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1841 to 1850

1841

America

..... the first women to graduate as Bachelors of Arts from Oberlin College ( see 1833) were Caroline Mary Rudd, Elizabeth Smith Pratt and Mary Hosford

England

..... the government banned the practice of women working in the mines although around 5000 women worked in them during the early 1800s

..... Lady Kinnaird opened one of the earliest training homes for female servants attending the St Johns Training School where girls were taught cooking and domestic work before being helped to find employment. She was also very involved in setting up the British Ladies Female Emigration Society in 1849. In 1855 she established a home in London to accommodate the steady flow of young women waiting to sail to the Crimea to become Florence Nightingale nurses. After the war, the hostel was used to house the increasing numbers of young business women coming to the capital, and the name was changed to The Young Women's Christian Association. By 1865 five homes had been opened in London, and the idea was spread to other cities and the provinces. During this time, Emma Robarts brought together a group of friends to form a Prayer Union to pray for the conversion of young women. The Union spread across the country and called itself the YWCA as a direct counterpart to the YMCA which had a similar evangelical vision. In 1876 Lady Kinnaird wanted to form a Prayer Union and met with Emma Robarts. The two Associations united. 1894 saw the formation of the World YWCA and the Association is now the oldest and largest women's organisation in the world with branches in more than 90 countries

died

..... Helene Jegado ..... one of France’s greatest mass poisoners who met her death on the guillotine, even though it was quite certain that she was insane. The magnitude of her crimes could only have had one result. Late in life she once remarked “ Wherever I go, people die”. She worked all over the country, mostly for clergymen and left behind a trail of corpses. She was a kleptomaniac which eventually triggered off the killings as she was invariably caught and equally invariably someone would die or at least fall ill after scolding her. Even when she went to work in a convent the nuns started to fall mysteriously ill. She was finally arrested after killing a fellow servant whilst working for a Professor and her past was investigated. Between 1833 and 1841 when her career could be traced she had killed at least 23 people but given that she had been working around France for 2 decades the total was nearer to 60

born

..... Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis ...... in Washington, Pennsylvania. She was mainly self-educated and her ambitions to be a writer were disapproved by her family. However she carried on and developed a unique, realistic style. Her story Life in the Iron Mills (1861) was a success and her first novel Margaret Howth: A story of today (1862) showed the horrors of life for a poor single woman in an industrial town. She married in 1863 and had a daughter and 2 sons. Richard Harding Davis became the leading reporter of his time.  Before 1900 she published ten more novels and worked on the editorial staff of the New York Tribune from 1869. Her works were always on current problems such as poverty, the Civil War, racial prejudice and political corruption. She died in 1920

1842

England

..... women were banned from working underground in the coal mines after Victorian social reformers had fought for it

Norway

..... all women who were not provided for were given the right to conduct business i.e. widows, wives living completely separate from their husbands and unmarried spinsters, when regarded as being of legal age by concession of the King

born

 .....  Helen Blackburn .....  Irish suffrage worker who was born in County Kerry, the daughter of a civil engineer. Her family moved to London in 1859 and between 1874 and 1895 she was Secretary of the National Society for Woman Suffrage but had to give up active work to care for her father. From 1881 to 1890 she was editor of the Englishwoman’s Review and during these years was also secretary of the West of England Suffrage Society. In 1881 she published a handbook for women engaged in social and political work and in 1885 she organised an exhibition of women’s industries in Bristol. She wrote several works amongst them a classic history Women’s Suffrage: A Record of the Movement in the British Isles (1902) and also founded the Freedom of Labour Defence which opposed protective legislature on the grounds that it lessened the earning capacity and personal liberty of women. She died in 1903

