Alice Cullen was a member of Glasgow Corporation and a Justice of the Peace before becoming Labour MP for Glasgow, Gorbals in 1948.
Cullen was Scotland's first Roman Catholic woman MP.
Alice Cullen was a member of Glasgow Corporation and a Justice of the Peace before becoming Labour MP for Glasgow, Gorbals in 1948. Cullen was Scotland's first Roman Catholic woman MP.
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Margaret Bondfield was a British Labour Politician and was the first female Cabinet Minister. In her youth, Bondfield worked as a shop assistant and became involved in the Union, later becoming a platform speaker, secretary of the Union then TUC delegate. She was the first female chair of the TUC. In 1923, Bondfield was elected as the Labour MP for Northampton and was appointed Minister of Labour in 1929. She was also part of the Women's Trade Union League, the National Federation of Women Workers, the Adult Suffrage Society and the Women's Labour League. For more on Margaret Bondfield, click here Caroline Herschel was a German born Astronomer and sister and co-worker of William Herschel. Twelve years older, William moved to England in 1757 and Caroline joined him in 1772, primarily to act as his housekeeper but later as his assistant. She started by grinding the mirrors needed for astronomy and started filling in for her brother when he was away on business, becoming an astronomer in her own right as a result. Herschel discovered at least 8 comets and produced a catalogue of nebulae for her nephew, John Herschel. In 1828, Herschel was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society's Gold Medal and was given honorary membership of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1835. Grace Chisholm Young was a British Mathematician. Although she passed the entrance exam for Cambridge University at 17, Young was unable to take up a place for another four years. She passed her finals in 1892, but women were not awarded degrees at Cambridge until 1948. As it was not possible for a woman to study for a PhD, Young carried on with her studies in Germany and was the first woman to officially receive a Ph.D. in Germany. Chisholm Young won the Gamble Prize in 1915. She had six children, the eldest of which (Cicely) also won the Gamble Prize. Click here for more on Grace Chisholm Young Emily Murphy was a Canadian Social Reformer. Murphy was the first female Police Magistrate in Canada, the first woman appointed to the Edmonton Hospital Board. She was a member of the Equal Franchise league and, as part of the "Famous Five" she led a campaign to enable women to be Senators and to be recognised as equal persons. Murphy also wrote four travel books under the name of Janey Canuck. Josephine Cochrane was an American Socialite turned Inventor. Cochrane was unhappy that her servants kept chipping her best china so started washing the dishes herself. Unhappy with having to do such a thing, she set about designing a machine that could do the job instead. Following the death of her husband in 1883, Cochrane was left with debts and the dishwasher became a potential source of income. She patented her invention in 1886. In 1893, Cochrane's Dishwasher won the prize for "best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work" at the the Chicago World's Fair. More on Josephine Cochrane can be found here. Sarah Boone was an African-American inventor who redesigned the ironing board to make it easier to iron sleeves. There is little known about her and there is conflicting information about her date of birth. Some reports say that she was born on 7th March 1878 and others say 18th May 1867. The latter date is far more likely since the improved ironing board was patented in 1892, making her 14 years old. Considering the complexity of the design and the process of patenting this seems highly unlikely. If anyone out there has accurate information about Sarah Bo Olive Dickason was a Canadian journalist and historian who promoted First Nation and women's issues. As a child, Dickason, along with her mother and sister, relied on fishing and trapping to provide food for the family. She went on to have a career in journalism before going on to become an academic in later life. Dickason was 50 when she began studying for a Master of History degree at the University of Ottawa - very unusual in 1970. Dickason was awarded the Order of Canada in 1996 and the Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1997. Excellent obituary here Grace Lumpkin was an American writer whose work chronicled the lives of the poor and the working classes. Most of Lumpkin's work focussed on the Depression - she wrote the Gorky Prize winning Novel "To Make my Bread", which told the story of the Loray Mill Stike and the McClures, a family of Appalachian tenant farmers. Lumpkin was heavily involved with communism during the 1920s and 30s but turned her back on this to the extent that she gave evidence at the Sub-Committee on Government Operations in 1953. She returned to religion in later life and it seems highly likely that her novel "Full Circle" is at least semi-autobiographical. For more on Grace Lumpkin see http://cwcs.ysu.edu/resources/literature/grace-lumpkin |
AuthorI'm an amateur historian interested in Women's History, Social History, Social Reformers, the Temperance Movement, and the (so far) unwritten histories of "ordinary" people. Archives
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