Mary Anning

August 25, 2016, 11:18 am

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As the story itself gets at, she was a well-known character in early 1800s England, and as such, did a fair bit of self-mythologizing. ↩
This is one of the more likely pieces of apocrypha. According to the telling, she was watching a troop of traveling horsemen putting on a performance in the Rack Field above her home in Lyme Regis, England. Four took shelter under an elm tree – one grown woman, two children, and Mary. After her electrocution, she was given a bath, and, according to a gazette edited (and possibly written) by Charles Dickens, “she who had been a very dull girl before, now grew up lively and intelligent.” ↩
Her father was generally described as a bit of a childish goof who liked picking fossils more than doing his actual job (carpentry) or going to church. There’s not explicit mention of especial affection there, but I feel it’s reasonable artistic license to read a close bond into his dealings with Mary – he made her a pick, brought her along to play hooky… ↩
The sea was a terrible nuisance in Lyme Regis. According to the stories, more than once it would overflow and flood their house – on one occasion, they had to escape upstairs and ride it out in the attic. ↩
Paleontology was in its infancy and not well respected, so fossils were generally just sold as curios at this point in time. They had all sorts of fanciful names, like Devil’s Toenails, Snake Stones, Cupid Wings, and Ladies’ Fingers. ↩
This is a bit of artistic shorthand. He did fall off a cliff – one a bit far afield of Lyme Regies, I believe – but he survived. However, sufficiently weakened by the fall, he later succumbed to consumption (tuberculosis). ↩
He left them with 120 pounds of debt. This was a very serious amount of money. For reference’s sake, 25 pounds was enough to pay for everything for the three remaining Anning family members – Mary, her mother, and her brother – for six months. This was also the era of poorhouses, which were essentially debtor’s prisons. If you didn’t pay your debts, you could be imprisoned. Compounding matters were the fact that the Napoleonic Wars were ravaging the English economy. ↩
I don’t go into it much here, but she did have one brother, Joseph, who lived to adulthood, and around eight other siblings who didn’t make it. In a rather ghastly turn of events, Mary was actually named after her older sister, also Mary, who’d, at age four, died in a small house fire shortly before Mary was born. Joseph and Mary both worked at the fossil business, although Joseph apprenticed with an upholstery maker and didn’t spend a ton of time with it as he got older. Mary’s mother helped run the shop and sell the goods, although there’s no evidence that she helped hunt for fossils. ↩
Part of the reason for the Annings’ status as social pariahs was that they were Dissenters – i.e. not part of the Church of England. Moreover, Mary’s father had been eyed suspiciously even within the Dissenters, due to his habit of skipping church to go pick fossils. ↩
According to legend, the first time Mary went to the beach after her father’s death, a visiting noblewoman bought one of her fossils for a whole half-crown (which was a lot of money). This seems more apocryphal than the other details. ↩
Timelines are confused as to when this happened, but most indicate that she found the remainder of the skeleton a year and a half after Joseph found the skull. They thought it was a weird crocodile at first. Other specimens had been found in Bath, Warwickshire, and Germany, but hers was the first complete specimen, and the one to receive the most attention. It took ten years to really settle what it was. It confused the hell out of the establishment – at various points, expets thought it was a bird, a fish, a crocodile, a lizard, and on. Accordingly, “ichthyosaurus” means “fish lizard.” ↩
Jefferson had a thing for mammoths. Unsure what Lewis and Clark thought of being tasked with keeping an eye out for the things in their travels, but I love that drawing of them. ↩
It’s unclear when Mary got Tray, but I introduce him here to give the audience more time with him. It’s unlikely she got him this young. She started having visitors as early as age 12, and Tray died when she was 34. ↩
She had contact with a number of fellow fossil enthusiasts – notably among them William Buckland of Oxford (a quirky intellectual), Henry de la Beche (an independently wealthy young man on whom some historians think she had a crush), Thomas Birch (a lieutenant colonel who helped the Annings raise a tremendous sum of money from an auction of the fossils they’d sold to him), and Elizabeth Philpot (a fellow local hunter, with whom she became close friends). As many of these men were bachelors, her small-town neighbors would gossip about her. ↩
I don’t go into her methods, but she was far from just a hunter-gatherer. Upon finding a fossil, she would carefully excavate it. If they were small enough, she’d bring them back a piece or two at a time, and chip away at them on the kitchen table. If they were large, she’d hire people to help. From there, she would fix the bones on a frame and carefully draw it, then have the drawings engraved. She was respected for much more than just her ability to detect fossils – which was, in itself, uncanny. She could do the processing work afterwards as well as almost anyone, but she lacked the academic background for much further analysis. ↩
To be fair, she did educated herself as much as she could on the subject. She carefully read all the subject matter available, copying out illustrations with shocking accuracy. She would dissect squid and cuttlefish on the dinner table. She was way into learning. ↩
The guy doubting her here is Georges Cuvier, who proved the idea of extinction. He later withdrew his initial suspicions as overly hasty. ↩
Other plesiosaurs had been found before, but they weren’t well understood, and were sometimes misclassified as Ichthyosauruses. Mary’s find was the first full skeleton. ↩
The aforementioned allies to Mary – Buckland, Birch, de la Berche – were generally very supportive, but even they didn’t always credit her. Museums only kept records of who donated it – generally someone to whom Mary had sold her find. As such, it’s hard to even know nowadays which specimens were found by Mary. ↩
Here I reference her arguing with the previously-mentioned Buckland, “whose anatomical science she holds in great contempt,” and one of her only pieces of surviving writing, where she wrote to the Museum of Natural History with a correction. These happened at different times (Buckland in 1824, magazine letter around 1839). ↩
The king in question was Freidrich August II of Saxony. While it doesn’t seem she met with him one-on-one, she did meet with his physician, to whom she gave an autograph, saying “my name is known throughout Europe” – which was technically true. This took place in 1844, near the end of her life. Time compression for art’s sake! ↩
Among her other great discoveries: the first English Pteranodon (well, Dimorphodon) remains, a second complete Plesiosaurus, and a fish that was an evolutionary transition between sharks and rays. She also helped establish that coprolites were fossilized poop. She had five major discoveries – any one of which would be enough for a paleontologist to make their career – and got a decent chunk of money for each, but not enough to live off of in perpetuity. She had to keep achieving the impossible on a regular basis, just to survive. ↩
It’s actually unsure if she lost her money in an investment or to a con man. Regardless, it was almost all her life savings. ↩
She was acutely aware that she was getting the raw end of the deal in much of her dealings. Writing to a friend in London, she said, “I beg your pardon for distrusting your friendship. The world has used me so unkindly. I fear it has made me suspicious to every one.” ↩
Her friends arranged a 40 pounds/year pension for her, and Honorary Membership of the new Dorset County Museum. While she was not admitted to the Geological Society until decades after her death, many of its members tried to do well by her in the end. I don’t know whether they were actually at her deathbed – honestly kind of doubt it. ↩
The window commemorates the important six Christian acts of mercy. Additionally, a species of fish was named after her, novels were written about her, and, in 1903, the “she sells seashells by the seashore” tongue twister was ostensibly written about her. The beach she plumbed for fossils, Jurassic Beach, became Britain’s first UNESCO site in 2001. ↩

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Betty Pack

September 14, 2016, 7:30 am

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The Brilliant MI6 Spy Who Perfected the Art of the ‘Honey Trap’ | Atlas Obscura

During WWII, Betty Pack used seduction to acquire enemy naval codes.

“Ashamed? Not in the least. My superiors told me that the results of my work saved thousands of British and American lives… It involved me in situations from which ‘respectable’ women draw back—but mine was total commitment. Wars are not won by respectable methods.”

