By Jennifer Uhlarik
Hello, dear Readers! I am back with the next installment of all the various amazing women who have been featured on America postage stamps through the years. Today, we’ll start with Julia Ward Howe. Do you know why she is famous? Let’s explore and find out.
Julia was born in New York City in 1819, the fourth of seven children. Her father, a successful banker, afforded the family a very comfortable life. Julia was educated by private tutors and all-girls schools until the age of sixteen. At age 24, she married a physician and reformer, Samuel Gridley Howe. Theirs was a rocky marriage, though it produced six children. During her marriage, Julia wrote many poems, plays, and essays, and she borrowed themes from her difficult marriage, as well as wrote on the roles of women in society and the home. Her views angered her husband, and at times, inflamed others, too. One particular travel narrative titled “A Trip to Cuba” (published in 1860) brought her much heat because of her views on Blacks. While she agreed that slavery was wrong, her particular view was not one of equality for all races. The following year, after visiting Washington D.C. with her husband, Julia was inspired to write the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” after meeting Abraham Lincoln in the White House. She also went on to write new lyrics for “John Brown’s Body,” and the result became one of the most popular songs of the Union during the Civil War. After her husband’s death in 1876, Julia went on to work for women’s suffrage among other things.
Our next honoree is Mary Lyon, who was born in Buckland, Massachusetts, in 1797. Her farmer father died when Mary was just five years old, so she and her siblings helped with farm work from young ages. When Mary was thirteen, her mother remarried and moved away, leaving Mary in Buckland with her older brother, where she keep house for him. During this time, she attended local schools, and at the age of seventeen, began a teaching career herself. She eventually attended two different women’s seminaries, one where she met Zilpah Polly Grant, who became a mentor to Mary. Following Grant’s lead, Mary went on to help Laban Wheaton and his daughter, Eliza, found Wheaton Female Seminary (now known as Wheaton College), which opened in 1835. However, her time with the Wheatons was short-lived, as Mary left to found her own women’s seminary, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, with the intent of making a place for women of all socioeconomic levels. Her school opened in 1837 with a tuition costing just one third of other similar schools. The school still exists today, now known as Mount Holyoke College. During her tenure there, Mary Lyon implemented many unique programs, such as a work/study format that helped keep the tuition costs low, daily exercise for the ladies who attended, and a course of study just as rigorous as schools for their male counterparts, including many classes in Christian faith, mathematics, and the sciences.
Our third woman of the postage stamps for today is Evelyn Nesbit. Have you heard of her? I had not, though she led a fascinating and often controversial life and is known as the world’s first supermodel. Born in Pennsylvania on Christmas day, 1884, Evelyn was the daughter of an attorney and a homemaker. Her father encouraged her bold and precocious nature, helping her to study music and other interests, as well as providing her a library full of fairy tales and adventure books (often more geared toward boys). Evelyn’s father passed away when she was ten, leaving the family destitute, and for a span of several years, they struggled. Eventually, a female artist noticed Evelyn’s beauty and asked for her to model for a painting. The young woman soon began modeling for other artists, and when the family moved from Pennsylvania to New York, those artists provided letters of introduction to the New York art community. Evelyn became one of the most in-demand artists’ models of her day, which eventually led to work on Broadway. She was pursued by famous actors and elites, such as John Barrymore and Stanford White, a prominent New York architect who Evelyn said stole her virginity in a case of date rape. After she later married Harry Kendall Thaw, the son of a railroad baron, Thaw became obsessed with White and murdered him in public at the theater. The murder case was called the “trial of the century,” and ended with Thaw being found not guilty due to an insanity defense (he had been known to have mental instability issues since childhood). Evelyn divorced him, married her dance partner, and went on to a career in vaudeville, burlesque, and silent movies, but it was the earlier murder trial that most defined her life.
The final lady we’ll focus on today debuted in her singing career at age two under her birth name, Frances Ethel Gumm. Frances and her two older sisters first performed together at their father’s movie theater, singing the chorus of “Jingle Bells,” and continued to entertain there for several years. After a move to California, the trio became involved in the Vaudeville circuit as “The Gumm Sisters.” However, after the audience laughed one night while they were introduced, it was suggested they pick a different name. They chose the last name Garland—and Frances changed her given name to Judy. The Garland Sisters were born. They toured together until 1935 when the eldest sister left the group to marry a musician in Reno, Nevada. It was then that Judy got her start with MGM Studios. She was given a contract, and eventually found success once she was paired with Mickey Rooney in several films. Judy stated that MGM prescribed amphetamines to help her keep up with the hectic pace of filming and barbiturates to help her sleep at night—a claim that Rooney, as a fellow young actor for the same studio, denied. No matter how the habit began, it remained a problem throughout her lifetime. In 1938, she was cast in her most iconic role, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Through many ups and downs, she gave birth to three children—Liza Minelli, Lorna Luft, and Joey Luft, had a long career in movies and television, and as a singer. But she lived a life plagued by self-doubts and addictions and died by accidental overdose at the age of forty-seven. She was featured on stamps twice--in 1989 and 2006.
It's Your Turn: Which of these women do you find the most interesting, and why?
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Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice.
Youngest child, Callie, has pushed past her insecurities to pursue a career as a Pinkerton agent. Middle child, Andi, has spent years studying law under her adoptive father’s tutelage. And the eldest and only son, Rion, is a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter.
When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?
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