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Women in RI history - More Women of Note

ore Women of Note

3/18/99
Her century
A chronology of 100 years of highs and lows

1998

Rose Martin, 84, of Tiverton is buried in her 1962 Corvair. She is preceded by Betty Young, 76, of Foster who was buried in her 1989 Cadillac Coupe de Ville in 1994.

1997 [Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson]

O. Rogeriee Thompson is sworn in as the state's first female black Superior Court Judge.

Princess Diana dies in a firey car wreck in Paris

Monica Lewinsky scandal threatens presidency

1996

Rhode Island First lady Marjorie Sundlun suffers severe head injuries when hit by a car in Geneva, N.Y.

1995

The Rev. Geralyn Wolf is named bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island after a dramatic five-ballot election. She's only the second woman in the country to lead an Episcopal Diocese.

OJ Simpson acquitted of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson. The trial raised the volume on talk about domestic violence in America.

1994 [gubernatorial candidate Myrth York]

Myrth York swamped Gov. Sundlun in the Democratic primary for govenor, but went on to lose to in a close race against Republican Lincoln Almond.

1993

Annlouise Assaf, an epidemiologist at Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, is named principal investigator for Rhode Island's part in a landmark 15-year study of women's health issues, called the Women's Health Initiative. She's one of only three women in this country to lead this mammoth undertaking, involving the study of 163,000 women nationwide, which is the largest clinical trial anywhre and is designed to try to remedy decades of neglect when it comes to scientific research about women and disease.

The Hope Club in Providence ends its 118 year-tradition of men only and votes to allow women to join

A landmark family and medical leave bill signed by President Clinton requires employers to permit unpaid leave for workers who must take time off for such reasons as attending sick family members.

Take Our Daughters to Work Day is launched by the MS Foundation for Women to help make girls "visible, valuable and heard."
[Kara Hewes]

Gov. Bruce Sundlun admitts he was the target of a paternity suit by 17- year-old Kara Hewes of Michigan. He admitted paternity and settled the suit amicably. Kara went on to appear a reporter on Channel 12 news.

The Hope Club in Providence ends its 118 year-tradition of men only and votes to allow women to join

Lorena L. Bobbitt, 24, a manicurist from Virginia, cut off two-thirds of her husband's penis while he was sleeping, after he allegedly sexually assaulted her. The penis is reattached after nine hours of microsurgery. John Wayne Bobbitt, 26, eventually is acquitted of sexual assault, and she is later acquitted of malicious assault.

1992 [Warwick Mayor Kathryn O'Hare]

Democrat Kathryn O'Hare is elected mayor of West Warwick, becoming the first woman mayor in Rhode Island

Vice President Dan Quayle assails the Murphy Brown television series for glamorizing unwed motherhood, after Murphy opts to become a single parent. This despite the fact that the Census Bureau in 1993 showed a sharp increase in the number of women who become mothers without marrying -- especially among educated professionals. Nearly one-fourth of the nation's unmarried women become mothers, an increase of 60 percent over 1982. Overall, about one- quarter of all U.S. children were born out of wedlock, the census report showed.

1991

Miss Black America contestant Desiree Washington of Coventry, 18, files rape charges against world heavyweight champ Mike Tyson. He is convicted in 1992 and sentenced to six years in prison.

1990

The Norplant contraceptive system is the first truly new birth control measure since the pill of the mid-1960s. It involves the surgical implantation of six thin capsules under the skin of a woman's upper arm. By then end of 1992, more than 500,000 American women have been implanted.

1989

Joan Heaton and her daughters, Jennifer, 10, and Melissa, 8, are found dead in their Warwick home. Police have no suspects until Craig Price, a 15- year-old from Warwick, confesses to their murder. He also is charged with killing Rebecca Spencer in 1987.

Donna Ordway, the first woman in Rhode Island to use the "battered woman syndrome" as a criminal defense, is sentenced to five years in prison for stabbing her husband, David, to death in 1987. The conviction is later overturned, in 1992, on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct and she is released.

Heather Lynn Barlow, born March 3 at Women & Infants Hospital, was the first baby conceived and born in the hospital's invitro fertilization program.

1988

State trooper Mary Nunes files a sex discrimination suit againast the Rhode Island State Police, alleging that when she was a cadet in 1985 and 1986, she was the target of discrimination, harassment, assault and invasion of privacy because she was a waomn. A federal jury later found in her favor and ordered two of the RISP top cops to pay her $125,000, but the judgement was overturned by a federal court judge later that year.

