Women in the Battle of Adwa

Adwa, the very first decisive victory of a black African power, is an important event in the shared memory of the entire African population. It demonstrated the spirit of unity, love and friendship among Ethiopians; but foremost, it showed the genuine role of women.

Women marched alongside men to the battle at Adwa 127 years ago not as “comfort women”, but to fight against the Italian army. Just like their men-folk, Ethiopian women were ready to sacrifice themselves to prevent colonialists from sneaking into their country, thus forcing their children to live in servitude.

Women were preparing food and water, providing medical care for the wounded and they were following the solders with a slogan of  ‘ freedom or death’.

Detail of the Battle of Adwa

Empress Taytu Bitul was clearly symbolic of the best patriotic qualities of women. Taytu was not only a diplomat and stateswoman with resolve, but also an ingenious commandant versed in the art of war, a tactician par excellence.

Taytu was a strong-willed woman who forged a powerful alliance with her husband, promoting his career and then replacing him when he was incapacitated. Taytu was a remarkable power in her own right: she had a private army and large land holding, she also held a dominant position in determining Ethiopian Orthodox Church policy. 

She opposed Menelik’s conciliatory attitude toward the Italians who had imperial designs on Ethiopia.  She scored a significant victory at an Italian-built fort in Mekelle, where she defeated the Italians by cutting off their water supply.  She then took part in their decisive defeat at Adwa in 1895.

Emperor and Empress of Ethiopia shown during the Battle of Atwa

Portrait of Empress Taytu Bitul

Awa Victory Day is a national holiday in Ethiopia, which is observed on March 2nd every year.  This day celebrates Ethiopia’s victory over Italy in the year 1896.  People pay tribute to their ancestors who helped present-day Ethiopians secure their independence from European rule. This day is an important milestone as it stands for the celebration of Ethiopian sovereignty. People dwa Victory Day is a national holiday in Ethiopia, which is observed on March 2 every year.  This day celebrates Ethiopia’s victory over Italy in the year 1896.  People pay tribute to their ancestors who helped present-day Ethiopians secure their independence from European rule. This day is an important milestone as it stands for the celebration of Ethiopian sovereignty. People come out into the streets, hold parades, and retell old tales. 

Celebrating Adwa Victory Day Photo Credit: Xinhua

She Who Wrote: Enheduanna

A new exhibit at The Morgan Library & Museum highlights the women of Mesopotamia and their roles in religion as goddesses, priestesses, and worshippers as well as in social, economic and political spheres as mothers, workers, and rulers.

One remarkable woman of the period was the priestess and poet Enheduanna (ca. 2300 B.C.) 

Disc of Enheduanna White calcite Calcite disk, Ur, circa 2300 BCE, found in a 1927 archaeological excavation that uncovered a temple complex dedicated to the moon god, Nanna. The inscription on the back of the disk identifies the central figure as Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon.

Not much is known about the early life of Enheduanna. As the daughter of Sargon the Great she was given the best education available. She could read and write in both Sumerian and Akkadian. She was also trained to do mathematical calculations.

Enheduanna’s father, perhaps because of her brilliant and creative genius, appointed her the high priestess at the temple of the moon god, Inanna, in the city of Ur. 

Cylinder seal (modern impression) with goddesses Ninishkun and Ishtar, Mesopotamia, Akkadian period (ca. 2334–2154 BC) Limestone. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, acquired 1947; A27903.  This ancient Akkadian cylinder seal shows goddess Inanna crushing a lion.

As the high priestess in the city of Ur, Enheduanna not only presided over religious festivals and interpreted sacred dreams, but she also supervised construction projects. In this position, she would also have traveled to other cities in the empire. 

Enheduanna was also charged with the task of reconciling the gods of the Akkadians with the gods of the Sumerians so that the important city of Ur would acquiesce to Sargon’s rule. Not only did she succeed in that difficult task, but she also established standards of poetry and prayer that would profoundly influence the Hebrew Bible.

