AAUW Kingston Branch Scholarship Winners

(L to R) Yuvelca Reyes, Irwin Rosenthal, and Marie Daniels

We had a great opportunity to meet with our two 2010 scholarship winners at the annual picnic this month. Both earned associates degrees from Ulster Community College this month and will use their scholarship money to pursue their bachelor degrees.

Yuvelca Reyes has enrolled with SUNY Empire to pursue her degree in therapeutic recreation, a major of her own design. Yuvelca believes that our lives and the world would be better if we all found things to do that we enjoy. Her quest is to help people find those things that are right for them. She's especially interested in using her motivational skills to engage residents in Newburgh in constructive fun -- an alternative to the gangs and crime we've been following in the news. To that end, she's been organizing a July 4th tournament. Yuvelca is full of energy and ideas; now she wants to learn how to make them work.

Marie Daniels has enrolled at SUNY New Paltz. Her plan is to get a degree and teaching credentials in earth science and teach. But that's just the first step. Marie loves library science and plans to pursue a graduate degree to become a librarian. (Librarians love AAUW. There were three at the picnic, all ready to provide Marie guidance and support.)

Both these young women are mid-career students with children at home. They are following in the footsteps of many of us, balancing family and children, pursuing the love of learning and the need to support our families doing the things that we love.


Irwin Rosenthal and Doris Goldberg, Education Foundation co-chairs, coordinated selection of our 2010 recipients. You won't find Doris in the picture. Why? She had to leave early for a library board meeting!

Congratulations to Marie and Yuvelca. The branch has given them student memberships to AAUW so we hope to see a lot more of them and follow their career.

Pay Equity Updates

While Fair Pay Day has come and gone, the issue remains. AAUW Washington Update has cited several news items of late that you should be aware of.

Department of Labor Announces Top 20 Fields for Women According to a recent report by the Department of Labor, secretaries, administrative assistants, and registered nurses are the nation's leading occupations for employed women.  Among the 20 fields listed, findings show a lack of women in non-traditional, STEM careers, as well as a median salary of $657 per week for women 16 years and older.

Federal Government Not Hiring As Many Women According to a new report by Federally Employed Women, the number of women in top positions within the federal workforce is much lower than that of men. While that number nearly doubled between 1992 and 2003, there has been relatively no change since 2006. The report cites a lack of training and cross-training as major reasons for the lack of women in top positions, and that training funds are typically cut under budget restraints.  Thus, in today's economic climate, women are provided fewer opportunities to advance to top federal positions.

Wage Gap in Academic Medicine Women in academic medicine earn significantly less than their male counterparts, according to a study released in April's Academic Medicine. Researchers sampled at random 3,000 life science employees at the top 50 academic medical centers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) looking to explain the gender wage gap.  The study found that over a 30 year period, full-time female faculty members made almost $215,000 less than men of equal standing, and nearly $700,000 less over a full career.  Professors Eric Campbell, PhD, and Catherine DesRoches, DrPh, have linked their work on the study with the need for a systematic change in the field.

The Harvard Business Review has  a quick slide show Investigating the Pay Gap by Sarah Green.

AAUW's Washington Update is emailed to subscribers every Friday. It covers the Washington developments related to AAUW Public Policy issues. Washington update is another benefit of your AAUW membership; you can subscribe to it here.

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2010-11 Reading List

Image via Wikipedia

AAUW BOOK CLUB Reading List for Sept. 2010 to June 2011

Sept.21  The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.. This takes place in Sitka Alaska where a fictitious Jewish community has been established after WW2 to welcome survivors of the Holocaust.

Oct. 19  Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. A young asthmatic boy named Rueben Land narrates the story of his family after his brother Davy kills two bullies who had targeted him and their family. When  Davy escapes prison Rueben and family follow Davy to the Badlands with many adventures.


Nov. 16 Howard’s End by E.M. Foster. This was first published in 1910 and is about class struggle in turn-of-century England. The motto of the book is “only connect”.


Dec 14  We will read and discuss poetry selections assembled by Vivi Hlvasa. Please note we are meeting on the 2^nd Tuesday to accommodate the Holiday Schedule.


