Podcasts about national women's hall of fame

On today's podcast, automakers aim to design electric cars with fewer rare earth metals; coral reefs in the Gulf of Mexico are doing well; the grammar of talking about pets followed by a discussion on those family friends; then famous women placed in the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Joy Harjo and Joel connect in this dusted off, older episode, to open and discuss our shared human experience in its different forms and the pervading spirit found in mountains and rivers, water and air, in people and the Earth. The shared community we live in calls us to understand our actions affect others and the Earth. Joy and Joel discuss spirituality, Joy's history and development as an artist, shared responsibility for our communities, Native teachings, Buddhism, Joy's plays, music, poetry, and art. Also discussed were generational influences and wisdom and how in years past there was a closer connection to our heart and mind. Joy and Joel also discuss the intelligence of the body and how common sense is spirituality, expressed. Joy and Joel share many aspects of spirituality and life, and conclude reflecting on Joy's Eagle Poem. The end of the talk mentions Maj Ragain and A Gathering of Poets commemorating in 1990 the 20th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State, which introduced Joel to Joy Harjo's work. Biography of Joy Harjo: Joy Har­jo, the 23rd Poet Lau­re­ate of the Unit­ed States, is a mem­ber of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hick­o­ry Ground). As a poet, activist, and musician, Joy Harjo's work has won countless awards. In 2019, Harjo became the first Native American United States Poet Laureate in history and is only the second poet to be appointed for three terms. In addition to her many books of poetry, she has written several books for young audiences and released seven award-winning music albums. Harjo is a founding board member and Chair of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and, in 2019, was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She has since been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, National Native American Hall of Fame, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Harjo currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma where she serves as the first Artist-in-Residency of the Bob Dylan Center.

Craig Shreve was born and raised in North Buxton, Ontario, a small town that has been recognized by the Canadian government as a National Historic Site due to its former status as a popular terminus on the Underground Railroad. He is a descendant of Abraham Doras Shadd, the first Black person in Canada to be elected to public office, and of his daughter Mary Ann Shadd, the pioneering abolitionist, suffragette, and newspaper editor/publisher who was inducted posthumously into the National Women's Hall of Fame in the United States. Craig has volunteered internationally on humanitarian building projects, and is a keen outdoor sports enthusiast – including climbing, hang gliding, caving, and other terrifying activities. Craig is the author of One Night in Mississippi and a graduate of the School for Writers at Humber College. His latest novel is The African Samurai, published by Sribner Canada which has already been optioned by Netflix. Craig will be one of the spotlight authors featured  during BookFest/Festival du Livre Windsor 2023, happening October 12th-15th in Windsor.For more information: https://craigshreve.com/bioAvailable from: https://www.simonandschuster.ca/authors/Craig-Shreve/191441634and your favourite independent bookstore.For more information about BookFest / Festival du Livre Windsor : https://www.literaryartswindsor.ca/bookfest/

What are the barriers to inclusion? Gena Cox, the author of Leading Inclusion, discusses her book, these barriers, and how to build a real Culture of Engagement. Is belonging the right word for culture? Gena gives her perspective on this as well. Listen Here!Buy Leading Inclusion: Drive Change Your Employees Can See and Feel#SponsoredbooklinkConnect with Gena:WebsiteLinkedInGena's Bio:Dr. Gena Cox's nuanced insights and straightforward-yet-relatable style are why leaders seek her counsel. She is an organizational psychologist, executive coach, and speaker who blends research and real-world insights to help leaders enhance their influence and impact. Gena is the author of Leading Inclusion, an award-winning guidebook for building inclusive organizations from the top down. As a prominent voice on human-centered leadership, she guides leaders as they respond to evolving stakeholder expectations. Gena believes “diversity and inclusion” are nothing more than effective leadership and healthy work cultures. Her mottos are “Inclusion tops diversity“ and “Respect is the vital outcome all employees need to see and feel.”Before this, at IBM and Perceptyx, Gena advised leaders in the Fortune 500 and other large global companies to build psychologically healthy and engaging organizational cultures that drive business outcomes. And she held internal corporate leadership roles in organizational consulting and talent assessment, selection, and acquisition.Gena co-chairs the Awards Committee of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and is a member of the Society's 2022 Leading Edge Consortium Planning Committee. She is a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame 2023 Inductee Selection Committee.Gena's work has been featured far and wide, including Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Fast Company, Forbes, Business Insider, Market Watch/Barrons, Business Journals, BBC Worklife, Readers Digest, and The Telegraph (UK).Gena holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational (I-O) Psychology. She is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). She is an International Coach Federation (ICF) Professional Certified Coach (PCC).Support the show