Eleanor Carson, 70, of South Kingstown, a retired University of Rhode Island employee, will give the university $1 million -- the largest gift the university has ever received from an individual -- to endow a chair in women's studies.

Five women from Rhode Island, all members of the All-American Girls Professional League, are included in a permanent "Women in Baseball" exhibit in Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Operation Rescue is founded by upstate New York abortion foe Randall Terry, a used car salesman who padlocks doors of family-planning clinics.

1987

Presidential hopeful Sen Gary Hart (D-Colo) drops out of the presidential race after model Donna Rice, 27, is seen by newsppaer reporters going into his Washington townhouse one night and not coming out until the next morning. He also has been photographed with Rice on a trip to Bimini. Hart, who is married, later re-enters the race with support from his wife, Lee.

1986 [Mary Ann Sorrentino]

Mary Ann Sorrentino, director of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, has been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church because her involvement with abortion results "in the sinful termination of human life." She later resigns her post to write a book and goes on to become a radio talk show host.

Women professionals outnumber men for the first time in the United States, however the average pay for women remains substantially less

Christa McAuliffe, 37, a schoolteacher from Concord NH who is to be the first ordinary citizen in space, is among seven astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger to perish when their craft explodes 73 seconds after liftoff.

1985

Claus von Bulow is acquitted during his retrial of charges that he twice tried to kill his wife, Sunny, with insulin injections.

Suzanne Leclerc of Cumberland marries Protas Madlala of South Africa, beoming the first white woman to legally marry a black man in South Africa

1984

Geraldine Ferraro, 48, a Queens NY congresswoman, is the first woman candidate for vice-president on a major party ticket. She runs with former vice-president Walter Mondale, 56, in a bid to defeat President Reagan.

1983

Rhode Island confirmed its first death from AIDS, a 20-year-old woman

"Ride, Sally, Ride" banners hang around Kennedy Space Center in Florida as U.S. physicist Sally Kristin Ride, 32, becomes the first American woman to go into space

A young mother of two is raped on a pool table at Big Dan's Tavern in New Bedford, Mass., while several patrons cheer.

1981 [Judge Sandra O'Connor]

Arizona Judge Sandra O'Connor, 51, becomes the first woman appointed as a justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1980

Claudine Schneider becomes the first woman to capture a major political office in Rhode Island as she beats U.S. Rep. Edward Beard in the Second Congressional District. She also is the first Rhode Island Republican elected to Congress since 1938.

1979

Superior Court Presiding Justice Florence K. Murray overwhelms three other candidates to win a seat on the state Supreme Court, becoming the first woman to serve on the state's high court. She was 63.

A new federal law forbids U.S. employers to discriminate against employees who are pregnant, as well as any other disabled workers.

1978

The world's first "test tube baby," Louise Brown, is born in London

1976

The first women cadets are admitted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs.

1975

Three of the state's shopping malls open Sundays for the Christmas season, flouting the state's law prohbitng Sunday sales. Massive crowds and widespread violation of the laws ensure, and it spawns vocal opposition to the Sunday sales bans from mershcants and shoppers. These sunday sales continue through the season.

1974

Ella Grasso, 55, former secretary of state in Connecticut, is elected as governor of that state, making her the first woman to win election to a a state governorship in her own right.

Little League baseball says girls can now play on its teams.

Michigan adopts a new sexual assault code that makes it the first in the nation to shift emphasis from a victim's actions to those of her attacker in rape cases.

1973

The Supreme Court rules 7 to 2 in Roe v. Wade that it's illegal to restrict or prohibit a woman's right to abortion in the first three months.

1972

Ms magazine begins publication

President Nixon signs Title IX of the Higher Education Act, which prohibits bias based on sex in athletics and other activities at all educational institutions receiving federal aid.

1971

Brown University and Pembroke College decide to become a single institution.

Jacki Sorensen, a dancer from Malibu, Calif., conducts the first aerobic dance class.

1970

Margaret "Maggie" Kuhn, 65, an activist from Philadelphia, founded the Gray Panthers and began fighting for the rights of retired Americans.

1968

Antoinette Downing, a preservationist who helped stop the wholesale demolition of historic houses in her East Side neighborhood in the mid to late 1950s, is named the first chairwoman of the newly-founded Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission, a position she held until she resigned in 1995 at age 91. She also was co-fuinded of the Providence Historic Commission.

Half of all U.S. mothers of school-age children work outside the home, and seven out of 10 have full-time jobs.

