Unsung Heroines in American History – by Donna Schlachter

With Women’s Month a blip in our rear view mirror, I wanted to share some fascinating stories about women in American History. We often think of Molly Brown, Calamity Jane, and Amelia Earhart when we consider women who made a difference in our history and culture, but there were many more we never hear about.

In researching this post, I found an article from Time magazine, my primary source. Feel free to check it out here: https://time.com/5786065/womens-history-month-women-to-know/ . All photos came from that article. (Please note, there are women featured in this article that I chose not to highlight primarily because of their political leanings and affiliations.)

Emilia Casanova de Villaverde

Emilia Casanova de Villeverde: She lived most of her life in New York City, serving tirelessly as an abolitionist. She formed a women’s club and raised funds to support the elderly, widows, and orphans. Her mansion in the South Bronx hid weapons and ammunition, to aid the liberation army in Cuba, in a series of vaults. Emilia passed in 1897.

If you’re thinking about writing about your own heroine who uses her wealth and position of influence in society, you might want to use Emilia as your model.

Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix: Dorothea’s focus was on asylum and prison reform. During her lifetime, 1802-1887, women were silent victims in both of these institutions. A husband or her parents could have a woman committed to an asylum indefinitely without a court hearing or psychological examination, merely because she spoke out against popular topics such as abolition, women’s rights, and many other topics.

Dorothea headed the Union Nurses during the Civil War, inspected prisons, jails, poorhouses, and workhouses. She forced states to allocate land, money, and legislative attention on the creation and improvement of these institutions.

A heroine in a story based on Dorothea might be portrayed as standing up to irate wardens, judges, and husbands to force better conditions for the incarcerated.

Laura Cornelius Kellogg

Laura Cornelius Kellogg: Laura was a Native woman, but also an activist, author, orator, and policy reformer. She helped found the Society of American Indians, which was run for and by American Indians. In doing so, she resisted the government’s policy to send Native American children to boarding schools, a direction that hoped to eradicate Native culture and language.

A Native American heroine based on Laura could share the story of Native children learning their tribal language in secret, for example.

Mary Tape at around 11 years old

Mary Tape: Born in China in 1857, Mary emigrates to the United States with her family, ending up as a servant in a brothel in San Francisco. She ran away, took on a different name, then met Joseph Tape while he was delivering milk. They marry, and together they build a prosperous transportation and immigration brokering business.

Despite their fabulous wealth, they are not immune from anti-Chinese sentiment and racial hostility. In 1884, their daughter is denied admission to public school, sparking the landmark court case Tape v. Hurley, which guarantees Chinese children the right to a public school education.

Perhaps this triggers an idea for a book about a rags-to-riches heroine who overcomes her past.

Maggie Lena Walker

 

Maggie Lena Walker: Maggie was the first black female bank president in the United States, founding the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903. She was also a member of the Independent Order of St. Luke (IOSL), a secret society for women of color that was founded in the 1850s. In the 1920s, she, her bank, and the IOSL, provided financial services to more than one hundred thousand members in over twenty states, and was the largest employer of professional, white-collar black women in the country.

Regardless of color, any book featuring a heroine who was among the movers and shakers of her time would thrill readers.

Of course, there are plenty more unsung heroines in our history, but this sample of different ethnicities, different backgrounds, and different heart focus is a good example of what can be accomplished when we stand up for what is right.


About Donna:

A hybrid author, Donna writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 60 times in books; is a member of several writers groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both, and is an avid oil painter. She is taking all the information she’s learned along the way about the writing and publishing process, and is coaching committed career writers. Learn more at https://www.donnaschlachter.com/the-purpose-full-writer-coaching-programs Check out her coaching group on FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/604220861766651



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History of Smuggling in the American San Juan Islands

History of Smuggling in the American
San Juan Islands

The San Juan Islands, a remote island paradise in the Pacific Northwest seem serene but have a turbulent history.
Image by Janalyn Voigt (all rights reserved).

Mists often shroud the San Juan Islands, an archipelago off the coast of Washington state. Add to this an intricate network of waterways, hidden harbors, secluded coves, and an international border, and it's easy to see why smuggling became an important industry in the San Juan Islands.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Washington between the United States and Britain in 1871, the San Juan Islands became an American territory. Shortly thereafter, the United States imposed import duties on woolens, silks and other goods entering the San Juan Islands. Many local residents didn't take well to having to pay for something they'd long received for free, so they simply ignored the law.

In response to popular sentiment that the immigrants from China were robbing American nationals of jobs, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned Chinese workers from entering the United States for the next ten years. This gave rise to the smuggling of Chinese laborers to build railroads and work in the mines. Thousands of illegal immigrants were willing to pay $100 a head for transport from China.

Illustration, "Central Pacific Railroad–Chinese Laborers at Work." Public domain image.

Lawrence "Pirate" Kelly and Ben Ure, both notorious smugglers, operated from a base on Ben Ure Island just off Washington state's Deception Pass. Ure is said to have tied illegal Chinese immigrants into burlap bags, to be thrown overboard when customs agents approached. Dead Man's Bay off San Juan Island, came by its name because the tide often washed the bodies ashore at that location.

