AAUW San Jose

For day 4 of our annual 10-day Mighty Girl Halloween Costume Countdown, we present this mini Margaret Hamilton, the computer scientist and hero of the Apollo 11... mission to the moon! To learn more about Margaret Hamilton's incredible legacy, visit our blog post, "The Computer Scientist Who Saved the Moon Landing," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=20084 To share her inspiring story with children, we highly recommend the picture book "Margaret and the Moon" for ages 5 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/margaret-and-the-moon She is also featured in a fun activity book about pioneering women in technology, which includes a variety of hands-on STEM projects: "Gutsy Girls Go for Science: Programmers" for ages 8 to 11 at https://www.amightygirl.com/gutsy-girls-programmers Margaret Hamilton is also one of four trailblazing women of NASA featured in the "Women of NASA LEGO Building Set" at https://www.amightygirl.com/lego-women-of-nasa And, if you're looking for a fun and empowering costume for your Mighty Girl (or yourself), our 2020 Halloween Costume Guide features hundreds of options for all ages, infant through adult, on a variety of themes at https://www.amightygirl.com/halloween

No Time to Waste-Vote Today #AAUW_CA / #GOTV2020 / #Vote

Today in Mighty Girl history, Gertrude Ederle -- who as a 19-year-old became the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel and set a new world record... for the fastest swim -- was born in 1905. Growing up in New York City, Ederle began her training as a competitive swimmer at the time when women's swimming was becoming increasingly popular, in part due to the streamlining of the women's swimsuit which made swimming easier. In the 1920s, Ederle set numerous women's world freestyle records and American freestyle records and, on a single day in 1922, she broke seven such records at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. After a star showing at the 1924 Summer Olympics where she won a gold medal as a part of the U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team and bronze medals for finishing third in the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyle races, Ederle decided to tackle a new challenge -- the English Channel. By 1926, five men had swum the channel previously but none in less than 16 hours and 33 minutes. Ederle, who was coated in lanolin and grease during the swim to help her stay warm and protect against jellyfish, began her swim in rough waters Cape Gris-Nez, France and came ashore at Kingsdown, Kent, England 14 hours and 39 minutes later. Due to the roughness of the sea, Ederle swam 35 miles rather than the 21 miles straight across; yet, she still set a new world record for fastest channel swim by surpassing the previous record set by swimmer Enrique Tiraboschi. Upon returning to New York, she was greeted with a ticker-tape parade and an estimated two million people turned out to celebrate her grand accomplishment. Ederle passed away in 2003 at the age of 98. For an inspiring picture book about Ederle and her historic swim, we highly recommend "Trudy's Big Swim," for ages 5 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/trudy-s-big-swim For another uplifting picture book about this courageous trailblazer, check out "America's Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle," for ages 5 to 8 at https://www.amightygirl.com/america-s-champion For an excellent introduction to 50 pioneering female athletes, we also recommend the illustrated biography "Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win" for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/women-in-sports For more books for young readers that celebrate girls and women who love sports -- including numerous Olympians -- check out our "Sports & Games" section at http://amgrl.co/2zIJnDi And, for hundreds of books about real-life female trailblazers in a wide variety of fields, visit A Mighty Girl’s Role Models" biography section at https://www.amightygirl.com/boo/history-biography/biography

Final Final totals? Adding in Louise's and Elin's Letters to Voters and 70 postcards to infrequent voters of color in Texas through Reclaim our Vote, another non-partisan nonprofit, our AAUW San Jose Branch has contacted 2,225 infrequent voters around the country, urging them to vote in the November election. Thanks again to you all!

The next #SCOTUS Justice should be a fair-minded jurist vetted carefully by the Senate, yet this rapid pace is violating the public’s trust #OurCourt #WeDissent @AAUW https://www.aauw.org//two-min/just-and-fair-supreme-court/

