This Day…

1903: Calamity Jane, sharpshooter and frontierswoman, died in poverty in Deadwood.

July 27, 1891 (1980) – Myrtle Lawrence, sharecropper and labor organizer, worked within biracial Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union from 1936 to 1943, honored on the 1976 Bicentennial Freedom Train Exhibition was born.

Amelia Earhart noted aviation pioneer and author, first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Hawaii to the mainland was born on this day in 1897.

1918 – Cindy Walker, American singer-songwriter and dancer, known for many hits spanning almost 50 years, inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame (d. 2006)

1848 – The Seneca Falls Convention, the country’s first women’s rights convention, is held in Seneca Falls, New York Women’s Rights Movement 

1911 – Ginger Rogers, American actress, singer and dancer, best known as a romantic leading lady and dancing partner of Fred Astaire, recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actress is born. (d. 1995)

1848: Five women decided to call a convention in Seneca Falls on the conditions and rights of women

1854 – Georgiana Drew Barrymore, American stage actress, mother of Lionel, Ethel and John Barrymore was born this day.  She died in 1893.

On this day in 1981 President Reagan nominates Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman Supreme Court Justice.

1820 – Judith Sargent Murray, American author, playwright, poet and women’s rights advocate, known for her essay “On the Equality of the Sexes” published in the Massachusetts Magazine in 1790 (b. 1751) passed away.