Gerda Lerner

Today's AWESOME WOMAN is GERDA LERNER (b. 1920), a founding pioneer of the fields of Women's History and African-American History. She is currently a professor emerita of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University. She wrote the screenplay for Carl Lerner’s film Black Like Me in 1966.

Prior to her work, women figured in history books and courses only for their ritual status as defined by a patriarchal society (wives of Presidents), as spoilers (witches of Salem), or for their sacrifices and caregiving (Florence Nightingale). Even when women who had contributed tremendously to society's advancement and consciousness-raising (Sojourner Truth, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt), the radical substance of their work was routinely ignored.

At graduate school at Columbia University in 1963, Lerner defied her mentor's objections and chose to write her dissertation on the Grimké sisters, 19-century Quaker educators and social activists. She taught what is considered to be the first women’s history course at the New School for Social Research in 1963, and helped to develop Women's History programs at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University and other institutes of higher learning.

Beyond developing the critically important fields of study of Women's and African-American History, Lerner also contributed a new, rich paradigm for researching history by organizing her work around principles that would illuminate the lives of her subjects, focussing on the experience of people as opposed to using the patriarchal historical framework of military actions, alliances, wars, and territorial domination. For example, for her 1972 book "Black Women in White America," Lerner traveled throughout the South, visiting churches, schools and families.

Gerda Lerner was born in Vienna, Austria and was forced by the Nazis to leave her country of birth for the United States. She had to learn English and held a series of "typical women's jobs" before moving along into her life of political and intellectual trail-blazing, and also of creativity. She married Carl Lerner, a Communist theater director, and in addition to her activism and scholarship she also collaborate with Eve Merriam a musical called "Singing of Women", and she wrote the screenplay for the important film "Black Like Me".

Lerner not only made an immediate difference in communities and politics, and not only established and legitimized the study of women's and blacks' experience, but she improved forever the way we look at history and raised the bar for authors and teachers who have come after her.

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Elizabeth Blackwell

...and today's AWESOME WOMAN is.... drum-roll please... first fully accredited American physician, Elizabeth Blackwell!

Elizabeth Blackwell and her family emigrated to America from England in 1832. Blackwell worked as a teacher, then decided to be a doctor. After being turned down by several schools, she was finally admitted to Geneva Medical College (now Hobart and William Smith Colleges) in New York. Blackwell graduated in 1849. Becoming a "guiding star . . . to rebellious women everywhere," Blackwell was the first fully accredited female doctor and an ardent reformer of medical and social mores.

Although considered ridiculous, even dangerous, for pursuing a medical degree in the 1840s, Elizabeth Blackwell forced open the gates of that profession. She graduated in 1849, becoming the first woman to earn a medical degree and worked in hospitals in Europe then returned to New York in 1851 where she opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, a clinic with an all-female staff. She later founded the first medical school for women, which resulted in both greater acceptance of female physicians and stricter standards for medical schools as a whole. By the time of her death in 1910, the number of female doctors in the United States had risen to over 7,000.

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Kate Mullany

TODAY'S AWESOME WOMAN is Kate Mullany (1845-1906), who founded the Collar Laundry Union in 1864. This was the first bona fide female union in the United States. Mullany had moved from Ireland to Troy, New York as a young girl, and at age 19 went to work in the local laundry after her father died. Compensation was $3 per week for 12-14 hour days, six days a week.

Only months after beginning her job, the young Mullany decided to stand up against the low wages and unsafe conditions. She organized 300 women into the union and led a successful strike that resulted in pay increase and an improved workplace.

The word about Kate got around, and in 1868, she was appointed as assistant secretary of the National Labor Union, making her the first female to hold a national labor position. Later, she led an effort to create worker-owned cooperative shops, which failed due to economic pressures but she remained a prominent labor union leader.

As such, she fought to improve the lives of working-class people in her country, while her generally more patrician sisters took up the fight for voting rights. Mullany recognized the ties between economic justice and political power, and she collaborated with suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony in order to further the interests of America's workers.

The Kate Mullany House, at 350 8th Street in Troy, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1998, and became a National Historic Site in 2008. In 2000, Mullany was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. She has been honored by the New York State Senate, and her home is on the Women's Heritage Trail.

It is Labor Day today in the United States. Kate Mullany was one of the first of many women who, over many decades, risked their livelihood and even their lives to stand up and fight the exploitation of the country's workers.