(via Atlas Obscura – next RP post up next Wednesday!)

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Nitocris

September 22, 2016, 1:16 pm

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The main source on her is one paragraph in Herodotus’s Histories, which I’ll reproduce here in full: “To avenge her brother (he was king of Egypt and was slain by his subjects who then gave Nitocris the sovereignty) she put many Egyptians to death by guile. She built a spacious underground chamber; then, with the pretence of handselling it, but with far other intent in her mind, she gave a great feast, inviting those Egyptians whom she knew to have been most concerned in her brother’s murder; and, while they feasted, she let the river in upon them by a great secret channel. This was all that the priests told of her, save that when she had done this, she cast herself into chamber of hot ashes, thereby to escape vengeance.” ↩
The hieroglyphs here are taken from the art for Hatshepsut – I was strapped for time – save for the ones enclosed by an elongated circle on the screen left wall, behind the musicians. That is the ostensible name of Nitocris as written on the Royal Papyrus of Turin – or so it was thought. More on this in a bit. ↩
For a long time the only evidence of Nitocris, outside of Herodotus and Manetho, was from the aforementioned Royal Papyrus of Turin, an extremely tattered listing of Egyptian rulers. For many years – possibly back to Herodotus’s time? – it had been assembled incorrectly, and listed Nitocris at the end of the 6th Dynasty. Using microscopic analysis in 2000, though, historian Kim Ryholt discovered the correct ordering, and that the fragment assumed to refer to Nitocris was, in fact, referring to one of the names of a previously-established male king. As it stands, there’s no architecture or tomb or any other evidence of Nitocris’s reign, aside from ancient Greek texts. Still, great story! ↩

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Janequeo

November 4, 2016, 12:30 pm

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Okay, here’s the deal: weirdly enough, this is a Spanish history, not a Mapuche one. The Mapuche seemingly have no record of this, or at least none I can find. The Chilean historian Diego Barros Arana, who wrote the book (okay, many books) on Chilean history considers her an invention of Alonso de Ercilla, the contemporary Spanish author of the Araucaniad. It is a little uncertain to me personally as to why Ercilla would make up a story of a woman who kicked Spanish butt so hard, but I have nowhere near enough grounding to question Arana on the matter. Nevertheless, she’s a celebrated figure – a long line of Chilean naval vessels are named after her – and she represents the very real undying determination of the Mapuche people. ↩
this was near Llifen, Chile. He was holed up in what was called a pucara, a type of fort used by the Mapuche and other indigenous people. ↩
Different tellings expand on how horribly he was tortured, but much of that may be poetic hyperbole. ↩
The black item she’s holding is a symbol of Mapuche leadership called a tokikura (sometimes spelled toqui cura?) – my supposition is that the name references the toki/toqui, wartime leaders elected from the ranks of tribal leaders (lonco). In times of war, my understanding is that it was colored black, but lighter colors otherwise. Her other adornment, the tan ornament, is more of a shaman symbol, best I can tell. ↩
Estimates of her army size range from 1200-4000 people, from the Mapuche and neighboring Puelche in Argentina. She did this in concert with her brother, Guechiuntereo. Initially she was working under the aegis of the toqui Guanoalca, but some tellings indicate she gathered her own forces and struck out on her own. ↩
This guy was named Cristobal Aranda. One account had her forces putting metal spikes in the ground to stymie cavalry. ↩
At this point, she’d relocated to a mountain fort in Villarica for the rainy season, and Sotomayor assaulted her repeatedly, fighting in rain, snow, and flood conditions. She maintained the high ground and killed them as they came up the slope, reportedly taunting them with the sword of a dead Spanish soldier. The Spaniards used a first-generation firearm called an arquebus, which took forever to reload. The arquebusier outfits of the time can be found on the guys on page two. ↩
In all tellings, as Sotomayor was hanging Mapuche prisoners on his way out, one demanded to be hung higher than the others, to show his sacrifice. ↩
That’s an actual type of Mapuche horn. They look pretty rad! ↩
One telling supposes she died of typhus in 1590, but nobody really knows. The story from there shifts to her brother being captured by the Spanish. When he was sent back to agitate for the Mapuche to surrender, a rich man (ulmen) named Catipiuque killed him in full view of everyone. They did not surrender. ↩
This is an ongoing humanitarian disaster that has only been getting worse — for more information, the term to google is Mapuche Conflict. They’ve had their land robbed, polluted, and ruined by various corporate interests. Parts of Chilean society have labeled them terrorists. If this reminds you of the Standing Rock conflict over the Dakota Access Pipeline, well, you’re not alone. There’s not a large English language footprint for them online – the most up to date accounts seem to be from the Mapuche Nation Twitter account. I couldn’t find a donation link, but will update if I do. ↩

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Amanirenas

January 26, 2017, 9:52 am

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There’s a ton of different spellings of her name – Amanirenat, Imminerant, etc – but this seems to be the most common one. The Roman historian Strabo referred to her merely by her title as Candace (kandake), but there’s a general consensus that Amanirenas was the one that he was talking about. ↩
No, Marc Antony and Cleopatra weren’t together when they died. Visual shorthand! Trying to cover a fair bit of history here. ↩
This expansion was initiated by Augustus’s henchman, Cornelius Gallus, who established Ethiopia as a protectorate. While Cornelius overplayed his hand and was soon thereafter demoted, Augustus nevertheless seemed to approve of the southern expansion, and they continued under Cornelius’s successor, Petronius. ↩
It’s unclear as to whether Kush knew of Rome’s plans for expansion, but it seems likely, given that Ethiopia had been looped in as early as 29 BCE. Estimates I’ve read indicated Kush began early skirmishes around 27, with its major invasion occurring in 24. Rome was dealing with wars in Arabia at the time, hence the distraction. ↩
Kush does not get NEARLY enough play in the history books. A lot of historians have treated it as a satellite state to Egypt, but it actually conquered Egypt in the 25th Dynasty, and had a fairly distinct culture. It repelled a ton of outside invasions, and had an army of archers so fierce that Egypt referred to it as the Land of the Bow. They also had metalworking, thanks to the Assyrians. ↩
Kush is also sometimes conflated with Meroe — Meroe was its capitol city (after it was moved from Napata). You’ll sometimes see references to Candace of Meroe, whom Alexander the Great reportedly met (a myth; more on that later). ↩
It’s a little unclear to me when her son, Akinidad, died. He was alive for the invasion of Napata in 24 BCE. Teritegas, Amanirenas’ husband, died in 27 BCE, I believe. ↩
The Roman historian Strabo — who was a personal friend of Augustus — describes the Kushites flailing about ineffectively, with poor leadership (almost certainly under Amanirenas’ son, Akinidad. she was elsewhere during the sack of Napata). However, given that Rome later agreed to peace terms that were incredibly favorable to Kush, I view the finer details of his account with mild suspicion. ↩
Other carvings depict Kushite leaders feeding people to dogs. The war elephant thing is true, although they were probably used more by Carthage than Kush. The biggest direct tie of elephants to kandakes is a mythic telling of Alexander the Great being greeted by an elephant-riding kandake. Nobody seems to believe that really happened, but hey. ↩
Here’s where you get a thousand armchair historians saying “they could have taken Kush if they wanted to, this is feminist bullshit!” (seriously, Rome “experts” are only marginally less annoying than WW2 “experts”). I am not arguing Rome couldn’t have taken Kush – it was a combination of harsh environment, armed resistance, and logistical difficulty that sank the expansion. Kush was too far-flung to allow for easy import of reinforcements or mass export of goods. From the viewpoint of the Kushites, this was a David and Goliath story. Other cultures are allowed their heroes. ↩
Here’s the “misunderstanding” theory, which is just my reading of events: Strabo described the Kushites suing for peace, citing grievances with previous administrators. They displayed surprisingly little awareness of Rome, not knowing who its leader was or where to find him. This indicates to me that the aforementioned administrator, Cornelius Gallus, was provoking Kush in ways that didn’t make it into the histories, and that when they started fighting, it was against him – they didn’t really know who they were fighting. It’s possible it was all a misunderstanding, one that Amanirenas ironed out. Doesn’t square with their continued disrespect for Augustus’s head, but hey. Egypt had swapped hands a lot in the years leading up to the war, confusion is understandable. ↩
There’s other Augustus statues out there, other bronze ones even – but none had the original eyes. Hence “best preserved.” ↩
I just wanted to share that old-school diss. The rest of the wall had crumbled so who knows which ruler it was. I’m rooting for Amanirenas. ↩

