WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

March is women’s history month. It is a time of the year when the accomplishments of American women of history are remembered and celebrated. Without taking anything away from the importance of women of history, included in this review are some contemporary women, particularly a few who have accomplished much at a very young age,with many more years of creative expression to come. These young women are the living proof that the fight for women’s rights was worth the effort and sacrifice.
It is easy to think of the past as the time in which women overcame trials and attacks to make their way in the world. But it was only one year ago this month that the South Carolina military academy, the Citadel, announced that two women cadets had been attacked by ten male cadets. Of this number, two were accused of setting fire to the sweatshirt of one of the women.
We celebrate women’s history month and we salute young women in America who are moving ahead to meet today’s challenges and tomorrow’s promise.
A HISTORICAL WOMAN OF POWER:
MADAM C.J. WALKER
Madam C.J. Walker was America's first woman self-made millionaire. She was born Sarah Breedlove on December 23, 1867 — the daughter of former slaves — on a Louisiana cotton plantation. They died by the time she was seven. Breedlove was married at age 14 and widowed with a small daughter by age 20.
Despite this harsh beginning, Breedlove is the only African-American woman in the U.S. National Business Hall of Fame. She was the founder and CEO of the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, the nation's first successful black hair-care products firm. It was headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.
At age 37, after working for 20 years doing other people’s laundry, she used her creative genius to develop grooming and conditioning products. "I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South," she said. I was promoted from there to the washtub. Then I was promoted to the cook kitchen, and from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations."
Starting with $1.50 in capital, she mixed her first products in her washtub and personally marketed her "Wonderful Hair Grower" door to door. Slowly, with patient work, she built a fortune that was estimated, at her death to be over $2 million.
Her company was founded in 1905, and it grew to become a factory employing 50 people. Thousands of women were trained in her Walker Hair Care Method at her beauty school, Lelia College, and through special courses she established at black schools and colleges. Some of her employees went on to operate their own hair salons. "I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself, for I am endeavoring to provide employment for hundreds of women of my race," she said.
Madam Walker organized a sales force of more than 20,000 in the U.S., Caribbean and Central America. She took her professional name from her third husband, Charles James Walker. He was a salesman for a black newspaper, and his marketing skills were helpful in building the Walker company. Although the couple divorced in 1912, he was a Walker sales representative for the rest of his life, and she kept his name. She died on May 25, 1919.
SHE STAYED TRUE TO HER VISION:
MAYA YING LIN
Renowned architect and artist, Maya Lin is the designer of the U.S. Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In 1981, at the astonishing age of 21, Lin won a competition to design the Memorial on the Mall in Washington D.C. Her design called for the placement of two massive v-shaped black granite stones— mostly below ground level— in an open field. The walls would bear the names of over 58,000 Americans who died or remain missing in Vietnam. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 13, 1982 to honor and recognize the men and women who served in the armed forces in Vietnam.
When Lin's dramatic design was selected for the Memorial, veterans groups, special interests and several politicians opposed the design, but Lin could not be dissuaded from her original vision. These critics attacked her vision, her design, her creativity, her age and her gender .The proposed monument was said to be "dishonorable" and "a scar."
"I believed that this was going to help people," she says. "The only thing that really hurt me was when people said it was my ego getting in the way...."
Lin was born October 10, 1959, in Athens, Ohio, and she holds a BA in Architecture from Yale College, where she graduated in 1981. She received a Masters of Architecture from Yale in 1986, and she also holds honorary doctorates from Yale, Williams and Smith.
She was commission to design the Women's Table by Yale University. It is a granite circular slab with a concentric spiral of zeros for each year that Yale was male only. Numbers begin to appear at the mark for the year 1969, to commemorate the time when Yale graduated its first women.
Today, she runs her own design studio in New York. Of her childhood years, Lin says, "I was lucky. There was never any pressure from my parents to become anything I didn't want {to be}." As a child, she spent a lot of time in the artists' studios at Ohio University in Athens, where her father was an art professor.
Another dramatic memorial is the Civil Rights monument in Montgomery, Alabama, where a sheet of water runs over a granite table which bears the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "We are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream."
START PUBLISHING!
CHRISTY HAUBEGGER DID
Christie Haubegger was born Aug. 15, 1968 in Houston, Texas to a Mexican-American mother, but she was adopted by an Anglo couple as an infant. Fortunately, her new parents were determined to raise their daughter with a strong awareness of her ancestry. She started learning Spanish in pre-school.
As she got older, differences began to be more apparent to the adolescent as Haubegger looked more critically at the world around her. She says the blonde, blue-eyed models she saw in women's magazines as she was growing up did not reflect her body type or her beauty concerns. When she went to college and law school, she found that she and her fellow Latinas had trouble finding professional role models. "I wanted to change the way Latinas see themselves, as well as how others see them," was her conclusion. Haubegger earned a BA in Philosophy and Spanish literature from the University of Texas, and a Juris Doctor ( JD), from Stanford Law School in California.
In 1996, she became the founder, president and publisher of Latina, the first glossy national magazine for Hispanic women in the U.S. The magazine’s circulation was 300,000, but it was not yet profitable. Latina went monthly in July 1997.
The magazine is published in Manhattan. Latina covers a range of women's issues with a Hispanic slant. Recent features include a cover piece on "La Bombshell" actress Salma Hayek, and the first all Latina sex survey. The main articles are in English—with summaries in Spanish presented in sidebars—for Latina readership, ages 18-49. Many of the advertisements are in Spanish. The magazine find its readers in areas of the country with large Hispanic populations, such as Los Angeles, New York City and parts of Texas.
A CUT ABOVE THE OTHERS:
VERA WANG
Vera Wang became a household name in 1994 when she designed those beautiful and dramatic costumes for figure skater Nancy Kerrigan to wear in the Winter Olympics. "Offering a dress to Nancy started as a way to make a statement in the skating world, being a skater myself," she says. Wang had Olympic dreams too. They were dashed in 1968 when she didn't place in the National Figure Skating Championships. "I wanted to make an artistic contribution to the sport. I never thought I would get the exposure I did. I don't know if designing costumes for Nancy has been good in terms of actual sales, but it has been tremendous for name recognition."
Famous clients include actors Alicia Silverstone, Mare Winningham, Penelope Ann Miller; singers Mariah Carey and Chynna Phillips; and models Donna Peele and Vendela. Designing for individuals takes anywhere from one hour to six months—more when a client vacillates about the style of her gown. Wang creates with what she calls "illusion" netting that gives the appearance of bare skin while being totally covered.
Wang says, "I wanted to build a fashion company starting with one market. I chose bridal wear. It was important to me to become an expert in this one market, and then expand into others."
She was born in New York City, June 27, 1949, and holds a BA in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College. Because her father would not let her go to art school, Wang has no formal design training.. Dad wanted her to concentrate on more "practical subjects," she says.
Yet, Wang has become a significant contributor to the fashion industry in just six years. She opened her first boutique on Madison Avenue in Manhattan in 1990 following work as an editor at Vogue for 17 years and a short stint as design director for Ralph Lauren for two years. Wang moved into the mid-cost line of ready-to-wear bridal and evening dresses in 1992 and 1993.