"You've come a long way baby," is the slogan Phillip Morris Inc. uses to lure women customers to the new Virginia Slims cigarettes.

1967

NOW holds its first national conference in Washington and adopts a bill of rights that calls for: 1) An Equal Rights Constitutional Amendment; 2) enforcement of a law banning sex discrimination in the workforce; 3) maternity leave rights in employment and in Social Security benefits; 4) tax deductions for home and child care expenses for working parents; 5) child day care centers; 6) equal and unsegregated education; 7) equal job-training opportunities and allowances for women in poverty; and, 8) the right of women to control their reproductive lives.

The first compact microwave oven for U.S. home use is introduced by Amana Refrigeration for $495.

1966 [Betty Friedan]

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded by Betty Friedan to help U.S. women gain equal rights.

Procter & Gamble test markets a disposable diaper pad called Pampers, and the 6-cent pad begins a revolution when it comes to diapering babies.

1964

Miss Mardon Walker, 18, a civil rights activist originally from East Greenwich, was fined $1,000 and sentened to 18 months in jail in Atlanta, GA, because she sat down in a restaurant with some fellow students who were Negroes.

The Boston Strangler is finally arrested after having broken into a dozen apartments since mid-1962 to rob, violate and kill women - not always by strangling them. After his arrest, Albert Henry DeSalvo claims to have raped at least 1,000 women and boasts he has killed at least 13.

1963

Mrs. Rose Hale, 96, of North Kingstown, who was the first woman to hold elected office in this country, died. She wasd living in Schnectady, NY, where she was elected county supervisor when women got the right to vote. She later moved to Rhode Island, where she had had a summer home, and died here.

The miniskirt appears in London.

A Queens, NJ, housewife named Jean Nidetch, 39, who was a compulsive eater drops from 214 pounds (a size 44) to 142 pounds, then goes on to found Weight Watchers.

1962

Diet-Rite Cola is the first sugar-free soft drink to be sold nationwide to the general public. Tab follows in 1963, and Diet Pepsi in 1965.

1960

Enovid-10, aka The Pill, is approved by the FDA and becomes the first commercially available oral contraceptive. It uses synthetic steroids, sells at 55 cents each and costs a woman $11 a month. By 1961, 800,000 U.S. women have prescriptions filled for the Pill.

1959 [Barbie]

The Barbie doll is introduced

Mrs. Catherine (Kate) A.B. Brown Sutton, 82, of Providence, former secretary and operating manager of the old Providence Tow and Steamboat Co. and reputedly the only woman in the world to operate a fleet of tugboats, died. She was charge of a fleet of six tugboats that handled virtually all the towing in Narragansett Bay and was said to have been the inspiration for the fictional Tugboat Annie character, something she vehemently denied.

Pantyhose are introduced under the name Panti-Legs

1957

A summer experiement with Meter Mollies in Providence was so successful that the city's police department swears in 121 women as permanent additions to check on parking violationsp

Spandex is introduced under the name Lycra, initially for use in girdles and bras. It soon is used in bathing suits, support stockings, waist bands and, eventually, in body-hugging athletic wear.

1956

"Does she or doesn't she?" asks the advertisement for Miss Clairol hair coloring. "Only her hairdresser knows for sure." Only 7 percent of women died their hair in 1950, but the number will sore to nearly 70 percent within a dozen years.

1955

"Ann Landers Says" is introduced in the Chicago Sun Times by journalist Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, 37, while her twin, Abigail Van Buren, launches the syndicated Dear Abby column.

Frozen TV dinners hit the marketplace.

1953

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, 24, a Washington Times-Herald photographer, marries U.S. Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 36, D-Mass, in Newport.

1951

Paris obstetricians Fernand Lamaze and Pierre Vellay introduce a "psychoprophylaxis" method of "painless" childbirth with techniques loosely based on ancient folk practices. Their drug-free method incorporates the use of rapid, shallow breathing or panting. By 1960, the Lamaze method will be the most popular psychophysical way to relieve childbirth pain in the United States.

1949

Harvard Law School begins admitting women

General Mills and Pillsbury introduce prepared cake mixes.

1946

New York psychiatrist Benjamin Spock, 43, helps revolutionize child- rearing with the introduction of his book, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" which advocates more permissive behavioral standards.

A skimpy two-piece bikini swimsuit designed by French couturier Louis Reard and modeled by a stripper at a Paris fashion show creates a fashion sensation. But it's banned in places, and will not be seen on U.S. beaches until the early 1960s.