Many people have never heard of Sarah Winnemucca, but they really should have. Sarah was born amongst the Paiute people at a time when Americans were flocking west by the thousands and causing lots of issues for Native Americans. Sarah's family sought out a strategy of being kind and helpful to settlers coming west, and as a child, she performed shows to teach settlers about her culture. Despite much hardship as an adult, she would go on to lecture and write about her people and was one of the first Native American women to write an autobiography. Join me and learn more about this remarkable lady! Bibliography Aliano, Kelly. “Life Story: Sarah Winnemucca.” Women & the American Story, November 15, 2022. https://wams.nyhistory.org/expansions-and-inequalities/westward-expansion/sarah-winnemucca/. Contributors to Wikimedia projects. “Sarah Winnemucca.” Wikipedia, June 17, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Winnemucca. ———. “Truckee (Chief).” Wikipedia, July 1, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truckee_(chief). ———. “Winnemucca (Paiute Leader).” Wikipedia, May 28, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnemucca_(Paiute_leader). Eves, Rosalyn. “Sarah Winnemucca Devoted Her Life to Protecting Native Americans in the Face of an Expanding United States.” Smithsonian Magazine, July 27, 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sarah-winnemucca-devoted-life-protecting-lives-native-americans-face-expanding-united-states-180959930/. “Northern Paiute Chiefs and Leaders.” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://www.idahogenealogy.com/indian/northern_paiute_chiefs_leaders.htm. New World Encyclopedia. “Sarah Winnemucca.” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sarah_Winnemucca. “Sarah Winnemucca – First Wave Feminisms.” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://sites.uw.edu/twomn347/2022/11/13/sarah-winnemucca/. “SARAH WINNEMUCCA – Nevada Women's History Project.” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://nevadawomen.org/research-center/biographies-alphabetical/sarah-winnemucca/. “Sarah Winnemucca (1844?-1891).” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/sarah_winnemucca/. “Sarah Winnemucca (U.S. National Park Service).” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://www.nps.gov/people/sarah-winnemucca.htm. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Sarah Winnemucca.” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 20, 1998. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sarah-Winnemucca. “The Paiutes: History.” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://utahindians.org/archives/paiutes/history.html. “The Shoshone – Continuing the Traditions of Their Ancestors – Legends of America.” Accessed July 7, 2023. https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-shoshone/. The National Women's Hall of Fame. “Winnemucca, Sarah - National Women's Hall of Fame,” February 20, 2015. https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/sarah-winnemucca/.

Ann Bancroft ficou conhecida por ser a primeira mulher a participar de expedições no Ártico e Antártida, e por conduzir as primeiras expedições polares exclusivamente femininas. A aventureira nasceu em 1955, em uma família da zona rural de Minnesota, nos Estados Unidos. Apesar de uma batalha contra a dislexia e dificuldades de aprendizagem, concluiu a faculdade e se tornou professora de educação física e instrutora de sobrevivência em ambientes selvagens. Quando uma oportunidade para participar de uma expedição polar surgiu, em 1986, Bancroft largou seu emprego para se jogar de cabeça no projeto. Saindo da Ilha Ellesmare, no Canadá, a “Steger International Polar Expedition” levou 56 dias para chegar ao Polo Norte. Os seis integrantes da expedição fizeram o trajeto inteiramente a pé, ou em trenós puxados por cães. AB se tornou a primeira mulher a chegar ao Polo Norte nessas condições. Em 1992, ela conduziu quatro mulheres com skis pelo Polo Sul, liderando a primeira expedição polar 100% feminina. AB foi a primeira mulher a visitar os dois polos, e em 2001 se tornou a primeira mulher a cruzar a Antártida esquiando, percorrendo quase 3 mil quilômetros. Ativista ambiental e da causa LGBT+, Ann Bancroft teve seu nome incluído no Hall da Fama de mulheres norte-americanas (National Women's Hall of Fame) por conta de suas aventuras