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Grace Humiston

April 20, 2017, 10:11 pm

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“Mrs. Sherlock Holmes” Takes on the NYPD:

Known as “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes,” Grace Humiston proved massive malfeasance on the part of the NYPD — after leading a huge overhaul of US labor law.

I also love that she just perpetually had the “I do not have time for your shit” look going.

Grace “Go Away, I’ve Got Shit To Do” Humiston, everyone.

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Sutematsu Oyama

May 4, 2017, 8:15 am

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It’s a little unclear to me as to whether the wet quilts were left to older women, or to all women – I know for sure that Sakiko/Sutematsu was running ammunition back and forth. ↩
Initially I’d wanted to make the quilt design one of the Japanese military flags, with the rays coming out from the red sun, since it was covering a bomb – but it was ahistorical and likely confusing. ↩
Her sister-in-law’s name was Tose. ↩
Her mother really didn’t want her to go, but after the death of Sakiko’s father, her brother Hiroshi was in charge – not just of their family, but much of the defeated citizens of Aizu. He led by example, eating poorly and starving his own family when the rest of his people didn’t have enough to eat. ↩
In the end, at least two other of Sakiko’s family would go abroad – her brother Kenjiro was already taking classes at Yale before she got to the US, and her other sister Misao would end up going to St. Petersburg and studying French. For many years, Sakiko/Sutematsu and Misao would have no common language. ↩
The first character, “sute,” is the base of the verb “suteru,” to discard. The second character, “matsu,” means “pine tree,” and was the first character of the family name of the defeated lord of Aizu – Katamori Matsudaira. ↩
Not verified in time for the initial publication of this story is an additional bit of tragedy about the name “Sutematsu.” “Matsu,” besides being the first part of the Matsudaira’s name, is a homonym for the verb “to wait” (待つ ). Her mother was telling her she was waiting for her to return. ↩
The older two girls were named Ryo and Tei – Ryo had been partially blinded from staring at the snow in Utah for too long (apparently that’s a thing), so both of them went back. They had relatively normal lives afterwards, and only saw the other three girls once or twice again. ↩
That was an actual question on a high school exam she took. It’s unknown how she answered. ↩
That’s a direct quote from her valedictorian speech, in which she laid out a forceful argument about the unequal trade relationship between the UK and Japan. She was a smart cookie. ↩
Shige went to Vassar too, but did not get a bachelor’s degree, just a certificate in music. Shige ended up marrying a Japanese naval officer who’d also been sent abroad. They started a family and lived a pretty normal life after her time in the US. ↩
Sutematsu had worked hard to keep up her Japanese and connection to Japan during her time in America. She’d force Shige to practice Japanese with her regularly, and would correspond with her family and her brother – who was studying at Yale for the first several years she was there – to keep up her Japanese-ness. ↩
From left to right, here are Shige, Sutematsu, and Ume. Sutematsu was the one to start the idea, but after getting married, Ume really took it and ran with it. Ume, the youngest of the group and the most isolated by far, didn’t speak any Japanese when she came back. She was treated as an exotic invalid who couldn’t do anything properly, and it really upset her. She’d eventually go back and get a full degree at Bryn Mawr – she had been so young that she only graduated high school by the time she came back. ↩
Iwao is an interesting character. He’d also spent time abroad – in France – and was recently widowed. He wanted a wife who would be a good companion for him on the international stage, and Sutematsu was the most eligible woman in Japan. He was by all accounts a good man, who’d become Minister of War and lead forces in the Russo-Japanese War. ↩
The novel referenced here is Hototogisu, a hallmark of Japanese literature. ↩
I brush over it here, but Sutematsu spent a lot of time on official functions. She threw a lot of balls, and organized charity drives – something that had never been done before in Japan. She felt very despondent that she had just become a housewife, despite her accomplishments. ↩
The school is still open. It is now called the Tsuda College, for Ume’s surname. Sutematsu’s involvement is little-known. ↩
Ume herself had a wild life, which I can’t get into here. She ended up meeting Helen Keller and Florence Nightingale, refusing to marry, running the school virtually by herself for years – she was in many ways even more isolated from Japanese society than Sutematsu. She even took her name off her family register and changed it to Umeko – which was a huge deal. Hers is a story for another time. ↩

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Black Agnes

May 19, 2017, 5:57 am

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Most sources write her surname as Randolph, but R.R. Stodart’s Scottish arms: Being a Collection of Armorial Bearings, A.D. 1370-1678 is insistent that her surname is Ranulph. ↩
It is my personal assumption that the main sources are Scottish-slanted. The main source is John Parker Lawson’s Historical Tales of the Wars of Scotland, and of the Border Raids, Forays, and Conflicts, Volume 1, about which I was not able to determine much, historiography-wise. ↩
She was named Black Agnes for her “dark complexion,” which most historians seem to think means hair color in this context. ↩
The Agnes and Salisbury quotes seem to me to be too on-the-nose to be historically accurate (who busts out rhymes on the spot?) – they come from Parker’s book, and Clive Kristen’s Ghost Trails of Edinburgh and the Borders. ↩
In Kristen’s telling, multiple maids came out in their Sunday best. ↩
Okay, it was probably named the Sow because it bore a lot of “children,” and not because of an ahead-of-its-time love of Miss Piggy. ↩
I was legitimately confused as to why he was quipping at this point, but according to Parker’s telling, that’s what happened. Could not have been great for morale. ↩
Yes, that’s a Leeroy Jenkins reference. The actual soldier was named Copeland. ↩
The main source of backup was a guy named Ramsay of Dalhousie – I am unsure which of Clan Ramsay this was. He showed up with forty guys, snuck past the English barricade, and attacked the English advance guard until they had to retreat to camp. He continued to be a pain in the tuchus for many years. ↩
He didn’t actually leave his helmet there, at least I don’t think so. I just wanted Agnes to have a trophy on the last page. ↩

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Mercadera

July 1, 2017, 7:56 am

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The conflict in question was the Aragonese Crusade – not to be confused with the Aragonese Conquest. The Crusade actually was tangentially related to the story of Isabella of France. ↩
“Mercadera” translates directly from Catalan to “merchant,” despite what Google Translate might tell you (the fiend!). The original calls her “Na Mercadera,” which indicates she was the town’s only female merchant, and is perhaps best translated as “The Merchant” or “Our Merchant.” Thanks to arigata-the-neko on Tumblr for the help! ↩
That’s based on a modern-day picture of Peralada, and it may not be accurate as to what buildings were built when. Sorry! ↩
The translation I got a friend to do from the original Catalan said he was in a stream running between different farm plots. There’s an English translation that says it was a bit of a ravine. I had trouble picturing how that a stream detain a soldier for long, so I portrayed it as him having trouble with a disobedient horse. ↩
Apparently she did come outside with a spear, shield, and sword, all of which are described in the source text. ↩
The story makes a point of saying how she obeyed the laws of chivalry in allowing him to surrender, and then additionally heaps praise on her for bandaging him up — making a note how she’d done both masculine (warrior) and feminine (healer) acts. ↩
I love the idea that they made the French guy just perform over and over. In all likelihood they just kept him locked up, but I like this visual better. ↩

