany, Ireland, and Greece. For these working poor, Hull House

provided a day care center for children of working mothers, a

community kitchen, and visiting nurses. Addams and her staff gave

classes in English literacy, art, and other subjects. Hull House also became a meeting place for

clubs and labor unions. Most of the people who worked with Addams in Hull House were well

educated, middle-class women. Hull House gave them an opportunity to use their education and it

provided a training ground for careers in social work. . . .

Jane Addams, who had become a popular national figure, sought

to help others outside Hull House as well . She and other Hull

House residents often "lobbied" city and state governments.

When they lobbied, they contacted public officials and

legislators and urged them to pass certain laws and take other

actions to benefit a community. For example, Addams and her

friends lobbied for the construction of playgrounds, the setup of

kindergartens throughout Chicago, legislation to make factory

work safer, child labor laws, and enforcement of anti-drug

laws.

Addams believed in an individual's obligation to help his or her community, but she also thought the

government could help make Americans' lives safer and healthier. In this way, Addams and many

other Americans in the 1890s and 1900s were part of the Progressive movement. For a while, they

even had a political party. When Theodore Roosevelt ran for president for the Progressive Party in

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Jane Addams working for world peace

1912, Jane Addams publicly supported him at the party convention.

Jane Addams was a strong champion of several other causes.

Until 1920, American women could not vote. Addams joined in

the movement for women's suffrage (women's right to vote).

She was a vice president of the National American Woman

Suffrage Association. Addams was also a founding member of

the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People (NAACP).

The Good Work of Jane Addams


During World War I, newspapercartoons like this one made fun ofpacifists like Jane Addams.

Baroness Bertha Felicie Sophie vonSuttner was the first woman to winthe Nobel Peace Prize in 1905. Infact, her work inspired the creation ofthe Prize.

Jane Addams, the PeacemakerT he text and imag es are fro m “America’s Sto ry fro m America’s Library” by the Library o f Co ng ress.

Jane Addams was a peacemaker even when she was criticized for her

views. She taught, wrote, and lectured about peace both nationally and

internationally. Before World War I, Addams was probably the most

beloved woman in America. In a newspaper poll that asked, "Who

among our contemporaries are of the most value to the community? "

Jane Addams was second, after Thomas Edison . . . . When she opposed

America's involvement in World War I, however, newspaper editors

called her a traitor and a fool, but she never changed her mind. . . .

Jane Addams's reputation gradually was

restored during the last years of her life. She

continued to run Hull House and work on

other peacemaking activities. Addams was president of the Women's

International League for Peace and Freedom and traveled overseas to

meet with officials of other nations to persuade them of the importance

of working to preserve world peace. Addams was rewarded for her

efforts in 1931 with the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize is awarded annually

by a committee in Norway to those who have made major contributions to

world peace efforts. She was the first American woman to win this prize.

There are many women today who have followed Addams's lead. . . .

Some of the other women who have also been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize are Emily Greene

Balch in 1946 and Jody Williams in 1997.

During her final years, Addams was ill with cancer. She died on May 21, 1935, 10 days after a banquet

in Washington, D.C., honored her and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

When she won the Nobel Peace Prize, the committee cited her for her "expression of an essentially

American democracy of spirit." . . .

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dusting with an airplane

buffalo

Rachel Carson's Silent SpringT he text and imag es are fro m “America’s Sto ry fro m America’s Library” by the Library o f Co ng ress.

In January 1958, Rachel Carson received a letter from her friend Olga

Owens Huckins. Huckins lived in an area of Massachusetts where the

state was trying to get rid of mosquitoes. They had used planes to spray

a mixture of fuel oil and DDT (a pesticide, which is something that kills

pests such as insects, weeds and rodents) all over the area around

Huckins' home. DDT was supposedly harmless[, but on] the morning

after the spraying, Huckins found several of her favorite birds dead

outside her house. And the spraying did not even kill all of the

mosquitoes; in fact, that summer there were more of them than ever

before. Huckins asked Carson if she knew someone in Washington who could help prevent future

spraying.