In her writing Enheduanna identifies herself and speaks in the first person. She produced a number of timeless epic poems and three famous religious hymns which translate as The Great-Hearted Mistress, The Exaltation of Inanna, and Goddess of the Fearsome Powers, all three powerful hymns to the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna. 

While there were previous instances of poems and stories written down, Enheduanna was the first to sign a name to her work. She certainly deserves the honor as the world’s first known poet and first known author.

Bella da Costa Green

I just finished reading The Personnel Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. This book is about the little known personal librarian for J.P. Morgan. In the early 1900’s Belle worked in JP Morgan’s library acquiring rare books and manuscripts that were priceless works of art. A job almost completely unheard of in a time when women didn’t even have the right to vote! She was also a “colored ” woman masquerading as white. She kept her African-American heritage secret to protect her family from racial persecution.

1921 photograph of Bella Da Costa Green © Bettmann/CORBIS

1921 article in the Omaha Bee newspaper about Belle da Costa Greet Credit: Library of Congress

Portrait of Bella da Costa Greene by Paul Helleu

The story includes details about Bella’s rise through New York’s high society including her affair with Bernard Berenson, a married man. If you enjoy historical fiction I recommend this book.

A Woman Takes Command

Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt Credit: US Navy Photo

200120-N-HD110-0245 SAN DIEGO (Jan. 20, 2020) The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) transits San Diego Bay. Lincoln arrives at Naval Air Station North Island after a 10-month deployment in support of maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 6th, 5th, and 7th Fleet areas of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Danielle A. Baker/Released)

Bauernschmidt is a Milwaukee native. She graduated from the United States Naval Academy in May 1994, which was the first graduating class in which women were allowed to serve aboard combatant ships and aircraft. “That law absolutely changed my life,” Bauernschmidt told CBS News. “We were the first class that graduated knowing and feeling honored with the privilege to be able to go serve along the rest of our comrades in combat.”

Officials say Bauernschmidt was designated as a Naval Aviator in 1996 and served with several helicopter squadrons. The Navy says she also previously commanded the “Spartans” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 70 as well as amphibious transport dock USS San Diego (LPD-22).

Bauernschmidt has accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours in naval helicopters aboard various aircraft carriers throughout her career. Her missions have taken her from Alaska for Exercise Northern Edge to Southwest Asia for Operation Enduring Freedom.

The Merchant House

The Merchant House is considered one of the finest surviving examples of architecture from the Antebellum period, and has been recognized as a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In New York City, it has been awarded landmark status not only for its 1832 late-Federal brick exterior but also for its Greek revival interior rooms.

The house was built for Seabury Treadwell who spent $18,000 on its construction. Mr. Treadwell made his money as a merchant of hardware.  The house has four floors with the original gasoliers (gas chandeliers) and Rococo Revival furniture.  The second floor has two parlors with chairs designed by Duncan Phyfe. Mr. and Mrs. Treadwell had separate bedrooms. 

The front parlor in The Merchant House Photo by by Denis Viasov

Second floor bedroom in The Merchant House

The family had 8 children who lived in four bedrooms on the third floor.  The four servants were Irish Catholic girls who had to climb the steep stairs to their fourth floor rooms.  In the 1830’s Irish were on the lowest rung of the social ladder; the contempt towards members of this large immigrant group was strenuous and prevalent.

• 

Merchant House had no electricity or running water.  There were chamber pots of the family and a privy out back for the servants’ use.  The kitchen had a cast iron stove and a bee have oven

The youngest daughter Gertrude Treadwell (shown below) was born in the house in 1840. She never married and maintained the home until her death in 1933. 

When the house was threatened with demolition, a distant nephew named George Chapman bought the house and turned it into a museum in 1936. 

Once again The Merchant House is threaten with destruction as modern construction next door is being planned. You can watch a full video tour of The Merchant House at this address:

Painting for the Future

The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint is considered the forerunner of abstract art with her magnificent works, created between 1906 – 1920, which only in the 21st century were understood and valued in all their dimensions. 

