Janis Joplin

Born on January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas, Janis Joplin broke new ground for women, rising to fame in the late 1960s. She was best known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She would go on to be known as the "first lady of rock n' roll"

From a young age, Janis developed a love for music, singing in her church choir as a child. The oldest of three, with her youngest sibling being 10 years her junior. Upon entering High School Janis, like the majority of the teenage population, gained weight and started getting acne. At Thomas Jefferson High School, Joplin became the target for rumors and bullying as her peers would call her "pig" or believed that she was sexually active at a time when sex before marriage was still taboo. Joplin eventually developed a group of guy friends who shared her interests in music and Beatniks, those who rejected societal norms and emphasized creativity.Musically, Joplin and her friends were interested in the blues and jazz. They would often frequent local bars in the nearby town of Vinton, Louisiana. By her senior year, Joplin had created a reputation for herself as a ballsy, tough-talking girl who liked to drink and be wild.

After graduating, Jopling enrolled at Lamar State College of Technology but left after the first quarter as she spent more time drinking with friends than studying. She then enrolled at Port Arthur College, where she took some secretarial courses before dropping out to move to Los Angeles in 1961. However, this move did not last long as she soon returned to Port Arthur. In 1962, Joplin enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin where she studied art. It was here where she began performing at folksings, musical gatherings where anyone can perform, on campus with the Waller Creek Boys, a musical trio who she had become friends with.

In January of 1963, Joplin had yet again left school to pursue a music career in California. She and her friend Chet Helms moved to San Francisco where Janis struggled to make it as a singer. She was able to book some gigs including the 1963 Monterey Folk Festival, but she was unable to get the traction she needed. She then spent some time in New York City in hopes that things would go better there, but her drinking and drug use got in the way. In 1965, she gave up and returned to Texas in an effort to clean herself up.

Once back in Texas, Joplin took a break from her music and partying lifestyle, began dressing conservatively, controlling her famously wild hair,
and doing everything she could to appear normal. The conventional life quickly proved itself to not be for her and she began to slowly return to performing in 1966. She was recruited by friend Travis Rivers to audition for a psychedelic rock band in San Francisco, Big Brother and the Holding Company. At the time the group was managed by her longtime friend Chet Helms and the band was part of the burgeoning music scene of San Francisco in the late 60's, along with bands like the Grateful Dead.

After blowing the band away with her audition Joplin was slowly integrated into the group. Before long she assumed a larger role in Big Brother as the band began to gain a large following in the Bay Area. Their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 brought the group further acclaim as audiences were blown away by Joplin's voice and performance. Fueled by heroin, amphetamines, and bourbon that she drank straight from the bottle Joplin mesmerized audiences with her raw vocals. After hearing her performance in Monterey, President of Columbia Records, Clive Davis, wanted to sign the band. They were able to get out of their previous contract with Mainstream Records through the help of their new manager Albert Grossman who had previously worked with Bob Dylan.

While their albums with Mainstream Records failed to find an audience, Big Brother's first album with Columbia Cheap Thrills was a huge success. The album quickly became a gold record, but it had proved extremely challenging to produce and the band grew further apart. The album helped solidify Joplin's reputation as a unique, dynamic, bluesy singer. Despite the group's success, Jopling grew frustrated as she felt they were holding back her career.

Joplin parted ways with Big Brother in 1968 to pursue a solo career. Following her historic performance at Woodstock in 1969, Joplin released her first solo album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. The album's more famous tracks included "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" and "To Love Somebody", a BeeGees cover. The album received mix reviews, with most of the criticisms focused on Joplin herself. She felt uniquely pressured to prove herself in a male-dominated industry, so the criticism only caused more stress on the singer. Outside of music, she continued to turn to drugs and alcohol for comfort, specifically heroin.

Joplin's next and final album titled Pearl would be Joplin's most successful. Released posthumously, the album contained the classic songs "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Mercedes Benz". Following her long struggle with substance abuse, Joplin died of an accidental heroin overdose on October 4, 1970, at a hotel in Hollywood.

Sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/janis-joplin-9357941
http://www.janisjoplin.com/janis.php

Bayard Rustin: The Invisible Man of the Civil Rights Movement

Born on March 17, 1912, in West Chester, Pennsylvania Bayard Rustin's early life could easily be called unconventional. He had been raised to believe that Julia and Janifer Rustin were his parents, when in fact, they were his grandparents. The woman he had been led to believe was his sister, Florence, was his mother. She had had Bayard out of wedlock with Archie Hopkins, a West Indian immigrant.