Carson had been hearing about DDT since a Swiss chemist discovered it could be used to kill insects

in 1939. To many people, DDT seemed like a miracle substance. Farmers were excited about saving

their crops from pests. Doctors and others were excited about saving people's lives by killing

disease-carrying insects. But to Carson, DDT appeared to be dangerous to all l iving creatures.

The more Carson found out about DDT and other pesticides, the more she realized that she needed

to help stop future spraying. Carson decided to write a book about pesticides. She said, "…there

would be no future peace for me if I kept silent." She called her book Silent Spring.

Carson had spent her life studying, observing, and writing about

nature. She was a trained biologist and a talented writer who knew

how to present scientific information in compelling stories. Before

Silent Spring, she had written other books from the perspective of fish,

birds, islands, and oceans. Carson knew that all things in nature exist

in a delicately balanced ecosystem. In Silent Spring, Carson wrote that

although the ecosystem can adjust to changes, it needs time. Carson

believed that people in the 1950s were using pesticides carelessly.

Nature didn't have time to adjust, wrote Carson, because so many

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Rachel Carson

pesticides had been used in such large quantities in such a short time.

Carson wrote that pesticides should be called "biocides" because they

killed many living things, both bad and good. Although she was alarmed

by acute pesticide poisoning (like Huckins' dead birds), she was even

more concerned about the slow poisoning of plants, animals, and

people from pesticides. To make her point, she wrote the first chapter of

Silent Spring as a fable about a town. The town is a wonderful place until

everything and everyone--the animals, plants, insects and people--

slowly starts to get sick and then die. She ends the fable by saying that

although the town is not real, the fable is based on a collection of true

stories. Each of the tragedies had already happened somewhere because of pesticides.

Carson wrote Silent Spring to educate regular people about the dangers of pesticides. She asked,

"How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that

contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own

kind? " She hoped that by bringing together scientific facts and presenting them in understandable

language, she could stop the fable from becoming a reality.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring


JFK

The Consequences of Silent SpringT he text and imag es are fro m “America’s Sto ry fro m America’s Library” by the Library o f Co ng ress.

Before her book Silent Spring was published in 1962, Rachel Carson knew it would be controversial.

Carson had written about how the reckless use of pesticides was contaminating the natural

environment and slowly poisoning living things. She knew her claims would surprise "99 out of 100

people." Many people, especially those in the chemical industry, would undoubtedly feel

threatened by her book. She knew these people would attack her and try to discredit her writing,

but this did not stop her. Carson believed in her book. She wanted to let the public know the facts

about pesticides and she hoped it would lead to stricter environmental laws.

Carson had no idea just how popular and influential her book would

become. Soon after Silent Spring was published, even the president, John

F. Kennedy, knew about it.

Carson was right about her critics. They spent hundreds of thousands of

dollars attacking her personally and trying to discredit her claims. She

was called "a bird lover--a cat lover--a fish lover, a priestess of

nature..." as well as [a] hysterical woman and a poor scientist. Even

before Silent Spring came out, an agricultural trade organization

distributed counterarguments to Carson's main points.

Carson was prepared for this kind of criticism. Before her book was published, it had been reviewed

by many scientists and experts. Carson knew her claims were scientifically sound. Other critics

misrepresented her claims. One chemical company wrote their own book called The Desolate Year. It

was the story of how terrible the world would be if pesticides didn't exist, even though Carson had

never said that pesticides should be eliminated entirely. Carson believed that pesticides should be

used appropriately by educated professionals. The criticisms did not stop Silent Spring from

becoming a success. Carson's writing was so understandable and her topic so compelling that the

book quickly became a best-seller.