Jan. 18,2011 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Once again into the trenches of WW1, a long term illicit love affair and a hero who finds hope and meaning despite the anguish.


Feb. 15  The Help by Katherine Stockett. A Southern woman writes about the connections between black maids and their white women employers in the 1960’s in a small Georgia town.

March 15  Frances Perkins: The Woman Behind the President by Kirsten Downey.  Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in an American  Presidential Cabinet . She was instrumental in securing “New Deal” legislation and served 12 years as FDR’s Secretary of Labor.

April 19 Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery. This was first published in 1847-48. It satirizes early 19^th century British society. The title comes from Paul Bunyan’s allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress. Vanity Fair refers to a stop along pilgrim’s progress: a never ending fair in a town called Vanity.

May 17  Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. This fiction published in 1881 is considered one of James’ finest. The Lady is Isabel Archer, a young American heiress victimized by two American Machiavellian expatriates.

June The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich. The author with a German, American, French, Ojibwa background, writes from an Indian reservation perspective. This is a story of passion and compassion about a priest who meets an Indian Elder who possesses love medicine.
 

Happily compiled by Marjorie Regan with a little help from Wikipedia and other online sources. 

Explore with AAUW Kingston Branch

2010 Spring and Summer Bus Trips

sponsored by AAUW* and Staying in Place**

Sunday, May 23rd

A morning at Kykuit for a tour of the Rockefeller house and gardens
followed by
an afternoon at The Cloisters

For Details 

Cost (including bus and driver tip): $72 (before 5/10); $75 (after 5/10)
Members of AAUW and SIP: $69 (before 5/10); $72 (after 5/10)

Leaving at 8:15 AM (New Paltz Park-n-Ride at 8:45); returning at 6:30

Thursday, July 8th

 Saratoga and the Ballet

 -- For details

Saturday, July 24th

Cooperstown
for the Baseball Hall of Fame Induction
– or –
the special Fenimore Museum exhibit:

In Our Time: The World as Seen by Magnum Photographers
and
the Glimmerglass production of
Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro featuring Patrick Carfizzi as Figaro & Lyubov Petrova as Susanna

For details

Cost (including bus and driver tip):  $ 96 (balcony); $112 (orchestra)
Members of AAUW and SIP: $93 (balcony); $109 (orchestra)
Bus alone: $39  Note: after June 10th, $3 must be added to each price

Leaving at 8 AM and returning around 7:30 PM

Sunday, August 1st

Picasso Looks at Degas

Clark Art Institute

Williamstown

For details

Tuesday, August 17th

The Berkshires
A morning at the Norman Rockwell Museum
featuring: Rockwell and the Movies

 – followed by –

an afternoon at Shakespeare and Company
for a performance of
Richard III
starring OBIE Award Winner John Douglas Thompson
(if you don’t know his name already, you soon will!)

For Details 

Cost (including bus and driver tip): $83 (before 7/16); $86 (after 7/16)
Members of AAUW and SIP: $79 (before 7/16); $83 (after 7/16)
Leaving at 8:30 AM and returning around 6:30 PM

All buses leave from the rear of the former Ames in the Kingston Plaza

For reservations, call ViVi at 845-331-0155 or write vvhlavsa@aol.com, then send your check, made out to AAUW–Kingston Branch, to

 ViVi Hlavsa, 191 Lapla Road, Kingston NY 12401.

  (Ask about our cancellation policies.)

*Open to all, AAUW trips are part of our mission to offer community enrichment and to raise funds for  scholarships and grants to local, national and international programs, especially in support of women.   Membership in Kingston Branch of American Association of University Women is open to all people.

**Recently formed, Staying in Place (SIP) is a membership organization which provides social, informational and referral services at discount prices for seniors, aged 50 and older who want to stay in their own homes.  Currently based in Woodstock, SIP is actively helping other Ulster County communities form similar groups.

Women's History Month: Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins
(April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965)

Frances Perkins was the first woman cabinet officer in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration. She served as Secretary of Labor from March 4, 1933 until June 30, 1945.