Recently, the Guggenheim Museum in New York exhibited a unique and impressive exhibition called “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future,” a remarkable recognition for the work of the artist whose transcendence is still controversial. The exhibition was organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, with the collaboration of the Hilma af Klint Foundation in Stockholm.

Group IX-UW-No. 25 The Dove No. 1 by Hilma af Klint  Credit: (c) Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk

Born in 1862 as the fourth child of Captain Victor af Klint, a Swedish naval commander, and Mathilda at Klint.  From her family Hilma af Klint inherited a great interest for mathematics and botany. She showed an early ability in visual art, and after the family moved to Stockholm she graduated with honors from the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. She began by expressing herself through portrait, landscape and botanical paintings. Her conventional paintings became the source of financial income. 

Self Portrait by Hilma af Kling

Artist Hilma af Klint in her studio at Hamngatan, Stockholm, circa 1895. Photograph: Courtesy of Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk

Family events and influences of spiritual movements such as theosophy and anthroposophy led Hilma af Klint to channel her creativity in works that are currently considered precursors of abstract art, an artistic expression which was developed later by Kandinsky and Mondrian. 

The loss of her sister Hermina in 1880 kindled her interest in religion and spiritualism. Later, in 1896, she joined a small group of women called “De Fem,” a group of friends who shared her interests. During seances Hilma af Klint claimed to be able to commune with spirits. She told people she was assigned by the “High Masters” to create the paintings for the “Temple” – however she never understood what this “Temple” referred to. Hilma af Klint felt she was being directed by a force that would literally guide her hand. She wrote in her notebook.

“The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke.” 

In total Hilma af Klint produced 193 Temple paintings between 1907 and 1908,

A series called The Ten Largest, describes the different phases in life, from early childhood to old age. She included symbols, letters and words.  Some depict opposites:  up and down, in and out, male and female, good and evil. These pictures, oils and tempera on paper, are more than 10 feet tall: free-wheeling, psychedelic, animated with fat snail shells, perky inverted commas, unspooling threads, against orange, rose and dusky blue. 

Group-I-No.-7-Primordial-Chaos-cortesía (c) Stiftelsen Hilma af Klints Verk.

The Swan No. 1 by Hilma af Klint.

She invited famed philosopher Rudolf Steiner to see her paintings. She had hoped he would interpret the work. Instead he advised: “No one must see this for 50 years.” For four years after this verdict she gave up painting and looked after her sightless mother.

Hilma af Klint may have been among the first artists in Europe to create abstract painting.  And why are we only hearing about her now? Hilma af Klint must partly answer – or answer for – this herself. When she died, aged 81, in 1944, she stipulated in her will that her work – 1,200 paintings, 100 texts and 26,000 pages of notes – should not be shown until 20 years after her death.

She left all her abstract paintings to her nephew, vice-admiral in the Swedish Royal Navy. When the boxes were opened at the end of the 1960’s, very few persons had knowledge of what would be revealed.

A new documentary by Zeitgeist Films present an extraordinary review of her life’s work. You can watch a Youtube trailer at this URL:

Trailer for Beyong the Visible: Hilma af Klint by Zeitgeist Films

Cowgirl Hall of Fame: Caroline Lockhart

Caroline Lockhart was a journalist, bestselling Western author, rodeo founder, homesteader, and cattle queen. Her lifelong quest was to live the life of a cowgirl: independent, on horseback, in the beautiful, open country of the West. 

As the first female reporter for the Boston Post, she took wild and dangerous assignments, such as being the first woman to dive in a deep diving suit into Boston harbor and jumping out a fourth floor window to test the fire department’s safety nets. 

In the 1900s and 1910s, she became friends with Buffalo Bill and a number of “real” Westerners. She went on multi-day horse packing trips to places like Wyoming’s Hole-in-the-Wall, home of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, potentially dangerous destinations for a woman alone. She translated her local nonfiction success to a career as a nationally bestselling novelist with titles like The Lady Doc. Two of her novels The Fighting Shepherdess and The Man from the Bitter Roots were made into major movies. 