Reading Carson's book changed many people's ideas about the environment and inspired some to

take action. People wrote to their representatives in congress and asked them to do something

about the misuse of pesticides. When several senators created a committee to research

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environmental dangers, they asked Carson to speak to them about pesticides. Carson

recommended that the government regulate and reduce pesticide use, and that it ban the most

toxic pesticides. She said that a citizen of the United States had the right "to be secure in his own

home against the intrusion of poisons applied by other persons."

President Kennedy understood the importance of Carson's book. He asked his Science Advisory

Committee to research Carson's claims in Silent Spring. In 1963 the Committee released a report

called "The Uses of Pesticides." It supported Silent Spring. Environmental activists continued to

push the government to regulate pesticides. Changes in federal law in 1964 required companies to

prove that something did not cause harm before they could sell it. In 1972, activists pushed for and

won a ban on DDT, the pesticide that started Carson's research for Silent Spring. And in 1970 the

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created "in response to the growing public demand

for cleaner water, air and land." Who knows what the world would be like today if Rachel Carson had

not written Silent Spring?

The Consequences of Silent Spring


Civil Rights on a City BusBy ReadWo rks

On the first of December 1955, the African American seamstress Rosa Parks helped change the

course of history on a city bus. Rosa boarded the bus after a day’s work at a Montgomery, Alabama,

department store. She settled towards the middle, past the first several rows, which at that time

were reserved for white people. After making a few stops, the bus became full . Then a white man

boarded, but there was nowhere for him to sit. The driver ordered Rosa and the rest of the black

passengers in her row to stand at the back of the bus and let the white man sit. In an act of defiance

that would help intensify the American Civil Rights Movement, Rosa refused to give up her spot.

For violating the laws of segregation, referred to as the “Jim Crow laws” (which were meant to

keep white people and black people separate), Rosa was arrested and fined. Her refusal to move

was a quiet and simple action, but she took an enormous risk that evening. She also became a hero

and an inspiration to people all over the nation who were fighting for racial equality, including Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., a young minister who would soon become a major civil rights leader. In

response to Rosa’s arrest, blacks in the city of Montgomery boycotted the public bus system for

more than a year. Like her, they had had enough of being treated like second-class citizens. The

Monday after Rosa’s arrest, most black commuters walked to where they needed to go—some

traveling more than 20 miles.

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In her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story, Rosa writes of that day on the bus:

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not

tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old,

although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only

tired I was, was tired of giving in.

Finally, in November of 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Jim Crow laws that kept blacks

and whites segregated were unconstitutional. Rosa Parks had challenged the law and shown

people far beyond her own town how cruel and unjust segregation could be, and she had won. The

boycott ended more than a month later, when the Montgomery buses were integrated, but the

resistance to racial prejudice did not stop there. Rosa and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as it has

come to be known, sparked a series of nonviolent mass protests in support of civil rights. One

woman’s strength and commitment to change helped fuel a movement. Sometimes that is all it

takes.

Civil Rights on a City Bus


Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1856

Stanton's "Declaration of Rights andSentiments"

Stanton's draft of The Woman's Bible

Women's RightsT he text and imag es are fro m “America’s Sto ry fro m America’s Library” by the Library o f Co ng ress.

From a young age, Elizabeth Cady Stanton learned that girls didn't have

the same rights or opportunities as boys. Stanton went to Johnston

Academy, a co-ed school. She later wrote that she was "the only girl in

the higher classes of mathematics and the languages." She wasn't

allowed to go to college because she was a girl, so instead she studied at

Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary. Stanton was a firm believer in

individual rights, such as the right to vote or the right to have any job for

which you are qualified. Stanton's father was a judge. She read law with

him but wasn't allowed to practice because . . . she was a woman. . . .

In 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton attended the World Antislavery

Convention in London with Lucretia Mott, an outspoken Quaker

abolitionist (someone who opposed slavery), and some other women

representatives. She believed that the laws that treated women

differently than men needed to be reformed. Stanton drafted a

"Declaration of Rights and Sentiments," which she modeled after the

Declaration of Independence. In the document, she called for moral,

economic, and political equality for women. In 1848, she presented the

document at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York. . . .

Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist leader, stood with

Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Convention and argued for

women's right to vote. One hundred people signed the "Declaration of

Rights and Sentiments." The Declaration wasn't just about women

getting the right to vote. In it and throughout her life, Stanton argued for

women's rights to higher education, to professional life, to the

ownership of property, and to obtain a divorce. She wrote The Woman's

Bible in which she criticized the treatment of women in the Old

Testament. Nowadays women in [the United States] have almost all the

same opportunities as men, or do they?

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Malala YousafzaiBy ReadWo rks

Photo Credit: DFID - UK Department for InternationalDevelopment (Malala Yousafzai: Education for girls), CC BY 2.0

Photograph of Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in Mingora, Pakistan. As a young child, Malala was

exposed to the importance of education. Her father was in charge of running a local learning

institution and instilled in Malala the value of attending school. Everything changed for Malala and

her family when the Taliban began to have more authority in the Swat Valley region around 2007.

The Taliban, a violent fundamental Islamist group, prohibited females from participating in many

activities, including attending school. The Taliban were so committed to banning female access to

education that they destroyed around 400 schools within two years of their control.

But Malala would not be deterred from her passion for learning. Not only did she continue to attend

school, but she also spoke publicly about her dissent. On a Pakistani televised program, Malala was

brave enough to express her disbelief; "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to

education? " Malala boldly proclaimed. Under the pseudonym 'Gul Makai,' she also began to blog

about what it was like as a female under the Taliban's oppressive rule. Life became so dangerous for

Malala and her family that they had to flee their home as a temporary safety measure. When they

returned, Malala and her father started to become more vocal in opposition to the Taliban's sexist

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rules. Word started to spread about this father-daughter duo and Malala began to win awards for

her bravery. The Taliban was extremely unhappy with Malala, and on October 9, 2012, a member of

the Taliban shot Malala in the head.

Malala received immediate medical attention, and after multiple surgeries, she woke up from a

coma. Miraculously, the trauma did not cause any permanent brain damage! As the story of her

survival and bravery spread, Malala became an international icon and an education advocate. Since

recovering from her wound, Malala has written a best-selling book and started a foundation for

female empowerment. In October 2014, Malala won a much-deserved Nobel Peace Prize.

Photograph of the Obama family meeting with Malala

Malala Yousafzai


Susan B. Anthony and ElizabethCady Stanton at work

Anna Howard Shaw in an academicrobe, 1920

"The Apotheosis of Suffrage," a cartoonmocking Stanton and Anthony

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. AnthonyT he text and imag es are fro m “America’s Sto ry fro m America’s Library” by the Library o f Co ng ress.

In 1851, Stanton started working with Susan B. Anthony, a well-known

abolitionist. The two women made a great team. Anthony managed the

business affairs of the women's rights movement while Stanton did most

of the writing. Together they edited and published a woman's

newspaper, the Revolution, from 1868 to 1870. In 1869, Anthony and

Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. They traveled

all over the country and abroad, promoting woman's rights.

Anna Howard Shaw, another suffragist, wrote

a description of the relationship between

Stanton and Anthony in The Story of a Pioneer:

"She [Miss Anthony] often said that Mrs. Stanton was the brains of the

new association, while she herself was merely its hands and feet; but in

truth the two women worked marvelously together, for Mrs. Stanton was

a master of words and could write and speak to perfection of the things

Susan B. Anthony saw and felt but could not herself express." . . .

Not everyone thought that what Elizabeth

Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were

working towards was a good idea. This 1896 political cartoon pokes

fun at Stanton and Anthony by suggesting they be considered as

important as George Washington. Today, we wouldn't think it's

funny because just as George Washington is considered a

"forefather" of American democracy, Stanton and Anthony are

"foremothers" of the struggle for women's equality.

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Women Who Made a Difference - … · Women Who Made a Difference 8 Articles ... The Consequences of Silent Spring 539 words ... Doctors and others were excited about saving people's