Happy National Quilting Day!

Did you know it was National Quilting Day? Well, quilt away. I just found the coolest thing. You can find the photo at the HappyCottageQuilter blog under the heading "Dreamin.." Can you believe it - it's a quilted car cover!!

March is also Women's History Month. I am presently reading the book "Not for Ourselves Alone," which was also a TV special by Ken Burns. It's about Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and their pioneering fight for women to achieve equal rights and the right to vote. Ken Burns mentions in the book that he was surprised how many people he asked didn't know anything about these women except to say Susan B. Anthony was on some coin, and they didn't even know why.

I grew up in the 70's when the fight was on for the Equal Rights Amendment, and when I did book reports in high school, they were always on a leader in women's rights. I feel like I've always known who these women are. So, I experimented and asked each of my sons, separately, if they knew either of these women. I'm sad to admit they had the same answer. They knew Susan B. was on a coin, but didn't know why, and didn't know who Elizabeth Cady Stanton was. When I say sad, I mean because I haven't done my job as a believer in women's rights if I haven't taught my sons about these women.

So I decided that as I read the book, I'm going to insert little tidbits here and there about women. In the meantime, You can read President Obama's Presidential Proclamation on "Women taking the lead in Saving Our Planet" at the National Women's History Project website.

I'm posting this quiz from their website also. I'll post the answers tomorrow. Their slogan is "Our History is Our Strength." I love that.

Test Your Knowledge of Women's History

1. Who founded Bethune-Cookman College, established the National Council of Negro Women, and served as an advisor on minority affairs to President Franklin D. Roosevelt?

2. What woman was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. ?

3. What Black woman refused to give up her seat to a White man, in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, thus sparking the civil rights movement of the following decade?

4. Who was the first woman to run for President of the United States (1872)?

5. Who opened up social work as a profession for women, and also won the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize for her anti-war organizing work?

6. Which Mexican-American woman has repeatedly been the leading money winner in the Ladies Professional Golf Association?

7. Who was the first woman Poet Laureate of the United States?

8. Who was the first “First Lady” to have developed her own political and media identity?

9. Who wrote the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment, in 1923?

10. Who was the first Black woman elected to Congress?

11. What leading suffragist was arrested and convicted of attempting to vote in the 1872 election?

12. Who was the first Chinese-American woman ever elected to hold a statewide office in the United States?

13. What journalist traveled around the world in 72 days in 1890?

14. What woman was turned down by 29 medical schools before being accepted as a student, graduated at the head of her class, and became the first licensed woman doctor in the U.S.?

15. What former slave was a powerful speaker for the rights of women and Black people?

16. When was the Equal Rights Amendment first introduced into Congress?

17. Who was the last queen of the Hawaiian Islands, deposed because American business interests wanted to annex Hawaii to the U.S.?

18. Which woman was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for holding religious discussion meetings in her home?

19. Who spoke out for the advancement of American Indians’ rights from speaker’s platforms nationwide and before Congressional committees in the 1880s?

20. Who drove a stagecoach across the roughest part of the West without anyone knowing until she died that she was a woman?

21. Who was the first Hispanic woman to serve as U.S. Treasurer?

22. Who was the Shoshone Indian woman who served as guide and interpreter on the Lewis and Clark expedition?

23. Who was Chair of the Board and publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine, and also oversaw six broadcasting stations?

24. About 20,000 women shirtwaist workers staged a strike for better working conditions. Their action was called the “Uprising of the 20,000.” When and where did his strike occur?

25. When did officials of Little League Baseball announce that they would “defer to the changing social climate” and let girls play on their teams?

26. As vice president of the United Farm Workers, what woman has been vital in speaking for civil and economic rights for farm workers throughout the U.S.?

27. When did Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 go into effect, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded school programs and activities?

28. What woman was invited to teach nuclear physics at Princeton University, even though no female students were allowed to study there?

29. What woman served as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, freeing hundreds of southern slaves and leading them to safety in the North? A $40,000 reward was offered for her capture.

30. What woman is credited with helping free more than 2,000 Chinese women and children smuggled into San Francisco to be sold as slaves?

31. Who was the first African-American woman poet to have her works published?