She was remarkably suitable for this position and very effective in helping develop FDR’s programs of social justice. How did a woman of her social class develop into a person who understood the working man and his needs and those Americans of all ages who had been devastated by the worldwide depression that began in 1929?

Frances Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts on April 10, 1880 to comfortable middle class parents who belonged to the Congregational Church. She had one sister, who was born in 1884. She was an average student at Worcester's Classical High School, which prepared her for college. She earned a Bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1902 and a Master’s Degree in Sociology from Columbia University in 1910.

At Mt. Holyoke, her History Professor, Anna May Soule, required her students to visit the local factories and write of the working conditions there. Frances later said that opened her mind to the idea that poverty was not merely caused by liquor or laziness, the prevailing view at the time. She supported herself by teaching and volunteered at settlement houses. She spent time at the famous Hull House in Chicago. There she began to realize that Labor needed to organize to earn a decent wage so that they could take care of themselves and not need the charity of those running settlement houses.

She came to live in New York City in 1909 and was hired as Executive Secretary of the Consumer League. In lobbying for the League in Albany, she met Al Smith, a New York State Assemblyman at the time, and Senator Robert F. Wagner.

On March 25, 1911, Frances was having tea with friends at Astor Place in Greenwich Village. Several fire trucks and emergency vehicles could be heard outside. The group went outside to see what was happening. They were just in time to see bodies falling from the upper floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. A fire had started and quickly spread The total dead was 146 and most were young immigrant women. There was only one exit. The others were locked because owners suspected workers might steal a newly made shirtwaist or that union organizers might enter the building. There was a great public outcry over this tragedy and investigations were called for. Because Frances knew about factory conditions due to her work for the Consumer’s League she was asked to do investigations for the newly formed Factory Investigating Committee led by Smith and Wagner.

Her education, her experiences, and her reading, which included Jacob Riis’ 1890 book, How The Other Half Lives, an expose of the terrible slum conditions in NYC, prepared her to become a vital force for Labor in New York State. At that time Labor was not yet organized, had no rights and were often exploited.

When Al Smith became Governor in New York, he asked Frances to join the NYS Industrial Commission. Frances used her influence to educate men like Smith and Wagner about labor conditions by bringing Smith to a factory at the end of a twelve hour shift to see the exhausted workers exit. She had Wagner come down a fire escape that ended twelve feet from the ground. As a Lobbyist for the Consumer’s League she was successful in getting a bill passed that limited the work week to 54 hours.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected NYS Governor, he named Frances Perkins State Industrial Commissioner. Because of the good relations she had worked to achieve with both labor, business, and lawmakers she was successful in achieving a forty-eight hour work week for women. She pushed for laws establishing a minimum wage and unemployment insurance.

When FDR was elected President, he asked Frances to be his Secretary of Labor. No woman had ever held a Cabinet Post. Frances accepted this position only after the President-Elect agreed to back her long list of social reforms, such as what came to be known as Social Security. He also supported her goals of a shorter work week, laws controlling child labor, setting a minimum wage and unemployment insurance. All these goals were achieved during Perkins time as Secretary of Labor, March 4, 1933 to June 30, 1945. Her biographer, Kirstin Downey, calls Perkins, the “Woman Behind the New Deal”, and she was. The skills she used in negotiating between business men and labor leaders worked well in the assured but tactful ways she dealt with Roosevelt’s all-male Cabinet, Congressmen, lobbyists, citizens, and the President himself. Her experience, knowledge, and personal qualities were major factors in helping settle strikes and heading off threatening strikes in industries producing needed war materials first for Lend-Lease and then goods for the War itself.

Perkins' personal life was difficult. She married Paul Caldwell Wilson in 1913. They had a baby that died and then a daughter Susanna. They were financially comfortable and lived on Paul’s family inheritance. Paul, however, lost their fortune in speculative investments. Frances realized she would have to support her family when Paul developed manic-depressive symptoms and spent years off and on in mental institutions. As an adult their daughter also was apparently mentally ill.

Frances continued to work for the government in Harry Truman’s administration, serving on the United States Civil Service Commission from 1945 to 1952. In that year, her husband died and Frances went to Cornell University as a teacher and lecturer in the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She continued there until her death in 1965 at age 85.