1945

Tupperware Corp. is founded by chemist Earl W. Tupper, who has designed a collection of plastic refrigerator bowls and cannisters with a patented seal that prevents leaking. He demonstrates them at Tupperware Home Parties.

Katherine U. Warren founded the Preservation Society of Newport County and helped acquire the Breakers and six other mansions.

1943

The Wonder Woman comic book debuts, featuring a "female Superman" who wears a swimsuit and rides a circus horse while hunting down Hitler and his Nazi cohorts.

1942

The regional director of the War Production Board warned Rhode Island industry that it must begin to hire women to man its plants to meet demands for war production.

Miss Ruth C. Cunningham of Providence is hired as the first trooper for the Rhode Island State Police and is assigned as a "social investigator."

Spinal anesthesia is introduced in U.S. obstetrics as a new form of pain relief in child birth that allows women to feel nothing from the waist down, yet remain conscious.

1941

The Rhode Island Secretary of State revokes the license of the Ladies' Auxiliary of Providence Branch of Federation of Italian World War Veterans on the grounds that the organzation was so closely identified with the Italian government that its acts are in violation of the neutrality law.

1940

The first nylon stockings go on sale in the United States

Statistics show that 25.3 percent of women worked outside the home this year, compared with 29 percent in 1950; 34.5 percent in 1960; 40 percent in 1970; and more than 50 percent by 1978.

1939

No more one-size-fits-all bras, as cup sizing for brassieres is introduced to accommodate sizes A, B, C and D.

1938

The Fair Labor Standards Act, commonly known as the wage and hour law, is passed by Congress to establish a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour and a cap of 40 hours a week for regularly-paid workers. Any work beyond 40 hours must be paid at a rate of time-and-a-half.

1937 [supermarket shopping cart]

The supermarket shopping cart is introduced in Oklahoma City, revolutionizing food shopping.

1936

Rhode Island moves to abolish sweat shops and pass child labor laws this year, thanks in large part to the lobbying of Alice Winsor Hunt, a Providence native and a direct descendant of Roger Williams, who crusaded to protect children from dangerous jobs and to limit their work week to 40 hours. She also pushed to establish the state's juvenile courts "to take measures to correct the bad influence instead of meting out immediate punishment."

Tampax Inc. of New Brunswick, NJ introduces a cotton tampon with a string attached. Women since ancient times had used absorbent rags during their menstrual periods, and this was the first commercial tampon available to the public.

Irma Rombauer, 60, a St. Louis housewife, introduced "The Joy of Cooking" cookbook, unique because it gave recipes in minute detail.

1935

Kate "Ma" Barker, 62, and her husband, Fred, of the notorious Karpis- Barker gang, are killed by federal agents in a six-hour shootout outside Oklawaha, Fla. She had masterminded a series of robberies, kidnapping and murders which her three sons carried out.

1934

Elizabeth Nord, who had spent the better part of her life toiling behind silk looms, helped organize workers in the Blackstone Valley mills when textile workers across the country were embroiled in one of the biggest strikes in labor history. After the strike, she became a full-time union organizer and later went on to be assistant director of the state Department of Labor and a member of the Rhode Island Department of Employment Security's Board of Review.

The Dionne quintuplets are born in Callander, Ontario, the first surviving set of quintuplets on record.

1932

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, a Providence sculptor who was half-Narragansett Indian and half-black and was the only person of color at the Rhode Island School of Design when she enrolled there in 1914, won the Greenough prize from the Newport Art Association after a decade of study and work in France. One of her busts, "head of a Negro," was nominated in 1929 for the Harmon Exhibition in New York and is now at the RISD museum.

1930

Wonder Bread introduces the concept of sliced bread. Consumers are suspicious at first, especially since sliced bread turns stale faster, but they soon accept the product with enthusiasm.

The first true supermarket opens in Jamaica, Long Island, and meets with instant success.

1927

Dr. Frances A. Kenyon became the first woman medical examiner in the country, working in Washington County.

The Catholic Bishop of Providence urged clergymen to follow an earlier dictum of Pope Pius X and eliminate women from church choirs

1925 [Doris Duke]

Doris Duke becomes one of the richest girls in America when her father, U.S. tobacco magnate James Buchanan "Buck" Duke, dies of pernicious anemia and pneumonia at age 68. Doris, who's 13 and an A student at Brearley, is given more than $30 million of her father's $100 million estate. She later becomes a legend in Newport society and philanthropy.

