Strong Women

A woman-owned business in New York in 1870? You bet!

Flamboyant sisters Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin made their mark as famous women in history when they opened a stock brokerage firm of Woodhull, Claflin and Co. in 1870.

Marketing Pays Off

These sisters grew up in brutal poverty. Their father, a snake oil salesman who sold elixirs to cure diseases, billed Tennie as a medical clairvoyant who could cure you by laying her hands on you.

Maybe they had to learn to survive by their brains.

Even before they opened up the doors to their firm, they talked to male newspaper reporters in order to spread publicity. On the opening day of the brokerage, a crowd waited for them. According to The Scarlet Sisters, up to 2,000 people lined the sidewalk to see them arrive.

Showmanship

The sisters were ready for the crowd. They knew they were attractive women, and they arrived in an open carriage.

They both wore the same outfit, but their skirts were short, touching the top of their boots, revealing a hint of ankle. Their jackets with feminine embroidery were nipped at the waist. But the jackets flared at the shoulders, suggesting a male attire. No bustle, no corsets, no trailing skirts. Their clothing showed they were ready to work.

Victoria and Tennie descended from the carriage hearing catcalls, jeers, and shouts. Aided by the police, they swept into their office. A sign outside their door declared, “Gentleman will state their business and then retire at once.”

Welcoming

The sisters cleverly catered to women, a novelty in 1870. Their stock brokerage firm had a private entrance which lead to a female-only room. There, they socialized with women who first came to gawk, but who stayed to invest money.

A woman would not get a seat on the New York Stock Exchange—that is, be able to trade stocks herself—until almost a 100 years later. But these famous women in history–Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin–made their mark.

Source: Thanks to The Scarlet Sisters by Myra MacPherson

Gloria Steinem-feminist activist, writer, and leader–co-founded Ms. Magazine and recently wrote My Life on the Road.

Her reflections  about her life can also shape your thinking.

You can talk about your parents who used to embarrass you. Steinem’s father was a wanderer who, when winter began, grabbed his family and headed south. Except sometimes they left so fast that dirty dishes were left in the sink along with half-eaten food. At one point, her father was so obese that the driver’s side of the car dipped. Over time, Steinem thought she received things from her father like the excitement of travel and a sense of optimism. Now I can feel better mentioning the embarrassing house dress/polyester pants combination my mother always wore.

Bookstores are your town square. Ever been to Europe and seen groups of people talking in city squares? Or perhaps you’re lucky enough to have a place like Pioneer Square in Portland? If you don’t have a town square, where else but in  bookstore do you find such diverse ideas and a wide range of people? “A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence that people are still thinking,” says Jerry Steinfeld.

Adventure starts the minute you leave your door. Steinem doesn’t drive, she takes taxis. Fascinating taxi drivers she’s encountered included the man with the mobile art studio who offered to draw her hands for $30.00. Or the woman who displayed photos of her old lovers and said “the path to ecstatic sex lies through spirituality.” Who could argue with that?

These sisters spoke out against slavery in the 1800s, but they are largely forgotten in history. Yet they were really bold.

Here’s why you should know them:

They knew about slavery first-hand. Their father owned hundreds of slaves, so they had first-hand knowledge about its cruelty. Angelina was haunted by seeing one of her father’s slaves, a young boy, walk with difficulty because of scars from whip marks.  Sarah said that when she was five, after she saw a slave being whipped, she tried to board a steamer so she could go to a place without slavery.

They turned their backs against a luxurious life. Their family owned a plantation in South Carolina, and they were wealthy. The two women could have had a nice marriage with a comfortable life. But they chose to stand up for they believed.

A woman’s got to try. After Sarah moved to the North, Angelina tried to reform her family, but it didn’t work. Before moving to the North herself, Angelina wrote of her frustration in her journal, “I am much tried at times at the manner in which I am obligated to live here.”

Appealing to women. In the North, Angelina and Sarah both spoke against slavery to groups. They also spoke about the rights of women. Angelina wrote “An Appeal to the Christian Women of the Southern States,” which asked her southern friends to become active in ending slavery. “I know you do not make the laws,” she wrote, “but I also know that you are the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do.” When copies of the Appeal reached Charleston, the local police warned her mother that if Angelina ever came to Charleston, she would be imprisoned.

A marriage of like minded people. Angelina married Theodore Weld in 1838, known as “the most mobbed man in America” for his anti-slavery speeches. Two days after their wedding, they attended an anti-slavery convention in Philadelphia. The first night, the mob threw stones at the convention building, and the second night, they set the building on fire.

The dream realized. Sarah died at aged 81 in 1873. Angelina died at age 74 in 1879. Both lived to see the end of slavery and the rise of women’s rights movement.

Both were bold women who turned their back on a wealthy life to fight for what they believed in.

They should be remembered.

Source: Carol Berkin, “Angelina and Sarah Grimke: Abolitionist Sisters”

Ginsburg is a powerful force on the U.S. Supreme Court.  She is the subject of the popular book Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Here are 10 fascinating facts about Ginsburg from the book:

1. Ginsburg remembers seeing a sign in a bed-and breakfast in Pennsylvania that read, “No dogs or Jews allowed.”
2. Ginsburg said that she learned from her mother not to let “anger or envy get in your way.”
3. Her mother was a bookkeeper and scrimped together the sum of $8,000 for Ginsburg’s college education.
4. When Ginsburg went to Cornell, she located all the women’s bathrooms. At the best one in the school of architecture, she would go into the stall and work on her homework.
5. As a lawyer, when she first appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to argue a case on sex discrimination, she wore her mother’s pin and earrings.
6. While arguing her first case, she quoted Sarah Grimké, an abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights. The quote was “I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”
7. Before Ginsburg joined the Supreme Court, there was only a Men’s Restroom in the Robing Room. For twelve years, when she needed go to the bathroom, Ginsburg’s college Justice Sandra Day O’Conner had to scurry back to her chambers. Only when there were two women on the Supreme Court was a restroom built.
8. She will still wear a scrunchie in her hair.
9. She has many styles of jabots, the frill on the front of her robe. One came from the gift shop of the Metropolitan Opera, and another from the store Banana Republic.
10. When Ginsburg voices a dissent from her male colleagues, she wears a jabot that looks like a beaded collar. That means she’s ready for battle.

Rosa Parks was the first woman to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.

An honor reserved for statesmen and military leaders, this tribute did not occur until her death in 2005.