In 1920, she returned to journalism when she purchased the Cody Enterprise newspaper, originally founded by Buffalo Bill. Her journalism, exploring issues such as Prohibition, was as vibrant as her fiction.  She was, in short, a controversial figure, but a woman with the passion, gumption, and money to get things done.  She was elected President of the Cody Stampede. 

At age 55, she retreated from Cody to homestead the L Slash Heart Ranch in the southeast reaches of Montana’s Pryor Mountains. It was an incredibly hard place to run cattle. Starting with 160 acres, she gradually expanded to over 6,000 acres through purchases and leases. In 1936, three loads of Lockhart steers topped the market in Omaha. Despite her literary, organizational, business, and civic successes, she saw this accomplishment as a highlight in her life, becoming a cattle queen. Although she had many suitors throughout her life, Lockhart never married; she remained independent to the end. She died at the age of 91 in 1962.

Lockhart Ranch house outside Cody, Wyoming as it stands today.

A Telescope of Her Own

Vera Rubin gave us the single most important piece of evidence for the discovery of the existence of dark matter. A new telescope is being built in her honor on a mountaintop in Chile.

Vera Rubin Photo by Mark Godfrey

Vera Rubin was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Washington, D.C. She earned her B.A. at Vassar College, her M.A. at Cornell University and her PH.D. at Georgetown University.  She was inspired by the example of Maria Mitchell, who is best known for being the first professional female astronomer in the United States.

Vera Rubin was doing research on rotational properties of galaxies when she discovered “non-luminous” matter that was not interacting with light. Unlike other things in the Universe this matter did not absorb, reflect or divert light.  It was incapable of casting a shadow.   We now call it dark matter.  It was the work of Rubin and her colleagues that demonstrated the existence of dark matter with their observational evidence. 

Vera C. Rubin Courtesy Carnegie Institute

Vera Rubin was also an outspoken advocate for women in the sciences; she was recognized for paving the way for other women in astronomy, and for achieving remarkable success while facing challenges that her male colleagues did not have to overcome. As an ardent feminist she advocated for women observers at the Palomar Observatory, women at the Cosmos Club, and at Princeton, and she even advised the Pope advocating for more women in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Vera Rubin was also the mother of four children – all of whom acquired Ph. Ds. in the sciences and mathematics fields. 

Construction Vera Rubin Telescope Facility Wil O’Mullane

Vera Rubin was an inspiration to many and naming the new observatory in her honor is a fitting tribute, an important statement about visibility and inclusivity in astronomy.

Superionic Ice

What’s an Earth-bound scientist to do when she wants to study superionic ice like the kind found on frozen planets?  Fire up the lasers and make the next best thing herself.

Dr. Federica Coppari, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and her co-lead author Marius Millot, used giant lasers to flash freeze water, creating replica superionic ice and snapping images for study..

Federica Coppari with an x-ray diffraction image plate that she and her colleagues used to discover ice XVIII, also known as superionic ice.
Credit:  Eugene Kowaluk/Laboratory for Laser Energetics

The team simply smashed water with laser blasts between diamond anvils.  Using the OMEGA Laser at the University of Rochester – one of the most powerful lasers in the world – they heated the water to around 4,700 degrees Celsius and compress it between 1 and 4 million times the Earth’s atmospheric pressure.  

The 60-beam Omega laser at UR’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

Billionths of a second later, as shock waves rippled through and the water began crystallizing into nanometer-size ice cubes, the scientists used 16 more laser beams to vaporize a thin sliver of iron next to the sample. The resulting hot plasma flooded the crystallizing water with X-rays, which then diffracted from the ice crystals, allowing the team to discern their structure.

The atoms in the water had rearranged into the long-predicted but never-before-seen architecture, Ice XVIII: a cubic lattice with oxygen atoms at every corner and the center of each face.  The hydrogen ions float freely within the oxygen lattice. “It’s quite a breakthrough,” Coppari said.

Molecular model of superionic ice XVIII

Unlike the familiar ice found in your freezer or at the north pole, superionic ice is black and hot. A cube of it would weigh four times as much as a normal one. It was first theoretically predicted more than 30 years ago, and although it has never been seen until now, scientists think it might be among the most abundant forms of water in the universe.