1843

America

..... Sojourner Truth began her own campaign against slavery

England

...... the first ever photographically illustrated book - British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions - was published by a woman , Anna Atkins

born December 29th

 ..... Carmen Sylva, Elizabeth, Queen of Rumania ..... at Mon Répas, a castle on the Rhine. Her parents were Prince Hermann of Wild and Princess Marie of Nassau and on November 15th 1869 she married Prince Charles of Rumania. On May 22nd 1881 they were crowned King and Queen. Their only child, Princess Marie, died in 1874. Elizabeth was known more by the name of Carmen Sylva, the noted writer/poetess and was a member of the Academy of Sciences at Bucharest. Her works include Thoughts of a Queen for which she was awarded a prize by the French Academy. After reading Ulranda aloud to Queen Victoria whilst on a visit, she was awarded the Order of Victoria and Albert. Pilgrim Sorrow an allegory, describes her own life story and her chief dramatic work Meister Manole is based upon a Rumanian legend. As a Queen she took an interest in many societies and charities and founded several schools for the poor and the blind. She died in 1916

born

..... Gertrude Jekyll ..... one of the greatest artists in horticulture and garden planning whose ideas, methods and designs transformed the gardens of England and spread throughout the English speaking world and beyond.  Munstead Wood in Surrey was the working model of her designs and ideas and within its bounds a house was designed and built for her by Edwin Lutyens and she remained there for 35 years. From there she sent more than 400 garden plans and thousands of plants to commissions throughout the British Isles, into Europe and to America and collaborated with many of the leading architects of the day. She was also a skilled painter, interior decorator, wood carver, silver smith and embroiderer. In 1993 the Museum of Garden History, the first museum of its kind, was hosen to exhibit her work and a series of lectures was also given by leading experts and speakers. She died in 1932

1844

America

..... Sarah Bagley founded the Lowell Female Labour Reform Association in Massachusetts to promote the 10 hour day. A year later the association had more than 600 members

England

..... the 1844 Factory Act limited the working day of women to 12 hours and for children between the ages of 8 and 13 to 6½ hours. The 1847 Act obtained a 10 hour day for women and children under 18 but this increased to 10½ hours in 1850. The limitation on hours of work spread into various industries until by 1867 the Act covered all industries employing more than 50 people. In the same year the Act also prohibited the employment of children under 8 years and restricted older children’s hours of work and the hours women worked to 12 per day if they were not already covered by the earlier 10½ hour limit. Enforcement of these Acts was another matter and in 1871 a specialised Factory Inspectorate was inaugurated

born May 6th

..... Queen Alexandra ..... eldest daughter of Christian1X, King of Denmark who married Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1863 and when he later became Edward V11 she was Queen Consort from 1901 to 1910 when he died. She had a strong interest in the welfare of the people and was well associated with hospital charities. In 1902 she founded Queen Alexandra's Imperial Army Nursing Corps known as the QAS and in 1912 instituted the Alexandra Rose Day in aid of hospitals. She died on 20th November 1925

born

 ..... Bernadette Soubirous ..... peasant girl who became a legend and an inspiration to millions when she claimed to have visions of a woman in white smiling at her from a grotto on the far side of the river Gave in the Pyrenees.  The visions began in February 1858 when she was out collecting wood with her two sisters but neither of them said that they had seen the vision also.  This was the first of several appearances during the course of the next six months and eventually as others in the village got to hear about them they wanted to see as well. Soon there were over 3,000 people along the banks of the river. Bernadette was examined by the local clergy and the police and was accused of being a sensation seeker. She stuck to her story and the size of her following made it difficult for the authorities to suppress her activities.  The vision told Bernadette that she was the 'Immaculate Conception' but no-one else ever saw or heard it and a chapel was built close to the grotto. When the visions stopped she tried to return to a simple life of home, school and work but a constant stream of visitors came to question her and seek her help.  In 1866 she went as a novice to the mother house of the order of Nevers and remained there the rest of her life until her death in 1879 as Sister Marie-Bernard. She was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1933 and millions of people still flock every year to her grotto at Lourdes

1845

America

..... the first ever investigation into working conditions was made by the Lowell Female Labour Reform Association examining the unhealthy 14-hour working days in the textile mills of Massachusetts (see 1844)