The Miriam Hospital opened, in large part thanks to the efforts of Mary D. Grant, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, who led a group of women who founded the hospital where doctors of any religion could practice. At the time, Jewish doctors could not admit their patients to hospitals in Providence. It opened on Parade Street in Providence's Armory District.

1922

Isabelle Ahearn O'Neill, described in a newspaper headline as a woman who "could talk on anything (and) often did", became Rhode Island's first women legislator -- elected two years after women won the right to vote. She was elected to represent the citizens of Smith Hill in the state house. She served eight years in the house and two terms in the senate before leaving in 1933 to become a legislative agent for the narcotics bureau under President Roosevelt.

1921

Chanel No. 5 is introduced and will become the world's leading perfume.

The name Betty Crocker is developed as part of a contest to promote Gold Medal Flour. The name is later used by General Mills as a signature to respond to all consumer inquiries, and the copany portrays its fictitious authority as a grey-haired homemaker -- an image that will change numerous times over the years.

SMA, the first commercial infant formula, is introduced. Mothers are encouraged to bottle-feed their babies and breast feeding declines sharply.

1920

U.S. women get the right to vote The League of Women Voters is founded to give impartial, in-depth information on candidates, platforms and ballot issues.

The first Miss America beauty queen is crowned in Atlantic City, NJ

1918

Lizzie Murphy, a female first baseman from Warren, at 24 joined the Boston All-Stars a semipro team of former major league players, and spent 17 years travelling the eastern United States and Canada, playing over 100 games a season. In 1922, she played first base for the American League All-Stars in a charity game against the Boston Red Sox, and in 1928, she played with the National League All-Stars against the Boston Braves.

1914

The first national Mother's Day is proclaimed by President Wilson.

The elastic brassiere was patented by New York inventor Mary Phelps "Polly" Jacob, 21. She came up with the idea as a debutante, dismayed that the cover of her bulky corset showed over her decolletage. Dressing for a dance, she asked her French maid for two silk pocket handkerchiefs, some pink ribbon and needle and thread. The two devised the prototype bra, which flattened the bustline against the chest.

The Johnson & Wales Business School, founded by Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales, was founded with seven secretarial students in a school that initially was housed in Miss Johnson's Hope Street residence and eventually moved to downtown Providence. In 1920, the women promoted their school as offering "private instruction in shorthand, typewriting, bookkeeping, english, arithmetic and penmanship," as well as "preparation for civil service and court reporting."They sold the school in 1947 to two Navy veterans who expanded Johnson & Wales branching into the area of culinary training.

1912

The Girl Scouts of America is founded in Savannah, GA.

Mrs. Alice S. Wells of Los Angeles, the first woman policewoman appointed in this country, speaks at Sayles Hall at Brown University.

1911

Katharine Gibbs founded a string of secretarial schools with the revolutionary notion that women could work -- and succeed -- in the business world. She began with a two-room school on Westminister Street in downtown Providence with only one student, but it was relocated to the East Side at 178 Butler Ave. and other schools followed in Boston, New York, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut. She revolutionized stenography.

1907

The Thor washing machine, introduced by the Hurley Machine Co. of Chicago, is the first complete, self-contained electric washer. Frederick Louis Maytag didn't introduce his electric washer until 1911, as a sideline to farm equipment produced by his company

1902 [Rosecliff mansion]

Rosecliff is completed in Newport for Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs, daughter of the late San Francisco mining and banking magnate James Fair. A 40-room chateau with a Court of Love that is designed after one in Versailles, this will be the last of the great Newport "cottages."

Twilight Sleep is instroduced by a German physician to eliminate the pain of childbirth. Obstetricians inject scopalomine, an amnesiac, with a narcotic to keep a woman in an amnesiac or semiconscious state, allowing the patient to remain drowsy and sleep between contractions. She'll feel some pain during contractions, but remembering little or nothing after giving birth.

1901

The average life expectancy at birth for white females is 51.08 years and for men 48.23 years

Texas Ranch owner Anna Edson Taylor, 43, goes over Niagara's Horseshoe Falls in a a cushioned barrel, 4 1/2 feet long and three feet wide, wearing a leather harness. She suffers shock and minor cuts in the 167-foot drop and is the first person to go over the falls and survive.

The first practical electric vacuum cleaner was invented by a British bridge builder and wheel designer who founded Vacuum Cleaner Co. Ltd. Hubert Booth would send vans to houses and use his machine to suck out dust via tubes that led to the streets.

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