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Bessie Stringfield

July 28, 2017, 9:43 am

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Her birth mother, according to most sources, was a Dutch maid who died in childbirth. Her dad was West Indian. Bessie was born as Betsy Ellis in Kingston, Jamaica. They moved to Boston when she was young, and her birth dad gave her up for adoption at age five. ↩
There are virtually no details on her foster parents, aside from them being Irish. In one interview, Bessie even said that she wasn’t allowed to use her foster mother’s name. ↩
I do not want to put too fine a point on her “standing out” — that is more a convention of the story and her character than the role of her race in her childhood. According to her, she had a pretty decent childhood: “Back in those days in Boston nobody gave it a second thought that a white woman had a colored child. There wasn’t all the racial trouble there then.” ↩
A devout Catholic who gave much credit for her ability to “The Man Upstairs,” Bessie claimed that Jesus had actually taught her how to drive in a dream: “One night in my sleep, I saw myself shifting gears and riding around the block. When I got out on the street, that’s just what I did!” ↩
She’d replace the Indian Scout with a sixty-one Harley. ↩
This was starting in 1925. The highway system wouldn’t be proposed until 1956. She only started doing longer distance rides around 1930, though. She did eight long distance solo rides between the 1930s and 1940s. In so doing, she became the first black woman to ride a motorcycle in everyone of the 48 contiguous United States, and made trips to Brazil, Haiti, and parts of Europe. ↩
The green book there is the Negro Motorcyclist Green Book, a guide used by people of color to navigate the treacherous waters of American travel in the era of segregation. It first came out in 1936, and while this page depicts her travels starting in 1930 or so, I assume she probably used it — would not be surprised if she helped contribute to it. ↩
One guy even gave her a free tank of gas, he was so impressed by her fortitude. Of the near-death experiences she had, she merely characterized it as “ups and downs.” ↩
The trick portrayed at the top was called the Wall of Death, and was a pretty common thing to see back in those days. ↩
The exact quote given in numerous sources was “N****r women are not allowed to ride motorcycles in Miami.” This was in 1932. ↩
This was Captain Robert Jackson, whom Bessie would take to calling Captain Jack. She gave different accounts of the tricks he asked her to perform – everything from figure eights to hopping off her moving bike, catching it, and remounting it. ↩
Two of her children died in childbirth, and the third died at four years old, causes unknown. They were all with her first husband. ↩
The identity of her husbands isn’t available in any sources. I know she taught two to ride, and at least one was in the military (she’d ride from base to base to visit him). Her third husband’s surname was Stringfield, and he told her to keep it, as he was sure she’d become famous. ↩
Some sources quote her as saying only got legitimately married five times — while others say she got married six times. My guess is that one, she counted as less than legitimate. She seemed to brush off the idea that she’d been married a ton, saying of the era, “If you kissed, you got married.” ↩
The interviewer in question was Miami Herald reporter Bea Hines. Yes, that art is based on her appearance in the 80s – the article ran in 1981. I do as much research as I can. ↩
This was in the 1950s, after she’d put down stunt riding and become a cook, then a nurse. The gang who gave her trouble was the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang, who rode straight up to her door. When asked why they hadn’t been invited, she said, “Because you don’t belong to the Motorcycle Association of America.” Of their reaction, she said, “It didn’t set too well with them, but they didn’t harm me.” ↩
She also had her first and only accident at age 64 in 1975. She hurt her arm and couldn’t use it for four years. ↩

↧

Mary Patten

March 8, 2018, 5:30 am

≫ Next: Millie Veasey

≪ Previous: Bessie Stringfield

The first American woman to command a ship¹ was a pregnant teenager. She did it while fighting off a mutiny, nursing an incapacitated husband, and braving gale-force winds.

She was 19.

Mary Ann Patten (nee Brown) was the type who would’ve volunteered for the distinction, had that been an option. She came from a family of mariners, and, at 16, married into one too. A year into her marriage, she insisted on joining her captain husband Joshua on his first time captaining the Neptune’s Car. Together, the two went from New York to San Francisco, China, and London, before returning to New York.

Although Western women crewing a ship was rare and generally seen as improper — ah, the Victorian era! — Mary determined to make herself useful. She spent her time plowing through the ship’s small library, teaching herself medicine and how to navigate using sextants, compasses, and charts.

This would come in handy.

The Neptune’s Car, you see, was cursed as hell. It had only made one voyage before Joshua Patten coming on board. Why the quick turnover in captains, you may ask? Well, on its maiden voyage, 23 crew members were worked so hard they mutinied. The commander, one Captain Forbes, then threatened to kill all of them, saying “they’ll either work or face being shot”. Upon returning to port, everyone lawyered up and began suing each other. So there was an opening for a captain.

But that maiden voyage doesn’t even scratch the surface of how screwed this ship was. The voyages after Joshua’s tenure on board would feature such highlights as:

The third mate drunkenly killing a sailor before they even set sail, and the second mate getting arrested for covering for him;
Another sailor dying in a freak accident while loading the boat;
A cargo of munitions spilling on board, knocking the crew out with its acidic fumes;
The trip where the financiers tricked a crew of illiterate sailors into a journey twice as long as they’d signed up for;
And of course, pirates, hurricanes, and endless run-ins with the law. As you do.

And all of that still is NOTHING compared to Joshua and Mary’s second voyage on it.

The trouble started during the loading, when Joshua’s trusty first mate broke his leg. The financiers, Foster & Nickerson, eager to not lose time, replaced the first mate with an untested rando, William Keeler. The trouble continued when Joshua began feeling unwell, Foster & Nickerson ignored it, putting him to sea with Keeler and the now-pregnant Mary.

Much of the reason for the hurry is that the financiers had money riding on this, beyond just delivering cargo. The Neptune’s Car was still a relatively new ship, and they wanted to prove it could make good time. They laid down money against four other ships running the same route — New York to San Francisco, via the southern tip of South America — that Neptune’s Car would beat them to port. In the grand tradition of rich douchebags everywhere, they were gambling the lives of their employees to one-up other rich douchebags.

It was not to be smooth sailing.

Keeler proved an incompetent shitheel in record time. His list of infractions are staggering: he’d sleep through half his shifts; he set course through reef beds; he had to be ordered to do simple tasks; and finally, he just outright refused to do some tasks, like putting out sails. About a month in, Joshua put him in chains and confined him to his cabin.

While he didn’t have many other options, this choice proved deadly for Joshua. He’d relied on Keeler to keep the course while Joshua slept. But with Keeler gone, the ship facing constant gales of snow and sleet, and no other crew members able to handle navigation — the second mate was illiterate, the third an idiot — Joshua had to stay up all day and night.

Increasingly, he relied on Mary to help confirm the position, course, and speed. He recognized she was a better mathematician than he was, even when he wasn’t out of his mind from staying up all day and night.

But by the eighth day of staying up, it became clear Joshua was out of his mind from more than that. After navigating to the Le Maire Strait, he collapsed. He’d developed pneumonia, which only exacerbated the undiagnosed ailment he’d started the voyage with: Tuberculosis meningitis.

Mary took control and, with the second mate’s help, parked the ship south of the deadly storms that had been rocking their boat. There she began looking after her husband. His situation was dire: the infection had reached his brain, and on top of being delirious, he’d become blind and partially deaf.