Rustin went on to study at Wilberforce University in Ohio and Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, both historically black universities. In 1937, he moved to New York City to study at the City College of New York. Here he briefly joined the Young Communist League to protest the arrest of the Scottsboro Boys, a group of nine black men accused of raping two white women in Alabama. At the time the communist movement was one of the entities that supported civil rights which attracted Rustin to the movement. He later because disillusioned with the organization's involvement in trying to force the US into WW2, leading him to resign.

His own personal philosophy was a mixture of Quaker pacifism, Gandhi's non-violent resistance, and labor leader Phillip A. Randolph's socialism. During the second world war, Rustin worked for Randolph to fight racial discrimination in war-related hiring. He also was active in pacificist groups after meeting A.J. Muste, a minister and labor organizer. The three men planned to organize a "March on Washington" to pressure President Roosevelt to take action in desegregating the armed forces and the defense industry. Roosevelt agreed with the sentiment and issued Executive Order 8802 which banned segregation in the armed forces, defense industry, and all Federal agencies.

After accepting the position as The Fellowship of Reconciliation's (FOR), a pacifist group, Secretary for Student and General Affairs, Rustin traveled from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennesse. It was during this trip that he sat in the second row of the bus, during the trip he was asked by several drivers to get out of his seat so a white person could sit in it. Rustin refused, he was arrested just miles before his destination, was beaten by police and taken to jail. This act of defiance took place in 1942, a full 13 years before Rosa Parks shot to fame for her similar refusal.

Later in 1942, Rustin aided in creating the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), a pacifist organization that focused on using the nonviolent resistance techniques of Gandhi to combat civil rights violations. As a pacifist, Rustin refused to be inducted into the military was convicted of violating the Selective Service Act and was sentenced to two years in the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Despite his incarceration, he continued to organized protests, this time against the segregation of the prison's dining facilities. He also aided FOR in organizing protests against British colonial rule in India which resulted in him being arrested several times including in India and Africa.

In 1947 Rustin and fellow CORE founder, George Houser, organized the Journey of Reconciliation, a nonviolent form of direct action challenging the segregation laws on interstate buses in the south. A year earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled that segregation in interstate travel violated the United States Consitution, but some southern states refused to comply. The Journey of Reconciliation was meant to provoke a response from the southern law enforcement and legislators. Sixteen men, eight black and eight white, all members of CORE were recruited to ride throughout the upper south. On the rides, black men would ride in the front while the white men would sit in the back, with blacks and whites sitting next to each other on occasion. Several of the riders were arrested in North Carolina, including Rustin, who served 22 days on a chain gang, a group of prisoners chained together and forced to do physically challenging work. The white riders were faced with worse punishment as the judge wanted to make an example of them, they were sentenced to 90 days on a chain gang. Not only was the Journey of Reconciliation the inspiration for the Freedom Rides of the 1960's, but it was also a precursor to the direct action protests that took place throughout the Civil Rights movement.

In 1948, Rustin traveled to India to get training directly from the disciples of Gandhi who had been murdered earlier in the year. Over the next years of his life, he traveled to multiple countries to help develop movements to promote independence. He also created the Committee to Support South African Resistance in 1951.

It was in 1953 the Rustin encountered a roadblock that could have derailed his entire career as an activist. He was arrested in Pasadena, California for vagrancy and lewd conduct after being found in a car with two men, he received a plea bargain and only had to spend 60 days in jail. Soon after his release, he was fired by the Fellowship of Reconciliation but was soon hired by the War Resisters League.

In 1956, Rustin made a decision that would change the course of American history. After becoming aware of the growing popularity of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his work leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott he sought the then 25-year-old King out. He meant to impress the importance of nonviolent resistance in regards to protests. At the time King was protected by armed bodyguards and kept a handgun in his home. He taught King the philosophies of Gandhi and eventually King saw the merit of nonviolent resistance. From there the two began working closely, eventually starting the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with other Civil Rights leaders in 1957.

Through all his work to progress Civil Rights, Rustin gained both influential friends and many enemies that were not afraid of using his past or his sexual orientation against him. Though candid about his homosexuality and his previous arrest in California, the general public was not aware of any of it. This changed in 1960 when Rustin and King began pushing for a stronger civil rights platform at the Democratic Convention, planning a boycott of it by their followers. When Adam Powell Jr., the most powerful black politician of the time, heard of their plans he threatened the Rustin with exposing his past to the public and went even further to say that he would accuse the two of having an affair. King ultimately caved to the threats and asked Rustin to resign from the movement. Rustin agreed to do so for the sake of the movement and was forced to work behind the scenes.