Though Frances Perkins came from an upper middle class background, had an excellent education and was a successful social worker she developed an early empathy with the working class. She saw and understood the dreadful places where they had to live and work. She made great contributions to the major portion of the population in our United States by getting social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, limited work week hours, and codes for secure working places. She also believed in universal health care and would be happy to see that becoming available to all our citizens.

References

Downey, Kirstin. The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. Random House, 2009

Passachoff, Naomi. Frances Perkins: Champion of the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press.1999

Perkins, Frances. The Roosevelt I Knew. New York: Penguin Group, 1946.

Lecture by Kirstin Downey at Hyde Park, New York, FDR’s home, presidential library and archives. June 20, 2009

Frances Perkins. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 10-12-2009

Written and researched by Marjorie Regan, MA, LMFT.
AAUW Kingston Branch

NYS Senator Diane Savino Talks About the Responsibility of being "The First"

As a former Staten Islander, I take a great interest in seeing Staten Island women move into leadership positions. Last fall, Debi Rose became the first African American woman elected to the NYC Council. And, Diane Savino is the first female state senator from the Island. My pleasure grew as I listened to Senator Savino's  comments to the NYS State Senate on Women's History Month. (Just under 3 minutes)





And, if you're unfamiliar with Senator Savino's comments on her vote on the gay marriage bill, do watch the video here. (about 7 minutes)

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Celebrating Mary Seacole on Ada Lovelace Day

Rokki Carr sent this profile of Mary Seacole from the Spartacus Educational site in the UK:

A portrait of Mary Seacole in oils c. 1869, by the obscure London artist Albert Charles Challen (1847–81). The original was discovered in 2003 by historian Helen Rappaport, and acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2008.

Mary Jane Seacole (1805-1881)
Dedicated Healer and Entrepreneur

Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a Scottish army officer and her mother a free black woman who ran a boarding house in Kingston. Mary's mother also treated people who become ill. She was a great believer in the herbal medicines. These medicines were based on the knowledge of slaves brought from Africa. This knowledge was passed on to Mary and later she also become a 'doctress'.

In 1850 Kingston was hit by a cholera epidemic. Mary Seacole, using herbal medicines, played an important role in dealing with this disease. She also dealt successfully with a yellow fever outbreak in Jamaica. Her fame as a medical practitioner grew and she was soon carrying out operations on people suffering from knife and gunshot wounds.

Mary loved travelling and as a young woman visited the Bahamas, Haiti and Cuba. In these countries she collected details of how people used local plants and herbs to treat the sick. On one trip to Panama she helped treat people during another cholera epidemic. Mary carried out an autopsy on one victim and was therefore able to learn even more about the way the disease attacked the body.

In 1853 Russia invaded Turkey. Britain and France, concerned about the growing power of Russia, went to Turkey's aid. This conflict became known as the Crimean War.

Soon after British soldiers arrived in Turkey, they began going down with cholera and malaria. Within a few weeks an estimated 8,000 men were suffering from these two diseases. At the time, disease was a far greater threat to soldiers than was the enemy. In the Crimean War, of the 21,000 soldiers who died, only 3,000 died from injuries received in battle.

When Mary Seacole heard about the cholera epidemic she traveled to London to offer her services to the British Army. There was considerable prejudice against women's involvement in medicine and her offer was rejected. When The Times publicized the fact that a large number of British soldiers were dying of cholera there was a public outcry, and the government was forced to change its mind. Florence Nightingale, who had little practical experience of cholera, was chosen to take a team of thirty-nine nurses to treat the sick soldiers.

Although Mary Seacole was an expert at dealing with cholera, her application to join Florence Nightingale's team was rejected. Mary, who had become a successful business woman in Jamaica, decided to travel to the Crimea at her own expense. She visited Florence Nightingale at her hospital at Scutari but once again Mary's offer of help was refused.