Compounding matters, Keeler began acting up. Hearing word of the captain’s failing health, he wrote Mary a letter, reminding her how perilous the coast was, and what great responsibility she shouldered. He graciously offered to rid her of the burden, and take control himself. She responded by informing him that since he’d had such trouble being first mate, she couldn’t possibly burden him with an even higher command.

When he heard this, Keeler tried striking up a mutiny to oust Mary from her command. It’s a testament to her ability and to the crew’s general good sense that they stood by her.

With Josh still out of commission, Mary steered the ship through the perilous waters south of the Cape, dodging inclement weather, collapsing glaciers, and mountains of ice. Finally, as they neared the Chilean city of Valparaiso, Joshua’s fever broke and he once again became lucid. However, he was evidently still suffering from brain ailments, as he soon made the executive decision to give command to Keeler.

This is what we in the business call a “boneheaded move.”

If anyone doubted Keeler was mutinous scum, he wasted no time in setting them straight. Refusing to let Mary on deck to take navigation measurements, Keeler began secretly steering the boat to port at Valparaiso, despite explicit orders to head straight to San Francisco. However, Keeler did not reckon on Mary’s overabundance of competence — despite being largely confined to quarters, she still realized they were going off course. And to prove it? She Macguyvered up her own compass in the captain’s room. Nobody messes with Mary Patten.

And that was it for Keeler. Joshua had him demoted once and for all. He was clapped in chains and kept below deck.

Unfortunately, soon after that, Joshua relapsed, and he suffered 25 days of total blindness and deafness. Mary, by this point six months pregnant, was not about to waste any more time on modesty. She took full control of the ship and steered it straight to San Francisco, without further incident.

On November 15, 1856 — 137 days after they’d set sail — the Neptune’s Car pulled into port in San Francisco. The 19-year-old Mary had captained the boat for 56 of those days, through some of the most severe weather the region had seen. She had not changed clothes in nearly two months prior to arrival.

And she still beat three out of four boats to port.

As for Keeler? He cozied up to one of the ship’s mates, who helped free him once they pulled into the bay. He then jumped overboard at the earliest opportunity, escaping arrest. I am unsure what happened to his treasonous ass afterwards.

Upon arrival in San Francisco, Mary became a national sensation, with newspaper after newspaper interviewing her (and usually getting a fair number of basic facts wrong). But despite the media attention, she struggled to pay for Joshua’s care — Foster & Nickerson refused to pay out his wages (in the end, they never would). It was only after public outcry for the insurance company to award Mary $5,000 that the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company showed their magnanimity by sending Mary $1,000. The cargo she’d saved was worth $350,000.

And because she was a class act, she wrote to sincerely thank them and ask they also give credit to the other sailors².

Unfortunately, the Patten’s situation never improved. By February 1857, Mary and Joshua made it back to their home in Boston — but Joshua’s condition had only worsened. Shortly after giving birth to their son, Joshua Jr., Mary had Joshua committed to an asylum. By July, her husband was dead. Shortly thereafter, Mary’s father, a sailor himself, was lost at sea. By 1860, Mary herself had contracted tuberculosis, and on March 17 of the following year, she died, just shy of her 24th birthday. She was buried next to Joshua, with nary a mention of her groundbreaking work on her headstone.

However, her deeds are not forgotten. A century after her fateful voyage, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY opened a hospital. They named it Patten Hospital, in memory of the “Florence Nightingale of the Ocean,” the woman whose courage and grace they would always seek to emulate.

So this is a little bit of a murky claim. It’s certain that she’s the first woman who pilot a commercial ship, but I’m only mostly sure she was the first female American boat commander, period. The only other women I could find to rival this claim were river pirate Sadie the Goat — who would have been a decade or so later, and is possibly fictional — and Rachel Wall, who was a pirate alongside her husband, but did not, I believe, ever command a ship herself. Harriet Tubman helped lead a boat-based raid on plantations in 1859, three years after Mary’s voyage. It’s possible there were women in disguise as naval commanders, but I’m unaware of any who predate Mary Patten. ↩
And because she was a Victorian, she downplayed her own role, saying it was “only the plain duty of a wife towards a good husband.” ↩

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Millie Veasey

March 26, 2018, 4:00 am

≫ Next: Anne Farquharson-Mackintosh

≪ Previous: Mary Patten

Millie Veasey, Part of Trailblazing Unit in WWII, Dies at 100 – The New York Times

She served in an all-black, all-women’s battalion tasked with untangling a mail-delivery nightmare, and later led the Raleigh chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.

“The greatest legacy of the 6888th was in changing the perception of the capabilities of women of color… Their success challenged the stereotype of African-American women.”

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Anne Farquharson-Mackintosh

April 20, 2018, 2:15 am

≫ Next: Alakhai Beki

≪ Previous: Millie Veasey

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I don’t understand the song lyrics much more than you do.

So the broad outlines are confirmed in a lot of places – the finer details I had to get from Jean Mackintosh Goldstrom’s Colonel Anne Mackintosh: Scotland’s Beautiful Rebel. That is a self-published book and I’m really wary of using it as a main source, but I didn’t have a lot else to go on. The author is clearly not impartial on the topic, but they cite a lot of works at the end, and various people they contacted, none of which I can personally access. I couldn’t find anything flat-out wrong in it, although there’s some stuff omitted. ↩
Regarding the first panel: I’m kidding, Scottish people (well, mostly). Anne did have an education growing up, which was unusual for European women in general, but not that uncommon for Scottish women. ↩
Angus joined the Black Watch, an English-run militia of Highlanders, which they employed against the Jacobites (the people who were for Stuart rule). ↩
The Farquharsons and Mackintoshes were both part of a larger umbrella clan, Clan Chattan (whose symbol is a cat). The Mackintoshes were the main house of Chattan, and Angus was thus head honcho for a lot of stuff. All the Chattan folk had fought in previous Jacobite uprisings, particularly in 1715 (30 years earlier). ↩
Charles was also known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie” or “The Young Pretender.” This was the last of a series of attempts to place the Stuarts on the throne, starting in the late 1600s. I believe there were 5 or 6 armed attempts, and a couple more planned out but never implemented. For more on this fight over succession, look up James II of England (VII of Scotland). ↩
Charles was a bit of a prat when he first landed – and really, kind of throughout. A couple different clan chiefs came out to meet him but were a little reticent to support him. He told Lochiel of the Cameron Clan that if he didn’t join his forces, “You can stay home and read about it in the newspapers.” It took a month or two for them to decide on it, but a lot of the clans did throw in behind him anyway – despite him being an unproven 23-year-old who’d lived much of his life in Italy. ↩
I was unable to verify the bits about his boat sinking or his initial meeting with Lochiel and the lot in anything aside from the aforementioned book. ↩
This is January of 1745 that Anne goes out recruiting – she’s 22 or so at the time. Estimates of how many men she gets range from 200 to 800. ↩
Charles won in the Battle of Prestonpans and the Battle of Falkirk, and his army had swollen to upwards of 9000 men at this point. When he came back to Moy Hall, he did so with only about 50 men, though. ↩
That man depicted up top is the Earl of Loudon, who was overseeing much of the English effort at Inverness. Angus and the Black Watch worked under him. ↩
I have no idea if she served them pig. I just thought it was a funny visual. ↩
So I’m leaving out some details here. Multiple sources relayed that the info came from Angus’s mother, the Dowager Lady Mackintosh, who lived in Inverness. She relayed it to a guy named Lachlan Mackintosh, who snuck past the guards and hightailed it to Anne. How the Dowager came to know about Loudon’s plans is unknown, but Jean Mackintosh Goldstrom theorizes it was from Angus, who would have likely known. It seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion, honestly. ↩
Sources differ as to whether Anne roused the visiting king and crew, or whether they slept through all this. ↩
Estimates of how many men went range from 5-7. The one who is mentioned in every telling as being there was the blacksmith, Donald Fraser. ↩
Several sources indicated that the 1500 were mostly from the MacLeod clan, and they lost heart after their bagpiper was shot (the only fatality from this incident, I believe). ↩
When Charles went to Inverness, he stayed with the Dowager Lady Mackintosh, who had a swanky pad. ↩
The dialogue here is repeated verbatim in multiple tellings. ↩
The top panel references the Battle of Culloden, where Prince Charles displayed some truly awful tactics that got a huge chunk of his forces killed. He fled to Europe 5 months later. ↩
The Mackintosh Goldstrom book relays some stories about Anne being hyperbolically poorly treated by the English, which sounded to me like passed-down propaganda, so I’m omitting them. There’s also some stories about her attempting to help some soldiers in hiding – read the Goldstrom book if you’re curious, it’s like a buck on Amazon. ↩
The “Anne slept with everyone” bit comes from Geoffrey Plank’s Rebellion and Savagery: The Jacobite Rising of 1745 and the British Empire. He cites sources I couldn’t access, indicating that Loudon himself had a crush on Anne and spent a ton of time around her – and that she had a reputation as a temptress. I find this all somewhat unlikely, but if you’ve been reading this site for any period of time at all, you know how my Occam’s Razor is situated. ↩
This was a ball held in London in 1747 by the Earl of Cumberland — the English king’s second son, who’d defeated Charles at the Battle of Culloden, and reportedly employed some pretty cruel tactics (and people). Anne had been working hard in the meantime to bridge gaps and generally reintegrate the Jacobites into British society. ↩
This song is “The Auld Stuarts are Back Again,” a song they sang on the front lines fairly regularly. ↩
Angus died in 1770, and Anne died 17 years after that, in Leith. They only had one child, a daughter, who died in infancy. Wikipedia currently lists her death year as 1784 but I believe that is incorrect. ↩