In 1963, Rustin and A. Phillip Randolph announced their intent to organize a demonstration in the Washington D.C. They recruited the support of unions to participate in the march. They then reached out to the Council for United Civil Rights Leaders, represented by the heads of the six major civil rights organizations: Randolph himself was the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, James Farmer, the head of CORE, John Lewis, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee, King, the head of the SCLC, Roy Wilkins, president of the NAACP, and Whitney Young, president of the National Urban League. From the beginning, Wilkins and Young were against Rustin's involvement out of fear that his past would again interfere and sabotage the effort. The decision was made for Randolph to lead the march and Rustin was relegated to the position of deputy organizer. This proved to only be a title as Rustin was involved in every aspect of the march including the creation of the organization's goals:

• Passage of meaningful civil rights legislation 
• Immediate elimination of school segregation
• A program for public works, including job training for the unemployed
• A Federal law prohibiting discrimination in public or private hiring
• A 2 dollar an hour minimum wage nationwide
• Withholding Federal funds from programs that tolerate discrimination
• Enforcement of the 14th Amendment by reducing congressional representation from states that disenfranchised citizens
• A broadened Fair Labor Standards Act to currently excluded employment areas
• Authority for the Attorney General to institute injunctive suits when constitutional rights are violated

In the days leading up to the march, multiple leaders including King received death threats and the Los Angeles Times received a bomb threat stating that their headquarters would be blown up unless the printed a message on the front page calling President Kennedy a "Nigger Lover". As the march started to come together, the more those in Washington wished to derail it. J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that the march was planned and run by the communist party and he passed on Rustin's past to segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond. He used the information to imply that Rustin and King had a sexual relationship, in contrast to the movement's previous treatment of Rustin they rallied around him. In one last stitch effort to stop the march, saboteurs disabled to speaker system the day before it was meant to take place. However, the US government intervened sending the US Army Signal Corps to fix the system in time. 

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. Approximately 250,000 attended the march, about 60,000 were white. They marched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. The event ended with Rustin leading off the list of goals and Randolph asking those in attendance to continue the fight for racial and economic equality. 

This, however, was not the end of Rustin's activism. He returned to New York City to lead the New York City School Boycott. He co-wrote an influential article, "From Protest to Politics" which analyzed the economic implications for blacks in the changing world of the 1960s. He also encouraged the black community to work with unions and non-black religious organizations based on their common goals. He put his energy behind labor movements and worked as a writer of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. He spoke out against the violent aspects of the war in Vietnam and against the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union as well as Soviet imperialism in Africa. Though his sexuality had been used against him for years, he actively supported the Gay Rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s, even testifying on behalf of the New York State's Gay Rights Bill. 

Bayard Rustin died on August 24, 1987 and is survived by his partner of 10 years, Walter Naegle.

Source:

http://www.greatblackheroes.com/civil-rights/bayard-rustin/

The Black Panther Party

Founded in 1966 in Oakland by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was created to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect people from police brutality. Despite growing support and passage of civil rights legislation, African Americans in cities across America continued to experience economic and social inequality. Residents of these urban centers were vulnerable to poor living conditions, joblessness, chronic health problems, violence, and limited resources to change their situation. These conditions were some of the main reasons behind urban riots and the increase of police violence which was used to impose order.

In the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The name was shortened to the Black Panther Party and they immediately set out to put themselves apart from such organizations as the Universal Negro Improvement Association or the Nation of Islam, cultural nationalist organizations that they were often compared to. The groups shared certain philosophical beliefs and tactical features, they often differed on basic matters. For example, African American cultural nationalists generally believed that all white people were oppressors, whereas the BPP recognized the difference between racists and nonracists and made allies with members of the latter group.

From the beginning, the party mapped out a Ten Point Program to initiate national African American community survival projects and create alliances with white radicals and other organizations of people of color. Many of these points addressed the important stances of the BPP: economic exploitation is the root of all oppression in the world and the abolition of capitalism an essential part of social justice. Because of these socialist economic beliefs, the organization soon found itself in the middle of the FBI and its counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO. In 1969, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover viewed the Black Panther Party as the greatest threat to national security.

The Black Panther Party first came onto the national stage in May 1967, when a small group of members led by Bobby Seale, marched fully armed into the California state legislature in Sacramento. Inspired by the belief that African Americans had a constitutional right to bear arms, they marched on as a protest against the pending Mulford Act which would have prohibited public carrying of a loaded firearm. They viewed the legislation as an attempt to obstruct the BPP's efforts to combat police brutality in Oakland. This new publicity was further supplemented when Huey Newton was arrested after a shoot-out with the police that resulted in the death of an officer. From this publicity, the organization grew internationally with chapters in 48 states and support groups all over the world.

Along with challenging police brutality, the BPP launched over 35 survival programs and provided much-needed community help. They provided education, tuberculosis tests, legal aid, transportation assistance, ambulance service, and manufacturing and distribution of shoes to the poor. Most notable of all these programs was the Free Breakfast for Children Program which began in January 1969, spreading to every major American city with a BPP chapter.

The group was declared a communist organization and an enemy of the US government by the FBI. Hoover went so far as to say that 1969 would be the last year of the Black Panther Party. He devoted all of the FBI's resources, through COINTELPRO, to make sure that his statement was true. They used agent provocateurs, sabotage, misinformation, and lethal force to weaken the organization. It all culminated into a five-hour police shoot-out at the Southern California headquarter of the Black Panther Party in December 1969. While in Illinois, a state police raid in Chicago led to the death of Fred Hampton, the leader of the Chicago chapter.

From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, the activities of the Black Panther Party ceased. This in large part due to the dissolution of party leaders, as well as the FBI. Currently, there is a New Black Panther Party which has replicated that of the original, the only difference being that they hold cultural nationalist beliefs. This has led many former Black Panthers to denounce the organization for using the Black Panther Party name.

Sources:
1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party

Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis

Jackie O., as she is affectionately referred to as by the American, was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on July 28, 1929. Born to John and Janet Bouvier, wealthy New York Catholics. She enjoyed a privileged childhood with French lessons beginning at the age of 12 and ballet lessons at the Metropolitan Opera House. She was also an accomplished horseback rider, at age 11 she won a national junior horsemanship competition. She attended boarding school at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. Here she learned both academics and manners, excelling in English. Her senior year she was both given the school's top literature student award and dubbed "Debutante of the Year" by a local newspaper. However, her ambitions went beyond her beauty writing in her yearbook that her life ambition was "not to be a housewife".

After graduating from Miss Porter's School she went on to enroll at Vassar College in New York. Here she studied history, literature, art, and French. She spent her junior year abroad in Paris at the Sorbonne where she learned to accept her "hunger for knowledge" rather than try and hide it. After returning from Paris, she transferred to George Washington University in Washington D.C. where she graduated with a B.A. in French literature. After graduating in 1951, she got her first job as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" at the Washington Times-Herald. Her job was to photograph and interview Washington residents and then weave their photos and responses into her articles. Her most notable stories were an interview with Richard Nixon, covering the inauguration of President Eisenhower, and a report on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

She first met John F. Kennedy, then a young congressman and senator-elect, at a dinner party in 1952. On September 12, 1953, they were married at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. Early on in their marriage, then Senator Kennedy suffered from crippling back pain as a result of football and injuries from the war. While recuperating from two surgeries Jackie encouraged him to write about US senators who had risked their careers for what they believed in. The book, Profiles in Courage, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957. That same year their first child, Caroline Kennedy, was born.

In January 1960, Senator Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. During the campaign, Jackie learned that she was pregnant and was instructed by her doctors to stay at home rather than accompany her husband on the campaign trail. From their home she continued to do her part by answering campaign letters, taping TV commercials, giving interviews, and writing a weekly column called "Campaign Wife", which was read throughout the country. Eventually, Kennedy beat his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, by a narrow margin to win the presidency. Two-and-a-half weeks later, their second child John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born.

Her first mission as First Lady was to restore the White House's public spaces into more of a museum of American culture and history. She enlisted the help of experts, established the White House Fine Arts Committee, and created the position of White House curator. She was able to gather prime examples of American art and furniture from across the whole of the United States. She also went to great lengths to procure any items that belonged to former presidents such as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. At the completion of her project, she gave a televised tour of the restored White House.  An estimated 80 million people watched and earned her an honorary Emmy Award.

Jackie also often traveled with her husband abroad as her ability to speak multiple languages including French, Spanish, and Italian made her extremely popular abroad. After one particular tour through Vienna, Paris, and Greece one of President Kennedy's advisors told Jackie, "Once in a great while, an individual will capture the imagination of people all over the world. You have done this...".

This happy time only paved way for one of extreme loss for Jackie. On August 7, 1963, she gave birth to their third child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. He suffered from a serious lung ailment and was rushed to the Children's Hospital in Boston. Sadly this was all in vain as the child died two days later. While still in recovery from this tremendous loss, she was faced with a tragedy that the entire nation felt, the assassination of her husband. On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas while their car slowly moved passed cheering crowds. Jacqueline was now a widow at age 34. She planned the president's funeral which was watched by millions who mourned along with her. They admired her for her strength, courage, and dignity during such a tragic time. She quickly began the task of preserving her husband's image. Building the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum that now stands in the Boston Harbor.

Five years after her husband's assassination, Jackie married her second husband Aristotle Onassis, a wealthy Greek shipping mogul. However, he died only 7 years later, leaving Jackie to be a widow a second time. Now older, she decided to again pursue a career in writing. She started out as an editor at Viking Press in New York City and then moved on to Doubleday where she was a senior editor. She died on May 19, 1994, due to non-Hodgkins lymphoma, she is buried next to her first husband, John F. Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetary.

Jacqueline Kennedy's White House Tour

Sources:

1. http://www.biography.com/people/jacqueline-kennedy-onassis-9428644#marriage-to-aristotle-onassis

2. https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/Life-of-Jacqueline-B-Kennedy.aspx

The Ni'ihau Incident

December 7, 1941, a day that has forever lived in infamy for the American people. The day that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. For those on the island of Ni'ihau, it holds a different significance, the day that Airman 1st Class Shigenori Nishikaichi crash-landed his plane onto the island.

The island of Ni'ihau is the westernmost and smallest of all the Hawaiian islands. It has been owned by the Robinsons, a wealthy white family, since 1864. At the time of the incident, there were 136 inhabitants on the island, with the majority being native Hawaiians. The owner at the time was Aylmer Robinson, although he did not live on the island he would make weekly visits by boat. The island was only accessible with permission from Robinson, making it extremely secluded. There were only 3 non-Hawaiians on the island: Ishimatsu Shintani (a Japanese immigrant) and first generation Americans Yoshio and Irene Harada.

Japanese intelligence had told the pilots to land on the island in case their planes were damaged, as they believed the island to be uninhabited. At the time that Shigenori crashed, Hawila Kaleohano, a native Hawaiian, was standing only 19 feet from the plane. Hawila, also known as Howard, was the most educated man on the island and was able to recognize that the plane was Japanese. Having read newspapers brought by Mr. Robinson, he knew that relations between the U.S. and Japan were poor. He quickly took the pilots papers and gun while he was still unconscious. When the pilot came to they sent for Yoshio Harada to translate, it was during their conversation that the pilot disclosed to Harada that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Yoshio chose not to disclose this information to the native Hawaiians.

That night they celebrated the arrival of the pilot, throwing a party and dancing to their battery operated radio. It was then that the Hawaiians learned of the attack. They immediately put the pilot under guard and decided to wait for the island's owner, Robinson, who was meant to come the following day. As a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor, all boat traffic between the islands had been stopped by the military. The people on the island had no way of knowing this due to their isolation and were uneasy when Robinson did not come the following day.

The Haradas managed to convince everyone into letting the pilot stay with them, under the watch of 5 guards, giving them ample opportunities to talk to Shigenori. The papers that Kaleohano had taken became the center of all the chaos that was to follow. The pilot had been told by his superiors to never let the papers fall into American hands. On December 12, Shintani (the only other Japanese inhabitant on the island) approached Kaleohano with 200, offering to buy the papers, but was turned down. While this happened, Yoshio and the pilot attacked the lone guardsman, while Irene played music to cover up the sounds from the struggle. They put the guard in a shed, took a shotgun and the pilot's pistol now armed they continued on to Kaleohano's house.

Kaleohano was in the outhouse when the attackers arrived, now with a 16-year-old hostage. When they could not find Kaleohano, they turned their attention to the nearby plane. It was here that they attempted to contact Japanese submarines. Seeing his opportunity, Kaleohano left the outhouse to go warn the other islanders and grab the pilot's papers before it was too late. At 12:30 a.m. Kaleohano and 5 other islanders began paddling to the island of Kauai'i where Robinson lived. After their failed attempt at contacting the Japanese, Yoshio and the pilot torched the plane and Kaleohano's house.

The morning of Saturday, December 13, Yoshio and the pilot captured Ben and Ella Kanahele. They ordered Ben to find Kaleohano, keeping Ella as their hostage. Knowing that Kaleohano had already left for Kaui'i, he made a show of looking for him. When he returned empty handed his captors realized what had happened. They began threatening him saying that if Kaleohano was not found then the pilot would kill everyone on the island. Ben, seeing the fatigue of his captors, took advantage of the pilot handing the shotgun to Yoshio to jump on the pilot. Ella leapt on the pilot and was able to subdue him until pulled off by Yoshio, the pilot then shot Ben three times: in the groin, stomach, and leg. Ben then picked up the pilot and threw him against a stone wall, Ella bashed his head in, and finally Ben slit his throat. Yoshio then turned the shotgun on himself, committing suicide.

Ben was taken to the Waimea Hospital on Kaui'i to recover. He was given the Medal of Merit and the Purple Heart.

Sources:
1. http://www.hawaiireporter.com/niihau-incident-benehakaka-ben-kanahele-wwii-medal-for-merit-purple-heart-1891-1962/123

Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins was born on April 10, 1880, in Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up her family believed in the value of education and was enrolled in a nearly all male high school, Worcester Classical High School. She later went on to study at Mount Holyoke College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry and physics in 1902.

After a brief time back home, Perkins left to start a teaching job in Illinois. During her free time and vacation days, she would often work with the poor and unemployed at the Chicago Commons and Hull House.

In 1907 she joined the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association, working with immigrant girls on ways to avoid prostitution. While there she studied economics and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1909 she began a fellowship at the New York School of Philanthropy, there she investigated childhood malnutrition within the New York City neighborhood Hell's Kitchen. While in New York, she received her Master's degree in sociology from Columbia University. In 1910 Frances became the Executive Secretary of the New York City Consumers league. Here she focused on the necessity of sanitary regulation in bakeries, fire protection in factories, and a legislative limit for the amount of hours women and children could work.

On March 25, 1911, Perkins witnessed the deaths of 146 factory workers in a fire. She saw 47 of those workers jump to their deaths to avoid the flames that had engulfed the top three stories of the building. In response to the fire,  the Committee on Safety was established to try to stop any further tragedies. At the suggestion of Theodore Roosevelt, Perkins was hired to be the executive secretary. The committee's first act was to seek a state commission to investigate and create legislative recommendations. As a result of this, the commission created the most in-depth laws governing workplace health and safety in the nation.

In 1928, Franklin Roosevelt became the Governor of New York. He asked Frances to be the state's industrial commissioner, together she and Roosevelt looked for new ways to combat rising unemployment throughout the state. Upon Roosevelt's Presidential election Perkins believed that her time in public service was over. She was far from right. In February 1933 Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve in his cabinet as the Secretary of Labor. She became the first female cabinet member in United States history. She became the inventor behind all of Roosevelt's New Deal reforms.

Sources:
1. http://www.biography.com/people/frances-perkins-9437840#profile
2. http://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/

Ruth Harkness and Su Lin

After the death of her husband in 1936, Ruth Harkness set out on a mission to fulfill his wish of bringing back the first live giant panda to the United States. More of a socialite than an explorer, Harkness she was willing to give up her comfortable New York lifestyle for months to fulfill her husband's dream. She found a guide in a Chinese-American, Quentin Young, who was willing to take her through the bandit-filled territories in through the central Chinese mountains. His brother had helped Theodore Roosevelt's sons hunt and kill the first giant panda brought back to the United States.

They began their journey in Shanghai on September 26, 1936, aboard a steamboat on its way to the southern city of Chengdu. While in Chengdu, they hired a team of helpers to aid them in their journey. In letters that she wrote to her friend she said, "I don't know whether it will be humanly possible to get a panda or not, but I feel that if it is, I will."

She brought along with her bottles, rubber nipples, and powder milk having no idea the supplies that she would be needing. She brought her typewriter throughout the trip to write letters back home and document their adventure. After months, in early November they reached the bamboo forests. Within three days they found a baby panda cub that had been abandoned in the hollow of a tree. They named her Su Lin, meaning "a little bit of something precious". Following only her instinct Harkness was able to keep the baby alive on their long journey back to Shanghai.

Once in Shanghai, they faced a new challenge, getting Su Lin out of China. Once at the docks, the customs officers confiscated Su Lin. Harkness stayed, missing her boat, but the next day he was released back to her. She was able to get her out the country listed as a dog.

American newspapers reported every movement that was made on their way back to the United States. Once back  in America, Su Lin lived with Harkness in her New York apartment. In 1937, Harkness sold Su Lin to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. This sparked "panda fever" across the country as huge crowds flocked to get a glimpse at the creature. By the end of the decade, six more pandas would be imported to the United States in order to appease the people's new obsession with the animal. Harkness would bring one more of her own, Mei-Mei, to the Brookfield zoo a year after the arrival of Su Lin.

Sources:
1. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25136118
2. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-america-fell-love-giant-panda-180956692/

The Eugenics Movement

Originating from the philosophy English intellectual Francis Galton, eugenics was introduced to the world with his book Hereditary Genius. Here he advocated for selective breeding therefore following Darwin's theory of natural selection. However, the eugenics movement didn't gain popularity in America until it was introduced through biologist Charles Davenport and former teacher Harry Laughlin. 

In 1910 Davenport founded the Eugenics Records Office (ERO) with a goal "to improve the natural, physical, mental, and temperamental qualities of the human family". Field work became an important part of the ERO as they collected "data" on family pedigrees. By doing so they could see the physical, mental, and moral traits that were inherited. However, they were more interested in what they believed to be "undesirable" traits that included pauperism, mental disabilities, dwarfism, and criminal tendencies.

Its biggest victory came in the case of Buck v. Bell in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a state's right to forcibly sterilize a person that they believed to be unfit. This opened the door for an estimated 70,000 unwanted sterilizations. Single mothers, the disabled, immigrants, and the poor were all targeted for federally funded sterilizations in 32 states during the 20th century. 

California, in particular, passed the "Asexualization Act" passed in 1909, which would eventually allow for the forced sterilization of 20,000 men and women. The state led the country in sterilizations and made up one-third of the total sterilizations that took place throughout all 32 states. As recently 2010 the state coerced 150 female inmates into being sterilized. 

Many minority groups were targeted during this time as it is reported that 25-50% of Native American women were sterilized against their will between 1970-76. The California Eugenics program was driven by anti-Asian and anti-Mexican sentiments. While further south, the forced sterilization of black people was meant to halt their ever growing population. In the south, women of color were used as practice for medical students.

One of the most famous cases regarding forced sterilization came in the form of Madrigal v. Quilligan. In 1975 four women, Dolores Madrigal, Jovita Rivera, Georgina Hernandez, and Melvina Hernandez filed a class action lawsuit claiming that the Los Angeles County U.S.C. Medical Center was sterilizing Spanish-speaking women who gave birth via cesarean section. Madrigal had been told that the sterilization could be reversed, Rivera and Georgina Hernandez reported that they had been bullied into the operation by staff, and Melvina Hernandez did not know she had been sterilized until 4 years after her child's birth. The suit eventually went to trial in 1978 where Judge Jesse W. Curtis ruled that the charges were false. 

The Eugenics Compensation Act was passed in 2015 with a unanimous vote through Congress in an attempt to help surviving victims of forced sterilization. 

Sources:

1.http://www.nature.com/scitable/forums/genetics-generation/america-s-hidden-history-the-eugenics-movement-123919444 

2.http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/07/469478098/the-supreme-court-ruling-that-led-to-70-000-forced-sterilizations

3.http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilization-and-eugenics-programs-in-the-united-states/

4.http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/magazine/when-doctors-took-family-planning-into-their-own-hands.html?_r=0

FDR and the New Deal

During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President. During this point of the depression, unemployment rates reached all-time highs with cities such as Toledo, Ohio having an 80% unemployment rate and a total of 1/4 of the American people were unemployed. Through the next 8 years of his presidency, Roosevelt would try to stabilize the economy and provide relief to Americans through several projects and programs that would be known as the New Deal. 

The day after his inaugural address on March 4, 1933 FDR declared a four-day bank holiday in an attempt to stop people from withdrawing money from the failing banks. Five days later, Congress passed his Emergency Banking Act. Through this Roosevelt reorganized the banks and closed all that were bankrupt. In the following days, he urged the American people to trust the banks again and put their savings back in them, by the end of the month nearly three-quarters of the banks had reopened. 

During the first one hundred days of his presidency, Roosevelt began making huge changes. He started by asking Congress to begin taking the steps towards ending prohibition. By the end of the year the 21st Amendment was passed, effectively ending prohibition. Up until prohibition the federal government had been making hundreds of million of dollars ($483,050,854 in 1919 which is equal to $6,924,460,802 today) in revenue from taxes. It was estimated that upon its repeal the government would make upwards of $500,000,000 or around 7 trillion dollars today. 

He later went on to sign the Tennessee Valley Authority Act in May. This enabled the federal government to build dams throughout the Tennessee River to control flooding and generate power for those in the area. The TVA became a federal entity that had the flexibility of a private business. Congress also passed a bill that paid farmers to stop producing goods such as dairy, corn, and wheat in an attempt to put an end to the surplus and hike up the prices. 

The National Industrial Recovery Act guaranteed the right of the workers to unionize and the ability to negotiate for higher wages and improved working conditions. It forced companies to write industrywide codes of fair competition which effectively set wages and prices. Also, establishing production quotas and restrictions on the entry of other companies into such alliances. It also effectively gave workers the right to unionize. Up until this point, the courts backed the rights of the employer over that of the worker. As a result of the act, the National Recovery Administration was created. The NRA was meant to create industrial codes for companies to use. The act was later declared unconstitutional in 1935 by the Supreme Court. 

Though his initial wave of reform was effective, it began to lose impact as the Great Depression continued and unemployment only worsened. Because of this Roosevelt launched the Second New Deal in 1935. He began by creating the Works Progress Administration which was meant to provide jobs for the unemployed. The WPA wasn't allowed to compete with private industry so they turned to building public areas such as post offices, parks, and schools. 

He then went on to pass the National Labor Relations Act a.k.a the Wagner Act which was created to supervise union elections and protect the workers from businesses treating them unfairly. Its main purpose was to provide legal rights for workers (excluding those in the Agricultural and Domestic industries) to join unions and negotiate with their employers. As a result, the National Labor Relations Board was created to hear out and resolve disputes between unions and employers. 

Finally, Roosevelt went on to sign the Social Security Act of 1935, guaranteeing pensions for the American people. Originally advocated for by Francis E. Townsend, a physician, who demanded a $200 monthly pension for all over the age of 60. 