Coppari’s co-lead author explains, “This can dramatically affect our understanding of the internal structure and the evolution of the icy giant planets like Uranus and Jupiter, as well as all their numerous extra-solar cousins.”

Superionic ice XVIII is not quite a new phase of water. It’s really a new state of matter!

Feminist History of Illustrating Plants

Most people are unaware of several talented women who worked in the field of botany as early as the 18^thcentury. 

Consider Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) Maria was an extremely enterprising and independent German woman.  In 1699, along with her daughter, she travelled to Surinam to carry out research into the reproduction and development of insects. She is now regarded as both a highly gifted artist and an exceptional empirical scientist, one of the first to demolish the prevailing notion of the spontaneous generation of insects from mud.

Portrait of Maria Sibylla Merian

Since women were not allowed to sell paintings in oils in many German cities, Maria became skilled at watercolor and gouache. She was the first to portray caterpillars and butterflies with the plants that nourished them.  Maria’a book, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium,was published in 1705 in both Latin and Dutch with colored engravings.  Marian paid the production costs her self and acted as the publisher.  

Maria’a book, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium,was published in 1705 in both Latin and Dutch with colored engravings.  Marian paid the production costs her self and acted as the publisher.  Two folio editions of 254 aquarelles by Marian were taken to Saint Petersburg for Peter the Great’s personal physician.

Ananas mit Kakerlake (Pineapple with cockroach) by Merian (c. between 1701 and 1705) Hand coloured copper engraving

Anne Kingsbury Wollstonecraft (October 29, 1791 – May 16, 1828) was an American botanist who devoted herself to creating richly detailed illustrations and descriptions of the botanical specimens she found on Cuba. Her work culminating in a remarkable three-volume manuscript entitled, Specimens of the Plants & Fruit of the Island of Cuba. This book was never published and went missing for 190 years. It was recently discovered at Cornell Library’s division of rare manuscripts.  The book includes 121 watercolor plants with detailed notes.

Page from Specimens of the Plants & Fruits of the Island of Cuba by Anne Kingsbury Wollstonecraft.  Credit:  Cornell University.

Anne Kingsbury Wollstonecraft   Credit: Cornell Division of Rare Manuscripts

Just as remarkable was Mary Delany (May 14, 1700- April 15, 1788), an English woman whose collection of intricate paper collages of plant life are now in the British Museum.  Mary Delany created dramatic and precise collages, made from colored paper, much of which she had dyed herself. The works were then mounted on black backgrounds. Describing her method in a letter to her niece dated October 4th, 1772, she wrote: “I have invented a new way of imitating flowers”. She was then 72. In ten years times Mary Delaney completed nearly 1,000 cut-paper botanicals so accurate that botanists still refer to them – each one so energetically dramatic that it seems to leap out from the dark as on to a lit stage.

Portrait of Mary Delany by John Opie, 1782 

Asphodi Lilly paper collage by Mary Delany     Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum

Beatrix Potter (July 28, 1866 –December 22, 1943), famous for The Tale of Peter Rabbitand other children’s books, has been underappreciated for her contribution to science and natural history.  In her early twenties, Beatrix developed a keen interest in mycology and began producing incredibly beautiful drawings of fungi.  She taught herself the proper technique for accurate botanical illustration.  

When she wanted to present her scientific work to London’s Linnean Society she needed to have her uncle do the presentation because women were barred from membership.  The paper never got peer-review and was dismissed as not worthy of consideration. A century later the Linnean Society apologized for its historic sexism. 

Beatrix Potter’s drawing of Hygrophorus puniceus Credit:   Armitt Museum and Library

Beatrix Potter’s drawing of Lepiota friesii   Credit:  Armitt Museum and Library

The female amateur botanists and naturalists of earlier eras didn’t just reproduce knowledge. They took what they learned and used the traditionally feminine skills they already had—along with their keen powers of observation—to create something better, and new.