England

..... Margaret Fuller wrote Women of the 19th Century

..... the first Englishwoman to set up her own photographic  studio was Ann Cook    

Norway

..... unmarried women over the age of 25 years were given the same rights in law as “male persons who have not attained majority”

born

 ..... Mary Cassatt ..... in Pittsburgh. From 1874 she lived in Paris and more than any other American painter assimilated the French tradition and was greatly influenced by the Impressionists but her style was closer to that of Degas. Natural paintings of mothers and children were her favourites and her etchings and colour prints are distinguished by their excellent draughtsmanship. While her visits to the US were infrequent and Americans were slow to recognise her importance, she always considered herself to be American. In 1904 she was awarded the Lippincott Prize by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and in the same year received the Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur from France. Her work was included in the famous Armory Show in New York in 1913. Due to failing eyesight she ceased to work from 1914 and died in 1926. At the 1892/93 Chicago World’s Fair she created a monumental mural for the Woman’s Building entitled Modern Woman. The centre panel was called Young Women Plucking the Fruits of Knowledge and Science , the left panel was called Young Girls Pursuing Fame  and the right panel was devoted to women involved in music and dancing. The work has now been lost but Mary Cassat remains a powerful and important figure in the history of art

1846

America

..... Harriet Tubman ( see 1826) escaped slavery and began conducting on the Underground Railway

..... the poet Frances Watkins Harper travelled through the South speaking out against slavery

born

..... Elizabeth Southerden Butler - Lady - neé Elizabeth Thompson ..... who became a painter of patriotic battle scenes and episodes of military life and the precision of her paintings was prized by the Army for its faithful recordings of regimental actions and dress. Few artists have equalled her drawings of horses. She was the sister of Alice Meynell, (see 1849) poet and essayist, and was brought up mostly abroad and educated by her father. She exhibited first in 1873 and in 1874 became famous when she exhibited The Roll Call which was bought by Queen Victoria. In 1877 she married Major William Francis Butler. She died in 1933    

born November 25th

 ..... Carrie A Nation ..... American militant temperance reformer, in Garrard County, Kentucky. Her first husband, Charles Gloyd, was a doctor, but he died within a year of their marriage by which time she had a baby daughter. In 1877 she married David Nation and two years later they moved to Texas. Her first husband had been an alcoholic and this left her with a hatred for alcohol and in 1892 as co-founder of the local branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union she launched a powerful campaign to close down all the town’s illicit saloons. This campaign spread across the state and as her tactics, along with weeping and hymn singing, were smashing furniture and bottles with an axe, she was often arrested. But she still extended her activities to New York, Washington, Pittsburg and San Francisco. She financed herself by lecturing and selling souvenir hatchets and by stage appearances and pamphlets and also the sale of her autobiography which was written in 1904. Eventually her second husband divorced her. By the end of her life she was mentally confused and returned to a farm in Arkansas where she died on 9th June 1911

1847

America

..... on August 1st the discovery of a comet by Maria Mitchell helped to call attention to the role of American women in science

England

..... Ten Hours Act - a British act of Parliament that restricted the working day of all workers except adult males. It was prompted by the public campaign ( the Ten Hours Movement) set up in 1831. Women and young people were restricted to a 10½ working day with 1½ hours for meals, between 6am and 6 pm (see also 1844)

..... the first leaflet on women's suffrage was published by a Quaker, Ann Knight

..... on November 15th women in Edinburgh rejoiced as news spread of the FIRST childbirth rendered painless through ether

born November 22nd

..... Mary Potter ..... the only Englishwoman to found a religious nursing order. She was born in Bermondsey, London, and as a teenager became interested in the Catholic faith. At the age of 21 her engagement was announced but the marriage never took place and soon afterwards she entered the Convent of Mercy at Brighton where she was inspired to found her own caring and healing order. Her first convent and hospital was in an old Nottingham stocking factory and when Pope Leo X111 invited her to extend her order to Rome she spent the last 30 years of her life, until her death in 1913, at her convent in that city. Eventually her order expanded across 13 countries and five continents. When she died she was buried in a Roman cemetery but four years later her body was moved to a tomb within the convent and hospital of St Stefano. In 1997 her remains were re-interred in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St Barnabas in Nottingham, England and more than 1,000 people heard her described as " a remarkable daughter of England". The congregation included members of her order wearing the pale-blue veils which had led to them affectionately being called " Blue Nuns"

1848

America

..... Maria Mitchell became the first woman to be elected to join the American Academy of Science

..... on July 19th the Seneca Falls, New York convention held at the Wesleyan Chapel under the leadership of Lucretia Mott  and Elizabeth Cady Stanton adopted a group of women’s rights resolutions including a demand for woman suffrage and a diminution of discrimination in employment and education. A few months earlier the two feminist leaders had worked successfully for the passage of the New York Married Women’s Property Act, modifying the common law by recognising a married woman’s rights to her separate property

