Almanac

September 3 - September 9

Birthdays

September 3

• In 1803, Prudence Crandall, founded school for "young ladies of colour" in Connecticut. The state legislature promptly passed a law forbidding the teaching of
  blacks without local approval. She was arrested, but released on a technicality.
  
• In 1849, Sarah Orne Jewett, author.
  
• In 1910, Dorothy Maynor, soprano (founded Harlem School of Arts).
  

September 4

• In 1899, Ida Kaminska, actor. She was the queen of Yiddish theater in her native Poland. After World War II, she established and headed the Jewish State Theatre of Poland (1946-68). She received an Academy Award nomination for her work in the film The Shop On Main Street (1965).
  

September 5

• In 1867, Amy Marcy Cheney Beach, first woman to have her major orchestral works performed by American philharmonics.
  

September 6

• In 1860, Jane Addams, 1931 co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She co-founded (with Ellen Gates Starr) Hull House, the first large settlement house in the US.
  
• In 1857, Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall, US archaeologist.
  

September 7

• In 1860 Grandma (Anna Maria) Moses, primitive painter (Old Oaken Bucket).
  

September 8

• In 1413, Caterina Vigri, Italian noblewoman, later a
  mystic and writer and saint of the Roman Catholic as Catherine of Bologna.
  

September 9

• In 1864, Rebekah Bettelheim Kohut, social welfare leader and educator. During World War I she formed a clearinghouse to find women to fill jobs left vacant by men going into the army. Woodrow Wilson appointed her to head the US Employment Service and the National League for Women's Service.
  
• In 1868, Mary Austin, feminist/nature writer (Land of Little Rain).
  

Happenings

September 4

• In 1937, Doris Kopsky, became the first NABA woman cycling champion (4:22.4).
  
• In 1995, Women from 185 countries met in Beijing,
  China, for the fourth world conference on women sponsored by the UN. It ran through September 15.
  

September 6

• In 1853, the Women's Rights Convention met (NYC).
  
• In 1971, the National Organization for Women
  officially adopted a resolution defining lesbianism "as a legitimate concern of feminism."
• In 1975, Czechoslovak tennis star Martina Navratilova
  requested political asylum while in New York playing in the US Open.
  

September 8

• In 1852, at the personal invitation of Elizabeth Cady
  Stanton, Susan B. Anthony attended her first women's rights
  convention, the three-day Syracuse Convention. This was the beginning of Anthony's fight for women's right.
• In 1921, the first Miss America was crowned (Margaret Gorman of Washington DC).
  
• In 1924, Alexandra Kollontai of Russia became the first woman ambassador.
  
• In 1937, Anne I. Farley became the first woman to serve on a jury in New York State.