1891 to 1899
1891
America
..... Ida B Wells began her lifelong anti-lynching campaign by establishing her own newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech, to draw attention to the brutal lynch mob murders of black Americans
England
..... success of the Match-Girls ( Bryant & May) strike led by Annie Besant, the first major strike by women
..... from 1891 until 1905 Rachel Beer edited The Observer, a paper owned by her husband. She was the only female editor of a national daily in the 19th century
..... a woman’s paper announced a new invention “ this is a skirt protector composed of a fold of this dull leather, a quarter of an inch in depth and secured to a narrow tape. In price it will be relatively cheaper than braid, on account of its more lasting properties and the extra weight which is hardly appreciable, is a distinct point in its favour, helping towards the desirable end of steadying the skirt and also keeping it away from the feet”
born
..... Bessie Delany ..... who, with her older sister Sarah, wrote Having Our Say : The Delany Sisters First 100 Years. Their father was freed from slavery at the age of seven and both sisters worked their way through Columbia University. Bessie became a dentist and Sarah a school-teacher. Bessie died in 1995 aged 104 years. When she was asked how she and her sister lives past 100 she said “ Honey, we never married; we never had any husbands to worry us to death”
born August 3rd
..... Dorothy ‘Dickie’ Fellowes-Gordon ..... companion of the redoubtable American hostess Elsa Maxwell. She was born in Aberdeenshire and met Elsa Maxwell c 1912 and already possessed what Miss Maxwell describes as ‘ the beauty and sharp wit that were to make her one of Europe’s femme fatales” When the First World War began they retreated to a small inn at Marlow and then in 1915 sailed for America. Here they rented a small apartment and ran a soda fountain at the Allied Bazaar at Grand Central Palace. After the war they shared an apartment in Paris near Montmartre. They often crossed the Channel to London. When Elsa Maxwell died in 1963 in New York, ‘Dickie’ led such a quiet life that social historians presumed that she had died years earlier than she did in 1991 at the age of 100 years. She was a rich source of the life of Elsa Maxwell and perhaps the last survivor of that hectic social whirl devoted to parties in London, Paris, New York and the Riviera
born
..... Hedda Hopper neé Elda Furry ..... Hollywood gossip columnist and with another female columnist, Louella Parsons, became the most famous ‘Don’t invite them in’ pair in the history of female gossip columnists, a phrase coined by Walter Winchell. Their feud became famous but it was more professional than personal. Hedda was known for her magnificent, outrageous hats just as Gertrude Schilling was the hat queen of Ascot in England. She once said “ I can wear a hat or take it off, but either way it’s a conversation piece”. She also did a weekly radio network show and was in several films – Virtuous Wives, Sherlock Holmes, Don Juan, Mona Lisa and Sunset Boulevard. She was discovered by Alicia Patterson when she was talking to William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate. She died in 1966
born
...... Olive Booth - Lt-Col ..... a veteran of the Salvation Army, grand-daughter of General William Booth, the Army’s founder and daughter of General Bramwell Booth, the second leader of the Salvation Army. She was the eldest of three sisters and for much of her life lived with them in an old house in Finchampstead, Berkshire. She was tutored at home before going to a Salvation Army training college. Her last appointment before her retirement in 1951 was as secretary of the Army’s war graves department, organising widows’ visits. Before this she had been director of the European relief team responsible for the safe return to Germany of refugees from Russia and elsewhere after the Second World War. During her long career she was also in charge of the Army’s women’s work in Britain and of the running of clubs and canteens for British servicemen at home and overseas. She was the last survivor of the celebrated trio of sisters when she died in 1989
Back to top of page ** Next page ** Previous page