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Alakhai Beki

May 15, 2018, 2:33 pm

≫ Next: Sarah Biffin

≪ Previous: Anne Farquharson-Mackintosh

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First off: yes, George Lucas ripped off Mongolian fashion for Princess Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. ↩
The missing section has to do with inheritance, and started with “let us reward our female offspring.” It’s unclear as to whether it was just left out by someone who was copying the original text – if it was an accident, or what – but it sure is frustrating. For more on that, I highly recommend Jack Weatherford’s The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, which opened with that exact same point as well. We don’t even know how many in-wedlock daughters Genghis had, or their names. ↩
“Alakhai” probably means either Siberian Marmot or “Palm of the Hand” — which would be a likely reference to a story about Genghis’s birth, where he came out holding a blood clot. This apparently was held up as a symbol of his importance. The whole story, though, is almost certainly a latter-day invention for PR purposes. “Beki” means princess. ↩
The sources I read couldn’t really agree on who she was engaged to. Most seemed to indicate she was betrothed to Alaqush, leader of the Ongud, but some say she was betrothed to his son, Bai Sibu/Buyan-Shuiban. In any event, she’d end up married to Alaqush, then Bai Sibu, and eventually both of Alaqush’s other sons at one point or another. ↩
The Ongud were located well to help stage additional raids. The Gobi Desert made for a harsh journey of several days – any Mongol army sent across it would be easy pickings for a defending force by the time they came out the other side. ↩
Other dadly advice from Genghis: “Life is short, but fame is everlasting! No friend is better tha nyour own wise heart. No ferocious enemy is worse than a resentful and wicked heart… Although many people can be your helper, no one should be closer to you than your own consciousness.” ↩
Genghis did this sort of thing for all his (known) daughters – they were an advance force to give him a beachhead abroad when he went a-conquerin’. ↩
The Mongols referred to the Ongud as the People of the Wall, for their fortified cities (not, it would seem, for the Great Wall. They were a part of what is now northern China, and were a very old people indeed, far older than the Mongols. They’d weathered the rise and fall of many empires by making friends with the right people. ↩
This happened in 1211 – Genghis went to war against the Jurchen, and the Ongud overthrew Alaqush, killed Bai Sibu, and turned on Alakhai. This was a dangerous position to be in – he was overextended and now potentially had an enemy at his rear as well as his front. ↩
The two kids are Zhenguo and Boyaoha, her stepsons – both of whom she’d marry in successiosn after this (Zhenguo died young). She was queen regent while they came of age. ↩
Most of that stuff, it seems likely Genghis did – but the “burning down a city with alley cats” bit is suspect. It’s supposedly a tactic he employed while sacking Volohai, using cats, swallows, and/or pigs. Suspiciously, this is almost verbatim the same tactic ostensibly employed by Olga of Kiev around a century earlier. Olga’s story is almost certain apocryphal, and on that basis, I must suspect Genghis’s tactics at Volohai are too. ↩
The Ongud survived as their own nation after rebelling – something no other tribe was ever able to do under Genghis. ↩
Pictured here: Genghis’s sons Ogedei (green), Tolui (red), and his grandson Kublai (background),who used Alakhai’s work as a template for their own work. ↩
Alakhai didn’t just run the Ongud. Then Genghis conquered the Jurchen, their leaders unexpectedly just picked up and moved further south – so he gave the duty of administration to Alakhai. ↩
It’s unknown how long she ruled – probably twenty years or so? – or when/how she died. Around 1253, her lands were taken by her nephew Mongke, who later gave it to his younger brother Kublai. ↩