Unwilling to accept defeat, Mary started up a business called the British Hotel, a few miles from the battlefront. Here she sold food and drink to the British soldiers. With the money she earned from her business Mary was able to finance the medical treatment she gave to the soldiers.
Whereas Florence Nightingale and her nurses were based in a hospital several miles from the front, Mary Seacole treated her patients on the battlefield. On several occasions she was found treating wounded soldiers from both sides while the battle was still going on.

After the war ended in 1856 Mary Seacole returned to England. She hoped to work as a nurse in India but she was unable to raise the necessary funds. Mary Seacole died in London on May 14,1881.

For more information about Mary Seacole see Wikipedia or The Victorian Web

Celebrating Rachel Carson on Ada Lovelace Day

Rachel Louise Carson (1907-1964)

Rachel Carson — writer, scientist, and ecologist — grew up in the rural river town of Springdale, PA. She graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Lab, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins in 1932.

During the Depression, the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries hired Carson to write radio scripts. She supplemented her income by writing feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun.

In 1936, she began a 15-year career in the federal service as a scientist and editor and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Carson wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources and edited scientific articles.

In her free time, Carson turned her government research into lyric prose, first as an article "Undersea" (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly), and then in a book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941). In 1952, she published her prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955. Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.

Carson wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world, including "Help Your Child to Wonder," (1956) and "Our Ever-Changing Shore" (1957). Embedded within all of her writing was the view that human beings were one part of nature distinguished primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly.

Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long term effects of misusing pesticides. In Silent Spring (1962), she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world.

Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as an alarmist, but courageously spoke out to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural world subject to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson called for new policies to protect human health and the environment.

Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all of its creatures.

Source: http://www.rachelcarson.org/

© Linda Lear, 1998, author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature (1997).

Photo of Carson from Lear/Carson Collection, Connecticut College.

To find out about Ada Lovelace Day, go to: http://findingada.com/

Celebrating Ellen Swallow Richards on Ada Lovelace Day

Women in Chemistry: Ellen Swallow Richards: "Ellen Swallow Richards

If you're confident that your tap water is safe to drink and your groceries are safe to eat, your confidence rests on the work of Ellen Swallow Richards.

In 1887 Richards conducted an enormous, pioneering survey of drinking water in Massachusetts, which led to the establishment of water-quality standards and modern sewage treatment plants. Richards then pursued chemical studies to determine the ingredients in groceries, along with their quality, which eventually led to state food and drug standards.

Richards was the first woman to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she spent her entire career. She founded a women's chemistry laboratory at MIT and established the field of 'home economics,' which used science to improve sanitation in people's homes."

Today is Ada Lovelace Day -- the international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science.

Initially I considered posting about Ellen Richards because she and Marion Talbot founded the organization that became AAUW and during her career she faced so many of the challenges women still face today.

She initially worked at MIT for no pay, never mind fair pay! And, although she completed work for her PhD, the MIT powers-that-be balked. No PhD for a woman.

She came from a poor family and earned money cleaning to put herself through Vassar, one of the few colleges for women at that time. She couldn't get a job as an industrial chemist, so she convinced MIT to let her enroll. They noted on accepting her that her admission shouldn't be seen as setting a precedent.

Reading about Ellen Richards' career at MIT convinced me. I recently watched the video of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) addressing the AAUW National Convention on the Ten Commandments for Women Overcoming Obstacles. One of the stories she tells is how two MIT faculty members collected and presented data to the MIT administration proving that MIT was shortchanging women on lab space, research money, and positions on decision-making committees (the committees with the power). MIT listened, changed its policies, and put their money where their policies lay. That's a story I want to learn more about.

Want to know more about Ellen Swallow Richards? There are many references to her on the web. I especially liked this one at Women in Chemistry.

Image from MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections

Help Circulate Our Pay Equity Fact Sheet

Fair Pay Day is coming, April 20,  and our branch goal is to get twenty other local organizations to join us in spreading the word about pay equity. To that end, we've pulled together a fact sheet for members to provide to the organizations where they have connections.


Here's what we need you to do -- easy:

• Forward the link or pdf of the fact sheet to everyone you know. Ask them to let you know whether their organization did something.
• Talk about Pay Equity with your friends
• Write a letter to the editor

The branch is also planning a public event of some sort -- we'll keep you posted.