England

..... Queen’s College, London, the first genuine college for women, was set up. It had developed from a series of highly successful ' Lectures to Ladies' and 200 women students attended in the first year. Subjects available for study included English literature, sociology, philosophy, algebra and science

..... Caroline Hamilton wrote The Garden Notebook, the FIRST book by a woman about the cultivation of fruit and vegetables

born

 ..... Amy Vanderbilt .....  American who was for many years arbiter of manners in an increasingly classless society and the nations principal authority on etiquette. Her publication Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette has been revised a number of times and has sold millions of copies. She was an official etiquette consultant for various organisations and travelled and lectured a great deal on the subject. She died in 1914 after falling from a window

1849

England

..... Bedford College was set up by Elizabeth Reid and was run along similar lines to Queen's College ( see 1848) although more advanced, with a board of governors that included women as well as men

born

..... Alice Meynell ..... English poet and essayist, wife of Wilfred Meynell, editor of the Catholic paper Merry England. Her sister was Elizabeth Butler (see 1846) the famous military painter, her mother was a concert pianist and her father was a scholar. Alice was educated at home by her father and spent much of her childhood in France, Switzerland and Italy. In 1875 her first volume of poems Prelude was published and she received a lot of praise from Ruskin, Rosetti and George Eliot and remained a favourite of other artists and writers for the rest of her life. After her marriage and to help to support her eight children she turned to journalism and from 1893 to 1898 wrote a weekly column for the Pall Mall Gazette and was its art critic from 1902 to 1905. She also undertook charity work, was an active suffragette and held a salon for writers at her home in Palace Court. Between 1893 and her death in 1922 she had more time to write poetry and published eight volumes. When Tennyson died she was proposed as Poet Laureate

born November 24th

..... Frances Hodgson Burnett ..... in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England, daughter of a hardware wholesaler. The family business was ruined by the depression in the cotton industry in Lancashire during the American Civil War and in 1865 the family emigrated to America where she married. In 1877 she published four successful stories and by 1883 had produced sixteen novels. In 1886 she published her most famous novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, the story of a little American boy who inherits an English title. The hero was based on her son Vivian. In her later years she became an eccentric, was snobbish and an escapist and took to wearing elaborate clothes and wigs which earned her the nickname of ‘Frilly’. She also indulged in semi-mystical religions and was a minor tyrant to her family. She died on 29th October 1924

born December 18th

..... Henrietta Muir Edwards ..... Canadian advocate for working women, a member of the Famous Five in 1927 and founder of the Victorian Order of Nurses. She died on November 10th 1931

1850

America

..... the Underground Railway was fully functioning and helping Southern slaves to escape to the North and Canada. The sculptor Edmonia Lewis was one of the many abolitionist friends along its 'track'

..... in Worcester, Massachusetts, Lucy Stone called for the first National Convention for Women's Rights

England

..... the North London Collegiate School for Ladies was founded by Frances Buss

born 

..... Jane Harrison ..... English classical scholar who was born in Yorkshire and educated at home and at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she became a Fellow. Eventually she became Director of the British School of Archaeology in Rome and by 1925 had been awarded more honorary University degrees than any other woman in the world. Her interpretation of Greek culture, myths and religion revolutionised the study of the classics. She died in 1928

born

..... Kate Chopin neé O'Flaherty ..... whose stories made her a literary celebrity in America but her reputation was destroyed by the scandal of her novel The Awakening, which was published in 1899. She was born in St Louis. Missouri and for thirteen years attended the local convent school where one of the nun's spotted her potential and encouraged her to write. In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin and they had six children.  They moved to Louisiana in 1879 and here she fell in love with Albert Samsite, who ill-treated his black servants, beat his wife and became the model for sexually desirable men in her novels.  By 1884 however she had become disillusioned and left Samsite and went back to St Louis where she was determined to find fulfilment that did not depend on a man. Here she began to write professionally and soon her stories were being published in journals throughout America.  In the 1970s her novel The Awakening was rediscovered and recognised as a feminist classic. She died an early death in 1904