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Sarah Biffin

June 13, 2018, 2:46 am

≫ Next: Grace Humiston

≪ Previous: Alakhai Beki

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Her name is often spelled “Biffen” – even on Wikipedia – but she herself spelled it Biffin. I’m unsure as to the reasoning behind the posthumous spelling change. ↩
This characterization of her parents is based on a short autobiography that she wrote – which unfortunately is not widely available, although parts of it have been reprinted. In it, she states that “at the age of eight years I was very desirous of acquiring the use of my needle; but my Parents discouraged the idea, thinking it wholly impracticable. I was not, however, intimidated, and whenever my father and mother were absent, I was continually practising every invention, till at length I could, with my mouth — thread a needle — tie a knot — do fancy work, — cut out and make my own dresses.” ↩
Some internet sources include some stuff about her being an unwanted “pixie child” and mistreated by her family. I couldn’t find any source material for that claim, though. ↩
Her father was a shoemaker (hence him dropping shoes). She had four siblings: John (who likely died as a baby), Richard, Johanna, and Betty. ↩
From her aforementioned autobiography: “At the age of 12 my desire to work with the needle having worked so far, gave place to my inclination to write: and in a short time I was enabled to correspond with distant friends.” ↩
Little is known of Dukes outside of his relationship with Biffin. It seems likely that the contract he had her sign was worded (or explained) in such a way as to make her think that she was indebted to him indefinitely – more on that later. Martin Hesp, who’s given talks on Sarah, describes Dukes as “a keen man of business for an artist — and perhaps not altogether the most altruistic of people either.” She lived with him and his wife for the next sixteen years. I’m uncertain how that affected her relationship to her family. ↩
Initially he just presented her as able to do various household chores – the painting came later. She would also cut out silhouettes of people and sell them. Her painting was primarily landscapes and then miniature portraits on bits of ivory. ↩
The 1804 on her Artist Alley booth is an indicator on the year that she started doing this. ↩
It’s hard to translate currency from the past to modern day, but this website estimates that 5 guineas (where 1 guinea = 1.05 pounds) would be around 500 pounds, or 600-ish dollars. ↩
This is the 16th Earl of Morton, George Douglas. The teacher arranged for her was William Craig, best miniaturist of the day. ↩
Morton even tried buying out her contract but Dukes wouldn’t go for it. There’s evidence that he tried to get her to leave for quite some time but she thought she was contractually obligated to stay with Dukes in perpetuity. Even late in life, likely fully aware of how badly he’d cheated her, she described Dukes charitably: “During the whole of this time (her years with Dukes -ed.) she resided with Mr. and Mrs. Dukes as one of their family, and was treated by them with uniform kindness.” ↩
The Ada Lovelace connection is mildly dubious. In searching for Sarah’s art online, I came across this listing of one of her pieces, which says it’s of Ada Lovelace, but I’m unsure if that’s accurate. ↩
She made her way to Brussels in 1821, where her work was heralded to the king by the Prince of Orange. ↩
It’s unclear if Dickens ever met with her (if he did, it was likely in 1837, near the end of her life). Dickens mentioned her by name in in Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, and Little Dorrit. Notably, he declined to help out with her late-life money issues. ↩
This self-portrait was given to her patron Princess Augusta, but prints were made and sold – the image displayed is one of the prints. Her short autobiography was attached to the prints as a bonus item. ↩
So her marriage is a bit of a question mark. They separated within a year, and rumors had it that they didn’t even sleep together. It’s uncertain whether he actually did run off with her money (and how much she had at the beginning of the marriage). She defended him to the end, saying he provided for her 40 pounds a year as long as he was able. This is, according to the website listed earlier, about 4,300 pounds ($5,700) in modern currency. For reference, she also got an annual pension of 12 pounds from the Civil List. ↩
She had a number of hustles, not all of which I enumerate here. One letter of hers describes how she taught classes. Another indicated she was planning a trip to America that never happened. She moved a number of times in her final years, often living in large households with a number of people. In 1841 she moved to Liverpool. ↩
The patron in question was named Richard Rathbone, who enlisted a number of wealthy patrons as “subscribers” to her in order to create an annuity. This is very similar to how Patreon functions nowadays. ↩
This whole situation was a tricky thing to address: my supposition, off the little data available, was that Dukes and her husband were basically abusive to her. They took her money and kept her under their thumbs. There’s not enough textual evidence to support that conclusively, but it’s not a stretch. It’s my read that she defended them both way more than they deserved, and that she’d likely internalized a lot of feelings of unworthiness. I didn’t want to dwell on that, nor did I want to omit it. It’s the central paradox of her story, and it’s an uncomfortable one. I presented this to a number of friends with disabilities for comment, and I hope I threaded the needle well enough. ↩

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Grace Humiston

April 20, 2017, 10:11 pm

≫ Next: Sutematsu Oyama

≪ Previous: Sarah Biffin

“Mrs. Sherlock Holmes” Takes on the NYPD:

Known as “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes,” Grace Humiston proved massive malfeasance on the part of the NYPD — after leading a huge overhaul of US labor law.

I also love that she just perpetually had the “I do not have time for your shit” look going.

Grace “Go Away, I’ve Got Shit To Do” Humiston, everyone.

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Sutematsu Oyama

May 4, 2017, 8:15 am

≫ Next: Black Agnes

≪ Previous: Grace Humiston

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It’s a little unclear to me as to whether the wet quilts were left to older women, or to all women – I know for sure that Sakiko/Sutematsu was running ammunition back and forth. ↩
Initially I’d wanted to make the quilt design one of the Japanese military flags, with the rays coming out from the red sun, since it was covering a bomb – but it was ahistorical and likely confusing. ↩
Her sister-in-law’s name was Tose. ↩
Her mother really didn’t want her to go, but after the death of Sakiko’s father, her brother Hiroshi was in charge – not just of their family, but much of the defeated citizens of Aizu. He led by example, eating poorly and starving his own family when the rest of his people didn’t have enough to eat. ↩
In the end, at least two other of Sakiko’s family would go abroad – her brother Kenjiro was already taking classes at Yale before she got to the US, and her other sister Misao would end up going to St. Petersburg and studying French. For many years, Sakiko/Sutematsu and Misao would have no common language. ↩
The first character, “sute,” is the base of the verb “suteru,” to discard. The second character, “matsu,” means “pine tree,” and was the first character of the family name of the defeated lord of Aizu – Katamori Matsudaira. ↩
Not verified in time for the initial publication of this story is an additional bit of tragedy about the name “Sutematsu.” “Matsu,” besides being the first part of the Matsudaira’s name, is a homonym for the verb “to wait” (待つ ). Her mother was telling her she was waiting for her to return. ↩
The older two girls were named Ryo and Tei – Ryo had been partially blinded from staring at the snow in Utah for too long (apparently that’s a thing), so both of them went back. They had relatively normal lives afterwards, and only saw the other three girls once or twice again. ↩
That was an actual question on a high school exam she took. It’s unknown how she answered. ↩
That’s a direct quote from her valedictorian speech, in which she laid out a forceful argument about the unequal trade relationship between the UK and Japan. She was a smart cookie. ↩
Shige went to Vassar too, but did not get a bachelor’s degree, just a certificate in music. Shige ended up marrying a Japanese naval officer who’d also been sent abroad. They started a family and lived a pretty normal life after her time in the US. ↩
Sutematsu had worked hard to keep up her Japanese and connection to Japan during her time in America. She’d force Shige to practice Japanese with her regularly, and would correspond with her family and her brother – who was studying at Yale for the first several years she was there – to keep up her Japanese-ness. ↩
From left to right, here are Shige, Sutematsu, and Ume. Sutematsu was the one to start the idea, but after getting married, Ume really took it and ran with it. Ume, the youngest of the group and the most isolated by far, didn’t speak any Japanese when she came back. She was treated as an exotic invalid who couldn’t do anything properly, and it really upset her. She’d eventually go back and get a full degree at Bryn Mawr – she had been so young that she only graduated high school by the time she came back. ↩
Iwao is an interesting character. He’d also spent time abroad – in France – and was recently widowed. He wanted a wife who would be a good companion for him on the international stage, and Sutematsu was the most eligible woman in Japan. He was by all accounts a good man, who’d become Minister of War and lead forces in the Russo-Japanese War. ↩
The novel referenced here is Hototogisu, a hallmark of Japanese literature. ↩
I brush over it here, but Sutematsu spent a lot of time on official functions. She threw a lot of balls, and organized charity drives – something that had never been done before in Japan. She felt very despondent that she had just become a housewife, despite her accomplishments. ↩
The school is still open. It is now called the Tsuda College, for Ume’s surname. Sutematsu’s involvement is little-known. ↩
Ume herself had a wild life, which I can’t get into here. She ended up meeting Helen Keller and Florence Nightingale, refusing to marry, running the school virtually by herself for years – she was in many ways even more isolated from Japanese society than Sutematsu. She even took her name off her family register and changed it to Umeko – which was a huge deal. Hers is a story for another time. ↩