Lucy Stone is sometimes written about as the person who should be mentioned alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony. She lived an incredibly unique life for a woman of her time and station.   Research: Michals, Debra “Lucy Stone.” National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/lucy-stone Million, Joelle. “Woman's Voice, Woman's Place: Lucy Stone and the Birth of the Woman's Rights Movement.” Praeger. 2003. Kerr, Andrea Moore. “Lucy Stone: Speaking Out for Equality.” Rutgers University Press. 1992. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780813518602/page/n323/mode/2up Blackwell, Henry B. “What the South can do. How the Southern states can make themselves masters of the situation. To the legislatures of the Southern states.” New York. Robert J. Johnston, printer. January 15, 1867. Library of Congress: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/rbc/rbpe/rbpe12/rbpe127/12701100/12701100.pdf Tucker, Neely. “Stone/Blackwell Marriage: To Love And Honor, But Not ‘Obey.'” Library of Congress Blog. May 5, 2020. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2020/05/stone-blackwell-marriage-to-love-and-honor-but-not-obey/ com Editors. “Lucy Stone.” Biography. Com. Nov. 23, 2021. https://www.biography.com/activists/lucy-stone Smith, Bonnie Hurd. “Lucy Stone.” Boston Women's Heritage Trail. https://bwht.org/lucy-stone/ “Lucy Stone.” National Women's Hall of Fame. https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/lucy-stone/ “Garrisonians.” Vermont Christian Messenger. Jan. 30, 1850. https://www.newspapers.com/image/490750662/?terms=%22Lucy%20Stone%22&match=1 Hays, Elinor. “Morning Star.” New York. Harcourt, Brace & World. 1961. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/morningstar00hays/page/n7/mode/2up Lang, Allison. “The 14th and 15th Amendments.” National Women's History Museum. Fall 2015. https://www.crusadeforthevote.org/14-15-amendments/ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Lucy Stone". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Oct. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lucy-Stone Wheeler, Marjoeiw Spruill. “New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States.” Oxford University Press. 1993. McMillen, Sally Gregory. “Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life.” Oxford University Press. 2015. “Love and Protest in a Marriage.” Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/women-fight-for-the-vote/about-this-exhibition/seneca-falls-and-building-a-movement-1776-1890/family-friends-and-the-personal-side-of-the-movement/love-and-protest-in-a-suffrage-marriage/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Blackfeet activist is among eight women who will be inducted later this year into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Today, Lori is interviewing Patricia Leavy. They'll be talking about her book, Hollyland, and the science behind the art of writing. Patricia Leavy, PhD, is an award-winning, best-selling author. She was formerly Associate Professor of Sociology, Chairperson of Sociology & Criminology, and Founding Director of Gender Studies at Stonehill College. She has published more than forty books; her work has been translated into many languages, and she has received more than forty book honors. She has also received career awards from the New England Sociological Association, the American Creativity Association, the American Educational Research Association, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and the National Art Education Association. In 2018, she was honored by the National Women's Hall of Fame and SUNY-New Paltz established the “Patricia Leavy Award for Art and Social Justice.” You can find her on her website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.   In this episode Patricia Leavy and Lori discuss: The neuroscience behind reader engagement. How her sociology background influences the way she develops characters. Exploring the beauty of writing by muscle memory as opposed to convention.   Plus, her #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/455

Abigail Adams is often a name heard after you mention her husband John Adams but she was so much more than the wife of a president. Abigail was a forward thinking woman who wanted better for her children and was staunch abolitionist. Join me and my first ever podcast collab guests Aubrey and Emily of the National Treasure Hunt podcast to hear the story of this amazing woman. Abigail Adams – History's Women.” Accessed December 15, 2022. https://historyswomen.com/early-america/abigail-adams/. “Abigail Adams Biography :: National First Ladies' Library.” Accessed December 15, 2022. http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=2. The White House. “Abigail Smith Adams,” January 12, 2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/abigail-smith-adams/. The National Women's Hall of Fame. “Adams, Abigail - National Women's Hall of Fame,” February 20, 2015. https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/abigail-adams/. Biography. “Abigail Adams.” Biography, April 28, 2017. https://www.biography.com/us-first-lady/abigail-adams. