women's herstory month 2010--writing women back into history

[niyad]

2010 Theme: Writing Women Back into History
2010 will be the 30th anniversary of the National Women’s History Project. When we began mobilizing the lobbying effort that resulted in President Carter issuing a Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980 as the first National Women’s History Week, we had no idea what the future would bring. And then, in 1987, another of our successful lobbying efforts resulted in Congress expanding the week into a month, and March is now National Women’s History Month.

The overarching theme for 2010 and our 30th Anniversary celebration is Writing Women Back into History. It often seems that the history of women is written in invisible ink. Even when recognized in their own times, women are frequently left out of the history books. To honor our 2010 theme, we are highlighting pivotal themes from previous years. Each of these past themes recognizes a different aspect of women’s achievements, from ecology to art, and from sports to politics.

When we began our work in the early eighties, the topic of women’s history was limited to college curricula, and even there it languished. At that time, less than 3% of the content of teacher training textbooks mentioned the contributions of women and when included, women were usually written in as mere footnotes. Women of color and women in fields such as math, science, and art were completely omitted. This limited inclusion of women’s accomplishments deprived students of viable female role models.

Today, when you search the Internet with the words “women’s +history + month,” you’ll find more than 40,500,000 citations. These extraordinary numbers give testimony to the tireless work of thousands of individuals, organizations, and institutions to write women back into history. Much of this work was made possible by the generous support of people like you.
We are inviting other women’s and educational organizations as well as women’s history performers, authors, historic sites, and museums, unions, military units, universities, and women’s history programs and parents, grandparents, and interested individuals to join us in recognizing the importance of women in history.

http://www.nwhp.org/whm/index.php

[Echo In Light]

1. K&R

[Captain Hilts]

2. I still feel marginalized by Women's History Month. nt

[niyad]

3. can you explain why that is?

[Captain Hilts]

7. It's like women's history is ignored the rest of the year. "Well, that's done! Let's move on...."nt

[niyad]

8. I understand what you are saying. and look how long it took to even get this much. I remember back

in high school (back when the earth's crust cooled) looking at bookstore "history" shelves and asking, "where are the women? why do you only have stuff about men and war here? don't you think anything else was going on?"

it's still bad, but not quite as horrible as it used to be.

(note to self: call local bookstores to see if they have appropriate displays)

won't bother calling the schools--they don't care, as I have discovered repeatedly over the years.

[Captain Hilts]

9. Yeah. I go to Women's History gatherings at the Library of Congress and

only women show up.

There was a good-sized gathering for an author's discussion of her biography of Frances Perkins that recently came out. There was a good turn out for that about a year ago.

It's maddening.

[niyad]

10. are you following the progress for the national women's history museum?

[Captain Hilts]

11. I've heard of it. I've been vocal about getting something more than the clothes of president's wives

in the Museum of American History.

The museums of DC are - like the Internet - becoming too self-selecting. Everything is aimed at a specific audience. I understand the motivation behind this, but, still, it's frustrating.

I wonder if breaking the Museum of American History into time-frames would help, so you'd see the Civil Rights movement right up next to the space program and so forth.

[Lyric]

17. Not really fair.

The month is meant to HONOR women's important contributions to history, and it exists because "ordinary" American history is deeply skewed to favor white, heterosexual men. It's not like we're picking one month out of a year to study women's history and then declaring that the rest of the year is off-limits to women's history. Do we marginalize Dr. King by honoring him with a special day? Do we degrade the GLBT community by honoring them during Pride Week? Shall we take away all special days, weeks, and months from our minorities and tell them to be content that we're no longer "marginalizing" them with special recognition and awareness of their contributions?

[Captain Hilts]

25. That's an interesting take. Ideally,women's history should be integrated into history, in general.

And I see improvements there. But not as much as I'd like.

To this day, people aren't all that interested in what women have to say.

[Captain Hilts]

29. I go to a lot of women's history events, and very few men generally show up.

They're falopian forests, usually.

And I'll add it's usually older women, not younger.

[niyad]

33. "falopian forests" I LOVE IT

[Cerridwen]

4. Dolores Huerta

<snip>

Dolores Huerta became involved in a community group supporting farm workers which merged with the AFL-CIO's Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). Dolores Huerta served as secretary-treasurer of the AWOC. It was during this time that she met Cesar Chavez, and then formed with him the Farm Workers Association, which eventually became the United Farm Workers (UFW).

Dolores Huerta served a key role in the early years of farm worker organizing, though has only recently been given full credit for this. Among other contributions was her work as the coordinator for East Coast efforts in the table grape boycott, 1968-69, which helped to win recognition for the farm workers' union. It was during this time that she also became connected with the growing feminist movement.

<snip>

In 1988, while demonstrating peacefully against the policies of candidate George Bush, she was severely injured when police clubbed the demonstrators. She eventually won a considerable financial settlement from the police, as well as changes in police policy on handling demonstrations.

After her recovery from this life-threatening attack, Dolores Huerta returned to working for the farm workers' union.

Dolores Huerta had a total of eleven children, including four with Richard Chavez, brother of Cesar Chavez. (emphasis added) one link of thousands

[niyad]

6. thank you for sharing that

[Cerridwen]

13. You're welcome. I hope you don't mind.

I may just sit and post links to fabulous feminists in your thread.

Dolores Huerta has always been a favorite of mine. She is but one example of how women activists have such heavy private responsibilities yet take up the public "fight" as well; and how so often, those efforts are hidden behind the larger public figures of men.

[niyad]

34. yes, please do--or start lots more threads in honour of this month

[ensho]

5. kick

nt

[Cerridwen]

12. Elizabeth Blackwell

The idea eccentric and utopian...said to be impossible. I will do it.

Writing for advice to six different physicians in different parts of the country, their invariable reply was, that the object, though desirable, was impracticable; "utterly impossible for a woman to obtain a medical education. The idea eccentric and utopian." Her reasoning from such counsel was brief, and her conclusion peculiar. "A desirable object, a good thing, to be done, said to be impossible. I will do it." (emphasis added) more at link

Elizabeth Blackwell was rejected by all the leading schools to which she applied, and almost all the other schools as well. When her application arrived at Geneva Medical College at Geneva, New York, the administration asked the students to decide whether to admit her or not. The students, reportedly believing it to be only a practical joke, endorsed her admission.

When they discovered that she was serious, both students and townspeople were horrified. She had few allies and was an outcast in Geneva. At first, she was even kept from classroom medical demonstrations, as inappropriate for a woman. Most students, however, became friendly, impressed by her ability and persistence.

Elizabeth Blackwell graduated first in her class in January, 1849, becoming thereby the first woman to graduate from medical school, the first woman doctor of medicine in the modern era. (emphasis added)

<snip to more at link>

[hayu_lol]

30. Cerridwen, don't forget with Blackwell and her achievement...

to put it in context.

By 1910, only 6% of American doctors had gone to or graduated from a formal training medical school. Most of our doctors trained with their local doctor--yesterday's version of on the job training.

My grandmother, born 1868, became a doctor around 1890 by this on the job training.

[Cerridwen]

31. Thank you!

I appreciate the context for my "drive by" copy and paste.

:hi:

[ismnotwasm]

14. To go even further back

I still recommend this site;

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/

Archeology from a woman centered point of view. You can sign up for webinars, or subscribe. Fascinating stuff.

[Cerridwen]

15. Wonderful! Thank you! I like the info presented on the FAQ page.

How'd you get started doing this?
I began my research in 1970 after finding that professors laughed at the idea of women’s history, treating it as a triviality not worth studying. Everyone “knew” women weren’t important. That was in the days before Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies revolutionized every field of the humanities and even some of the sciences. I just got tired of seeing women ignored, so few females with daring and panache in the monotonous narrative of all great men, all the time. I wanted to find other stories, women’s achievements and names and images. And once you start digging, they are there.

<snip>

Why don’t we learn about these women or these cultures?
It’s political. This knowledge threatens current power structures. Conventional thinking insists that women’s status in Western society is the norm, and the best deal for women ever. Even though a much wider range has been documented, there’s a refusal to acknowledge that other social systems exist, or simple ignorance. The picture is much more rich and complex than we have been taught.

<snip>

What about men?
Men also gain from re-examining the cultural record with an open mind. They are not congenital oppressors; patriarchal systems are cultural constructs, historical developments, and not universal. Men and patriarchy are not equivalent categories, even if it seems like that in our society. And non-dominant men get chewed up in patriarchal societies, too, even with whatever degree of privilege they exert in relation to the women of their families and communities. It kills the spirit.

<snip>

Other human models exist! But you don’t learn about them in textbooks, which concentrate on the great empires, the most ranked and unequal societies. You have to go to the oral tradition, indigenous histories, not just the dynastic chronicles. This does not mean romanticizing or oversimplifying. But after being told for so long that women are inferior, that the cultures of aboriginal people are lesser, that Africans are primitive, a shift in thinking is a right and necessary corrective. We have catching up to do on the realities, the strengths of those groups as well as information on how they've been wronged and kept down.

<snip to more at link

[ismnotwasm]

18. I've attended a webinar or so

I wish I could do it more often. Max Dachu is not only an excellent research historian, she's open and friendly--keeps the information easily accessable and understandable

I'm been meaning to order her 'Sacred Vulva' poster, lots of artifacts on it, I really like it.

[Cerridwen]

26. I enjoyed browsing the site and have added it to my bookmarks.

Thank you.

:hi:

[dana_b]

19. nice! thanks for the link n/t

[niyad]

35. wow--thank you for sharing that site--

nothing gets some of the misogynists worked up faster than mentioning marija gimbutas or merlin stone, etc.

have you read "the great cosmic mother"?

[defendandprotect]

44. Thank you --

[dana_b]

16. Angela Davis - Women, Race and Class

http://socialjustice.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/index.php/Davis_and_Feminism#Deconstructing_Davis.27_view_of_Feminism

I am going to listen to her speak on April 15th at UCSF. I can't wait!

[Cerridwen]

27. Sounds great!

Would you consider posting about the presentation after you attend? I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

You could always PM if you don't care to post a thread on the topic.

:D

[dana_b]

28. sure, be happy to. n/t

[Cerridwen]

20. Harriet Tubman

They Called Her Moses

<snip>

John Brown called her “General”; Frederick Douglass felt humble in her presence; Queen Victoria honored her with an invitation to England and the gift of a silk shawl. The Quaker Thomas Garrett said of her, “If she had been a white woman, she would have been heralded as the greatest woman of her age.” To her own people she was, simply, “Moses”, and their haunting spirituals—veiled messages – enlarged the metaphor to sing of Jordan and the Promised Land.

Harriet Ross Tubman was an illiterate slave born in the Bucktown district of Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She escaped to freedom, alone, in 1849. For the next 11 years she returned to the South 19 times to lead more than 300 slaves north across the Mason-Dixon Line and sometimes into Canada.

<snip>

In the years before Edward Brodess had come of age, Harriet had served his administrator, Dr. Anthony C. Thompson, who hitched her to a plow and proudly showed her off to his friends as being strong as any man. Now, she put this strength, as well as her knowledge of nature, to its best use. She followed the North Star and observed on which side of the trees the moss grew. With the guidance of an unknown Quaker woman in Dorchester County, she found her way to Philadelphia and freedom via the Underground Railroad. Once there, she did not turn her back on the past. Instead, she bent all her efforts toward rescuing those she had left behind.

<snip>

During the Civil War she served as spy, nurse, and liaison between the Union Army and freed slaves. As a spy, she penetrated Confederate lines, leading raids that destroyed Confederate property and liberated slaves. As matron of the Colored Hospital at Fort Monroe, Virginia, she improved sanitary conditions, reorganized the kitchen, and expedited the flow of supplies.

<snip to more at link>

"I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves."

[ismnotwasm]

21. For those who like Sci-fi

There is this site
http://feministsf.org/

(A bit difficult to neogotiate, but not that bad)

Specifically;

http://www.feministsf.org/community/history.html

It's a simple list of women writers going back to 1666/1667, along with some very important works.

[niyad]

36. thanks for reminding me about that great website.

[Cerridwen]

22. RAWA - oldest political/social organization of Afghan women

RAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977. link

RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, was established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977 as an independent political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human rights and for social justice in Afghanistan. The founders were a number of Afghan woman intellectuals under the sagacious leadership of Meena who in 1987 was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan, by Afghan agents of the then KGB in connivance with fundamentalist band of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar . RAWA’s objective was to involve an increasing number of Afghan women in social and political activities aimed at acquiring women’s human rights and contributing to the struggle for the establishment of a government based on democratic and secular values in Afghanistan. Despite the suffocating political atmosphere, RAWA very soon became involved in widespread activities in different socio-political arenas including education, health and income generation as well as political agitation.

<snip to much more at link>

[Cerridwen]

23. All-China Women's Federation

Dial up and DSL warning. This site is slooooow loading for me on DSL. All-China Women's Federation

Founded on April 3, 1949, the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) is a mass organization dedicated to the advancement of Chinese women of all ethnic groups in all walks of life.

To represent and to protect women’s rights and interests, and to promote equality between men and women.

To represent and to safeguard women’s rights and interests, and to promote equality between men and women.

Participation, Education, Representation, Service, Liaison

ACWF is a multi-tiered organization with local women’s federations and group members at every divisional level of government.

The highest level of ACWF governance is the National Congress of Chinese Women. This Congress convenes every five years to deliberate and decide on the goals, guidelines and tasks of national women’s movement, to develop work plans for the next five years, to amend the Constitution of the All-China Women’s Federation and to elect ACWF’s Executive Committee. About page

[defendandprotect]

45. If I recall correctly . . .

my daughter once told me of reading that Chinese women at one time had

a secret written language which survived for 1,000 years --

[ismnotwasm]

24. Margaret Fell

Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox (1614 – 23 April 1702), a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, known popularly as the "mother of Quakerism", is considered one of the Valiant Sixty early Quaker preachers and missionaries.

Born Margaret Askew in Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, she married Thomas Fell, a barrister, in 1632, and became the lady of Swarthmore Hall. In 1641, Thomas became a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire, then in 1645 he became a member of Parliament1. Thomas Fell ceased to be a member from 1647 to 1649 when he disapproved of Oliver Cromwell's assumption of authority2.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Fell

Even though I'm not religious--the reason I like her is this diatribe; "Women's Speaking Justified" one of my favorite little historical speeches. Get past the archaic language, and it's a verbal ass kicking extrodinaire for those who so richly deserved it back then.

http://www.qhpress.org/texts/fell.html

[ismnotwasm]

32. Hmm, looking through my bookmarks

I have this site bookmarked, specifically for the peace quotes from women I think, like these'

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” And, “The work of educating the world to peace is the woman’s job, because men have a natural fear of being classed as cowards if they oppose war.”
Jeanette Rankin, (1880-1973) First woman to enter U.S. House of Representative in 1917. Lost her seat in Congress when she voted against entry in WWI.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“But the havoc wrought by war, which one compares with the havoc wrought in nature, is not an unavoidable fate before which man stands helpless. The natural forces which are the causes of war are human passions which it lies in our power to change.”
Ellen Key, (1849-1926) Swedish social feminist.



There is an erroneous impression that this and other countries are at war with one another. They are not. Their governments, composed of men and responsible only to the men of each country, and backed by the majority of men who have caught the war and glory fever, have declared war on one another. The women of all these countries have not been consulted as to whether they would have war or not...”

Harriette Beanland, English dressmaker, three days after WWI declared, 1914


http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/lesson14.html




Homepage
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/index.html

[Cerridwen]

37. Erma Bombeck - a humorless feminist

We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.

From wiki link

Early journalism
Erma Bombeck stayed on as a Dayton Journal Herald reporter, in the women's section, writing both its feature stories and a humorous housekeeping column, "Operation Dustrag." Bombeck also interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt and Mamie Eisenhower.

Housewife (1954–1964)
The Bombecks were told by doctors that having a child was improbable, so they adopted a girl, Betsy, in 1953. Erma decided to become a full-time housewife, and relinquished her career as a journalist. During 1954, Erma nevertheless wrote a series of humorous columns in the Dayton Shopping News.
Despite the former difficult diagnoses, Erma Bombeck gave birth to a son, Andrew in 1955. The Bombeck family moved to Centerville, Ohio, into a tract housing development, and were neighbors to the young Phil Donahue. Away from her previous journalistic career, Bombeck initiated an intense period of homemaking, which lasted 10 years, and had her second son, Matthew, in 1958.

"At Wit's End" (1965)
In 1964, Erma Bombeck resumed her writing career for the local Kettering-Oakwood Times, with weekly columns which yielded $3 each. She wrote in her small bedroom, over a rustic table of a plank top with two supports of cinder block.

In 1965, the Dayton Journal Herald requested new humorous columns as well, and Bombeck agreed to write two weekly 450-word columns for $50. After three weeks, the articles went into national syndication through the Newsday Newspaper Syndicate, into 36 major U.S. newspapers, with three weekly columns under the title "At Wit's End".

Bombeck quickly became a popular humorist nationwide. Beginning in 1966, she began doing lectures in the various cities where her columns appeared for a $15,000 fee. In 1967, her newspaper columns were compiled and published by Doubleday, under the title of At Wit's End. And after a humorous appearance on Arthur Godfrey's radio, she became a regular radio guest on his show.

Some quotes from her work:

"Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids."
"My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first one being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint."
"There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child."
"If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead."
"The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again."
"Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage."
"Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely."
"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'"
"In general, my children refused to eat anything that hadn't danced on TV."
"When humor goes, there goes civilization."
"Seize the moment. Think of all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart."
"Never loan your car to anyone to whom you've given birth."
"The grass is always greener over the septic tank."
"A child needs your love more when he deserves it least."
"There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt."
"It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else."
"If you can laugh at it, you can live with it."

[niyad]

39. erma is still one of my sheroes

[Cerridwen]

38. Molly Ivins - another humorless feminist

There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity -- like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule -- that's what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar.

From wiki (I'm being lazy tonight) link

Written from an unabashed liberal perspective, Ivins's style was peppered with colorful phrases to create the "feel" of Texas, despite her upscale upbringing and Northeastern education. When outraged by instances of what she considered malfeasance or stupidity on the part of public officials, she couched her argument in an air of stunned amusement. She enjoyed telling stories about the Texas Legislature, which she simply called "The Lege." She contended that it is one of the most corrupt, most incompetent, and funniest governing bodies in the nation—a well she dipped from on a regular basis. For example:

Practice, practice, practice, that's what Texas provides when it comes to sleaze and stink. Who can forget such great explanations as "Well, I'll just make a little bit of money, I won't make a whole lot"? And "There was never a Bible in the room"?

In 2003, she coined the term "Great Liberal Backlash of 2003," and was a passionate critic of the 2003 Iraq War. She is also credited with applying the nickname "Shrub" to George W. Bush.

[niyad]

40. still miss her.

[defendandprotect]

41. Late K&R ---

[niyad]

42. thank you

[EFerrari]

43. Darn, too late to rec but KICK.

I found this photograph this year. My grandmother and her three sisters, my great grandmother. San Salvador ca 1902. :party:

[defendandprotect]

46. One of the modern examples of how women get written out of history is Rosalind Franklin + DNA --

ROSALIND FRANKLIN ---


The discovery of DNA -- James Watson and Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins

jointly received the Nobel Prize in 1953 --

Because the Nobel Prize can be awarded only to the living, Wilkins's colleague Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958), who died of cancer at the age of 37, could not be honored.


In 1951, Watson attended a lecture by Franklin on her work to date. She had found that DNA can exist in two forms, depending on the relative humidity in the surrounding air. This had helped her deduce that the phosphate part of the molecule was on the outside. Watson returned to Cambridge with a rather muddy recollection of the facts Franklin had presented, though clearly critical of her lecture style and personal appearance. Based on this information, Watson and Crick made a failed model. It caused the head of their unit to tell them to stop DNA research. But the subject just kept coming up.

Franklin, working mostly alone, found that her x-ray diffractions showed that the "wet" form of DNA (in the higher humidity) had all the characteristics of a helix. She suspected that all DNA was helical but did not want to announce this finding until she had sufficient evidence on the other form as well. Wilkins was frustrated. In January, 1953, he showed Franklin's results to Watson, apparently without her knowledge or consent. Crick later admitted, "I'm afraid we always used to adopt -- let's say, a patronizing attitude towards her."

Watson and Crick took a crucial conceptual step, suggesting the molecule was made of two chains of nucleotides, each in a helix as Franklin had found, but one going up and the other going down. Crick had just learned of Chargaff's findings about base pairs in the summer of 1952. He added that to the model, so that matching base pairs interlocked in the middle of the double helix to keep the distance between the chains constant.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53dn.html



and

http://campus.udayton.edu/~hume/DNA/DNA.htm

http://www.chemheritage.org/classroom/chemach/pharmaceuticals/watson-crick.html

[niyad]

47. thank you for sharing that--I remember hearing about her a number of years ago.

one more example of how women's work is stolen, appropriated, ignored.

[defendandprotect]

48. There have been a number of documentaries on her and her work . . .

the last one I saw made it quite clearer that there was purposeful interference

by someone heading up the project to permit Watson and Crick to push foward --

it's been a while since I've seen it so don't recall the exact details now.

[defendandprotect]

49. Hedy Lamarr -- actress and engineer -- and inventor . . .

Hedy Lamarr --

was a visionary inventor twenty years ahead of her time.

At a Hollywood dinner party, she engaged in a passionate discussion with an avant-garde composer about protecting U.S. radio-guided torpedoes from enemy interference.

She scrawled her phone number in lipstick on the windshield of his car so they could develop their ideas further.

In 1942, unbeknownst to her adoring public, the unlikely duo secured a patent and gave it to the United States government for a "Secret Communications System" expressly constructed to assist in the defeat of Hitler.

The science presented in this patent serves as the basis for the technology we use today in cell phones, pagers, wireless Internet, defense satellites, and a plethora of other spread-spectrum devices. next >>

Following the outbreak of World War II, Lamarr, a passionate opponent of the Nazis, wanted to contribute more to the allied effort. As Mrs. Fritz Mandl, she had closely observed the planning and discussions that went into attempting to design remote-controlled torpedoes. These never went into production, because the radio-controlled guidance system was too susceptible to disruption. She got the idea of distributing the torpedo guidance signal over several frequencies, thus protecting it from enemy jamming. The only weak point was how to employ the synchronization of the signal's transmitter and receiver

Twenty years after its conceptualization, during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the first instance of large-scale military deployment of Lamarr and Antheil's frequency hopping technology was implemented-- not for the remote-controlled guidance of torpedoes, but to provide secure communications among the ships involved in the naval blockade. The early '60s saw the development of reconnaissance drones based on frequency hopping, which were later deployed in Vietnam. With the emergence of digital technology and the military's release of frequency hopping for public use in the

1980s, Lamarr and Antheil's invention took on new significance. Instead of "frequency hopping," today's term is "spread spectrum" but the basic idea is the same. The FCC recently allotted a special section of the radio spectrum for an experiment using the spread spectrum idea in a test designed to make cell phone calls more secure. A lot of corporate dollars have been invested in this process which has allowed more cell phone users to use the existing frequency spectrum.

http://www.hedylamarr.org/




Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-born American actress and engineer. Though known primarily for her film career as a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age", she also co-invented an early...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr

[niyad]

50. truly a remarkable woman--thank you so much for sharing this