The act only called for funding from payroll taxes on both employers and employees. It has since been amended to include such services and medicare and to help those who are disabled leaving them unable to support themselves.

Sources:

http://www.history.com/topics/new-deal 

http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1931092500#H2_2

http://www.saving.org/inflation/inflation.php?amount=500,000,000

https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Industrial-Recovery-Act

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wagner-Act

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Social-Security-Act-United-States-1935

The Women's Rights Movement During WWI: the NWP

Started by Alice Paul in 1916, the National Woman's Party (NWP) took the more European and militant approach towards the fight for women's suffrage. It originally broke off from the major organization of the time, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, who had begun focusing more on suffrage at the state level rather than at the federal level. It's main purpose was go guarantee an amendment to the constitution allowing women the right to vote.

Though strictly a non-partisan association, the NWP attacked the Democratic part and President Wilson for their failure to pass a constitutional amendment.

During WWI, while the women of Europe stopped their protests in 1914 due to the war, the NWP started a campaign when the U.S. entered it. The movement began on January 10, 1917 and ended in June 1919. The campaign was widely criticized by the public for ignoring the war and attracting those against it. As a result of their neutral opinion towards the war, socialists and anti-war radicals were attracted to the organization, weakening it's appeal to mainstream women.

Originally the movement was tolerated, but when the U.S. declared war and became involved in WWI police began arresting the women for such things as traffic obstruction. Taking note from the more extreme European movement, many of those arrested went on hunger strikes as soon as they were arrested. They would be force fed, contrary to the image that had been given to America as being an international leader in human rights. This bad publicity was designed to force Wilson to publicly call on congress to pass an amendment for women to be able to vote.

Wilson came out in favor of the amendment in 1918, but it wasn't until 1920 that it was passed through both the House and the Senate and ratified by enough states to make it official.

Sources:
"National Woman's Party." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Oct. 2016. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.

"Princess" Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Alice Roosevelt was born on February 12, 1884, to Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife Alice Hathaway Lee. 2 days after her birth her mother died from Bright's disease. The disease causes inflammation of the kidney's, leading to kidney failure. On the same day as Alice Lee, Theodore's grandmother passed away from typhoid fever. The double loss led Theodore to send Alice away to live with his sister "Bamie" in North Dakota for the next 2 years. In 1884 Theodore married Edith Kermit Carow. Alice never felt that her father loved her as much as her half-siblings and resented her stepmother. However, it was Edith who rehabilitated her when she developed a mild form of polio, which began weakening the muscles in one leg.
During a time of conformity, the American people revelled in the rebellion of Alice. She was known to smoking cigarettes in public, rode unchaperoned in cars with men, took part in voodoo, and placed bets with bookies. It is also generally believed that she buried a voodoo doll of the incoming first lady, Nellie Taft before the Roosevelts left the White House. As a result, she was banned from the White House during the Taft administration. This was not the last time, she again banned from the White House during the Wilson administration for making a joke at the President's expense.
During her father's presidency, Alice was a celebrity and fashion icon. Her fame went so far that a shade of blue was named after her, "Princess Alice Blue". Her father took advantage of her celebrity status and sent her on the "Imperial Cruise", the biggest diplomatic mission up to that point in U.S. history. The cruise included then Secretary of War William Howard Taft, 23 congressmen, 7 senators, and many other diplomats and government officials.
Alice went on to marry congressman Nicholas Longworth of Ohio in February 1906. He was 14 years older than Alice, and their marriage was an unhappy one. During the election of 1912, their relationship was further strained as Alice stayed loyal to her father and Longworth remained loyal to Taft. Alice had numerous affairs throughout their marriage, and it was general knowledge throughout Washington D.C. that she had an ongoing affair with a senator from Ohio. It was also accepted that the senator was the father of Alice's only child Paulina Longworth.
Even after leaving the White House Alice remained involved in the Republican party. She was against F.D.R.'s campaign, was friends with Richard Nixon (until he misquoted her father's diary in his resignation speech), and was surprisingly in favor of both John and Robert Kennedy.
Later in life, her health took a turn for the worst, as years of smoking caught up with her. She was diagnosed with emphysema in 1960. She had two masectomies, on in 1956 and the other later in 1970. In 1980, at the age of 96 she passed away as a result of pneumonia.

Sources:

1. "AliceRoosevelt Longworth." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Oct. 2016. Web. 31 Oct. 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Roosevelt_Longworth 
2. "Alice Roosevelt Longworth - Theodore Roosevelt's Daughter - Roosevelt Almanac." Alice Roosevelt Longworth - Theodore Roosevelt's Daughter - Roosevelt Almanac. Chapultepec, Inc., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016. http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/alice.html
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