If Roe ends a tremendous inequality in America

When Frances Perkins was a little girl, she asked her parents why nice people could be poor. Her father told her not to worry about those things, and that poor ...people were poor because they were lazy and drank. Eventually, she went to Mount Holyoke College, and majored in physics. In her final semester, she took a class in American economic history and toured the mills along the Connecticut River to see working conditions. She was horrified. Eventually, instead of teaching until she married, she earned a masters degree in social work from Columbia University. In 1910, Perkins became Executive Secretary of the New York City Consumers League. She campaigned for sanitary regulations for bakeries, fire protection for factories, and legislation to limit the working hours for women and children in factories to 54 hours per week. She worked mainly in New York State’s capital, Albany. Here, she made friends with politicians, and learned how to lobby. On March 25th, 1911, Frances was having tea with friends when they heard fire engines. They ran to see what was happening, and witnessed one of the worst workplace disasters in US history. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was devastating, killing 146 people, mostly young women and girls. Frances watched as fire escapes collapsed and fireman ladders couldn’t reach the women trapped by the flames. She watched 47 workers leap to their deaths from the 8th and 9th floors. Poignantly, just a year before these same women and girls had fought for and won the 54 hour work week and other benefits that Frances had championed. These women weren’t just tragic victims, they were heroes of the labor force. Frances at that moment resolved to make sure their deaths meant something. A committee to study reforms in safety in factories was formed, and Perkins became the secretary. The group took on not only fire safety, but all other health issues they could think of. Perkins, by that time a respected expert witness, helped draft the most comprehensive set of laws regarding workplace health and safety in the country. Other states started copying New York’s new laws to protect workers. Perkins continued to work in New York for decades, until she was asked by President Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 to serve as Secretary of Labor. She told him only if he agreed with her goals: 40-hour work week, minimum wage, unemployment and worker’s compensation, abolition of child labor, federal aid to the states for unemployment, Social Security, a revitalized federal employment service, and universal health insurance. He agreed. Similar to what she had worked for in New York, her successes became the New Deal, and changed the country and its workers forever. So while you may not know her name, you certainly know her legacy. See more

Ballots are coming in from over 98 drop boxes throughout Santa Clara County and ballots are collected from each location daily. Couriers who are trained members... of the Registrar of Voters’ staff are required to transport the ballots in pairs. There are over 218,068 ballots that have been received so far. Stay tuned as the numbers continue growing with your continuous efforts to vote early. #sccvotes See more

Approved unanimously!

Nellie McClung, the Canadian suffrage leader, politician, and social activist, was born on this day in 1873. McClung was instrumental in the campaign to make Ma...nitoba the first province in Canada to give women the vote and allow them to run for public office. She was also one of the "Famous Five", the group of Canadian women's rights activists who petitioned first the Canadian Supreme Court and then the British Privy Council to affirm that women were considered "persons" under the law. Despite receiving only six years of formal education, McClung was well-regarded as an author and speaker. When she and her family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1904, she quickly became a core member of Winnipeg's women's rights movement. At the end of World War I, McClung knew that the time was ripe to push women's rights forward, especially the case for women's suffrage. As a result of her efforts and those of her fellow women's rights activists, Manitoba became the first province to grant women's suffrage in 1916; the Government of Canada followed suit later that year. In 1927, McClung became one of the Famous Five, the five women's rights activists who signed the petition to the Supreme Court of Canada asking them to affirm that women were persons under the law. The petition ended up being sent to the British Privy Council, at that time the highest legal court in the British Empire. In 1929, only two days before McClung's 56th birthday, the Privy Council announced its decision -- women were, in fact, persons under the law and could both be appointed to the Senate and hold membership there. Although McClung never held a Senate post during her lifetime, in 2009, the Government of Canada officially declared her and the other members of the Famous Five honorary Senators of Canada. To introduce kids to inspiring female leaders from around the world, we recommend "She Persisted Around The World" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/she-persisted-around-the-world) and the illustrated biography "Rad Women Worldwide" for ages 10 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/rad-women-worldwide) These remarkable Canadian women are included in the books "The Kid's Book of Great Canadian Women" for ages 8 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/book-canadian-women) and "100 Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces," for ages 13 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/100-canadian-heroines) In honor of Canada Day, we released a blog post highlighting ten amazing Canadian women of past and present: True North Strong and Free: 15 Amazing Canadian Women at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12590 And, to inspire children and teens with more true stories of women leaders who have changed the world, visit our Role Models" biography section featuring hundreds of titles -- sortable by recommended reading age using our filter on the left menu -- at http://amgrl.co/2wRJudE

AAUW San Jose has been trying to get such a study of Title IX in Santa Clara County schools for many years. I wrote to the Supervisors this morning with AAUW San Jose's support. '