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Black Agnes

May 19, 2017, 5:57 am

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Most sources write her surname as Randolph, but R.R. Stodart’s Scottish arms: Being a Collection of Armorial Bearings, A.D. 1370-1678 is insistent that her surname is Ranulph. ↩
It is my personal assumption that the main sources are Scottish-slanted. The main source is John Parker Lawson’s Historical Tales of the Wars of Scotland, and of the Border Raids, Forays, and Conflicts, Volume 1, about which I was not able to determine much, historiography-wise. ↩
She was named Black Agnes for her “dark complexion,” which most historians seem to think means hair color in this context. ↩
The Agnes and Salisbury quotes seem to me to be too on-the-nose to be historically accurate (who busts out rhymes on the spot?) – they come from Parker’s book, and Clive Kristen’s Ghost Trails of Edinburgh and the Borders. ↩
In Kristen’s telling, multiple maids came out in their Sunday best. ↩
Okay, it was probably named the Sow because it bore a lot of “children,” and not because of an ahead-of-its-time love of Miss Piggy. ↩
I was legitimately confused as to why he was quipping at this point, but according to Parker’s telling, that’s what happened. Could not have been great for morale. ↩
Yes, that’s a Leeroy Jenkins reference. The actual soldier was named Copeland. ↩
The main source of backup was a guy named Ramsay of Dalhousie – I am unsure which of Clan Ramsay this was. He showed up with forty guys, snuck past the English barricade, and attacked the English advance guard until they had to retreat to camp. He continued to be a pain in the tuchus for many years. ↩
He didn’t actually leave his helmet there, at least I don’t think so. I just wanted Agnes to have a trophy on the last page. ↩

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Mercadera

July 1, 2017, 7:56 am

≫ Next: Bessie Stringfield

≪ Previous: Black Agnes

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The conflict in question was the Aragonese Crusade – not to be confused with the Aragonese Conquest. The Crusade actually was tangentially related to the story of Isabella of France. ↩
“Mercadera” translates directly from Catalan to “merchant,” despite what Google Translate might tell you (the fiend!). The original calls her “Na Mercadera,” which indicates she was the town’s only female merchant, and is perhaps best translated as “The Merchant” or “Our Merchant.” Thanks to arigata-the-neko on Tumblr for the help! ↩
That’s based on a modern-day picture of Peralada, and it may not be accurate as to what buildings were built when. Sorry! ↩
The translation I got a friend to do from the original Catalan said he was in a stream running between different farm plots. There’s an English translation that says it was a bit of a ravine. I had trouble picturing how that a stream detain a soldier for long, so I portrayed it as him having trouble with a disobedient horse. ↩
Apparently she did come outside with a spear, shield, and sword, all of which are described in the source text. ↩
The story makes a point of saying how she obeyed the laws of chivalry in allowing him to surrender, and then additionally heaps praise on her for bandaging him up — making a note how she’d done both masculine (warrior) and feminine (healer) acts. ↩
I love the idea that they made the French guy just perform over and over. In all likelihood they just kept him locked up, but I like this visual better. ↩

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Bessie Stringfield

July 28, 2017, 9:43 am

≫ Next: Mary Patten

≪ Previous: Mercadera

(important update: there’s been a lot more to come out about Bessie Stringfield than when I first wrote this; that’s relayed at the end of this article, but for more info on Bessie, visit biographer Ann Ferrar’s website at http://www.bessiestringfieldbiography.com)

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IMPORTANT UPDATE: Since first putting this online, the New York Times did a 2018 obituary on Bessie in which they tracked down some of her surviving relatives, who basically said she was telling tall tales on a number of finer points – nobody is trustworthy, haha! They claimed she was never adopted by white parents, and was not from Jamaica. Many of the stories of Bessie related in this telling (and virtually every other article on her) come courtesy of her official biographer, Ann Ferrar, who knew Bessie in life and wrote a few pages on her in her 1996 book Hear Me Roar: Women, Motorcycles, and the Rapture of the Road (which I cite below, in the citations). She is working on a longer biography of Bessie — you can find more info here: http://www.bessiestringfieldbiography.com

I’ll excerpt a bit from the New York Times obituary, explaining how these untruths came to dominate the dialog about Bessie:

Ferrar had passed on some of the misinformation of Stringfield’s early life, wanting to keep her legacy alive. Asked recently about these untruths, Ferrar wrote in an email, “Bessie’s running from her early past does not discount or in any way lessen her unusual achievements as an adult, and that is why Bessie continues to inspire new generations, and rightfully so.”

“She asked me to tell her truth as her friend,” Ferrar said in an interview.

Her birth mother, according to most sources, was a Dutch maid who died in childbirth. Her dad was West Indian. Bessie was born as Betsy Ellis in Kingston, Jamaica. They moved to Boston when she was young, and her birth dad gave her up for adoption at age five — however, as noted in a 2018 New York Times obituary on her, this is almost certainly a latter-day invention by Bessie herself. Nobody is trustworthy! ↩
There are virtually no details on her foster parents, aside from them being Irish. In one interview, Bessie even said that she wasn’t allowed to use her foster mother’s name. Again, this is likely an invention on her part, and this New York Times obituary claims she did not have foster parents, and that her parents were named Maggie Cherry and James White. ↩
I do not want to put too fine a point on her “standing out” — that is more a convention of the story and her character than the role of her race in her childhood. According to her, she had a pretty decent childhood: “Back in those days in Boston nobody gave it a second thought that a white woman had a colored child. There wasn’t all the racial trouble there then.” And once more: she probably didn’t actually have adoptive parents, as per this New York Times obituary. ↩
A devout Catholic who gave much credit for her ability to “The Man Upstairs,” Bessie claimed that Jesus had actually taught her how to drive in a dream: “One night in my sleep, I saw myself shifting gears and riding around the block. When I got out on the street, that’s just what I did!” ↩
She’d replace the Indian Scout with a sixty-one Harley. ↩
This was starting in 1925. The highway system wouldn’t be proposed until 1956. She only started doing longer distance rides around 1930, though. She did eight long distance solo rides between the 1930s and 1940s. In so doing, she became the first black woman to ride a motorcycle in everyone of the 48 contiguous United States, and made trips to Brazil, Haiti, and parts of Europe. ↩
The green book there is the Negro Motorcyclist Green Book, a guide used by people of color to navigate the treacherous waters of American travel in the era of segregation. It first came out in 1936, and while this page depicts her travels starting in 1930 or so, I assume she probably used it — would not be surprised if she helped contribute to it. ↩
One guy even gave her a free tank of gas, he was so impressed by her fortitude. Of the near-death experiences she had, she merely characterized it as “ups and downs.” ↩
The trick portrayed at the top was called the Wall of Death, and was a pretty common thing to see back in those days. ↩
The exact quote given in numerous sources was “N****r women are not allowed to ride motorcycles in Miami.” This was in 1932. ↩
This was Captain Robert Jackson, whom Bessie would take to calling Captain Jack. She gave different accounts of the tricks he asked her to perform – everything from figure eights to hopping off her moving bike, catching it, and remounting it. ↩
Two of her children died in childbirth, and the third died at four years old, causes unknown. They were all with her first husband. ↩
The identity of her husbands isn’t available in any sources. I know she taught two to ride, and at least one was in the military (she’d ride from base to base to visit him). Her third husband’s surname was Stringfield, and he told her to keep it, as he was sure she’d become famous. ↩
Some sources quote her as saying only got legitimately married five times — while others say she got married six times. My guess is that one, she counted as less than legitimate. She seemed to brush off the idea that she’d been married a ton, saying of the era, “If you kissed, you got married.” ↩
The interviewer in question was Miami Herald reporter Bea Hines. Yes, that art is based on her appearance in the 80s – the article ran in 1981. I do as much research as I can. ↩
This was in the 1950s, after she’d put down stunt riding and become a cook, then a nurse. The gang who gave her trouble was the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang, who rode straight up to her door. When asked why they hadn’t been invited, she said, “Because you don’t belong to the Motorcycle Association of America.” Of their reaction, she said, “It didn’t set too well with them, but they didn’t harm me.” ↩
She also had her first and only accident at age 64 in 1975. She hurt her arm and couldn’t use it for four years. ↩

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