In 1890, high tariffs were placed on the importation of opium, which led to this drug becoming a profitable item for smugglers.And in 1919, the Volstead Act ushered in Prohibition, creating a market for bootlegged alcohol until 1933, when Prohibition was repealed and "rum running" ended. Cigars and wool were also smuggled to avoid tariffs and turn a profit.

Drug smuggling continues in the San Juan Islands, today. One of the most recent incidents occurred in August 2015, when a Coast Guard crew confiscated 24 kilograms of the drug, MDMA (known as ecstasy or molly), from a boat near San Juan Island in August 2015.

As long as there are taxes, laws, and a profit to be made from circumnavigating them, smuggling will go on, and the seclusion of the San Juan Islands makes them one of its favorite locations.


Deceptive Tide

When murder comes to a peaceful island paradise, what you don’t know could just kill you.

Piper Harrington, struggling to build a new life after her husband’s plane crash leaves her widowed, travels to a remote island in the Pacific Northwest to research a novel. She checks into a resort condominium near the Moran mansion on Orcas Island and soon encounters a wounded teenage girl who seems followed by trouble. Piper wants to help Lindy, but a series of unsettling events lead her to believe she has, herself, become the target of a stalker.

A spectral figure resembling the ghost said to haunt the historic mansion has her questioning her sanity. She has never felt more alone, even while two men vie for her attention. One has an air of charm, while mystery surrounds the other. Remaining heart-whole seems the only way to protect herself, but both become increasingly impossible.

Learn more about this series

About Janalyn Voigt

Janalyn Voigt's unique blend of adventure, romance, suspense, and whimsy creates breathtaking fictional worlds for readers. Look for her upcoming romantic mystery and western historical fiction releases. This multi-faceted author also writes in the fantasy genre. Beginning with DawnSinger, Janalyn's epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven, carries readers into a land only imagined in dreams.

Janalyn is represented by Wordserve Literary Agency. Her memberships include ACFW and NCWA. When she's not writing, she loves to discover worlds of adventure in the great outdoors with her family.

19th Century Frauds

Four Popular Scams

A scam is typically a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit. It's a swindle to cheat or defraud for gain.

Health Products

Since the 1800s, snake oil referred to fraudulent health products or unproven medicine but also refers to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. A snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fake goods but claims they have miraculous powers. Usually accompanied with a tremendous amount of hype and planted accomplices who will claim the product works.

Real snake oil originated from China. Made from the oil of the Chinese water snake, which is rich in omega-3 acids that help reduce inflammation, in its original form it was effective. Especially helpful when used to treat arthritis and bursitis. American miners and workers appreciated much the relief the oil brought them.

As word of the healing powers of Chinese water snake oil grew, later frontier American salesmen claimed they also had snake oil. Sometimes they used rattlesnake oil or some other kind of oil. Their supposed patent medicines and quack remedies were a panacea for any ailment, including chronic pain, headaches, "female complaints" and kidney trouble. But not with the same effect of the original.

High Grading

High grading in mining refers to concealment and theft of valuable gold or silver ore by miners for personal profit. Common in the U.S.in the late 19th century and early 20th century, high graders concealed gold ore in a pocket or lunch pail or somewhere on their persons. Later, they attempted to sell it on the black market.

As mining companies became more aware of the growing problem, they used guards. And built changing stations. These forced miners to remove their clothing and shower after their shift in the mines, making it easier to foil attempts at theft.

Counterfeit Gold Coins

Made with metals that allow the fake to be the same size and weight of the real thing. Such as, uranium, plutonium, and tungsten which is cheap. But it’s brittle. A gold-plated surface needed for stamping fine detail of image like a real coin.

Insurance fraud 

Obtaining benefits or advantages not entitled to. Or denying benefit due and to which someone is entitled.

Perpetrators can be either insurance company employees or claimants. Has existed ever since insurance began with accident insurance offered in U.S. by Franklin Health Assurance Company of Massachusetts in 1850. They offered insurance for railroad and steamboat accident injuries.

False claims arise from exaggeration of injury (or including ailments that happened before accident) to deliberately staging and causing an accident or damage. Whiplash has always been a common report.

In more modern times Crash For Cash scams include simple rear-ending stunts by individuals or more complex organized crime ploys with several cars forcing an unsuspecting driver to collide with another designated team car with several passengers with “injuries.” All for the claim money. Often involves professionals such as doctors or lawyers who participate at the upper level with 'disposables' such as illegals or homeless who risk their lives in the lower echelon of the scheme.

In the novel Wind in the Wires both the practice of high grading and counterfeiting gold coins by one of the characters plays into helping to solve a cold case murder. And another character hovered around the drivers on a road trip looking for insurance claims.

Janet Chester Bly

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Janet Chester Bly

Janet Chester Bly is the widow of Christy Award winning western author Stephen Bly.
Together they authored and co-authored more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books.

Wind in the Wires, Book 1 of The Trails of Reba Cahill Series, is Janet's first solo adult novel.

Find it here in paperback or eBook: http://amzn.to/1tnpHpr

Audio edition coming soon.

Website: http://www.BlyBooks.com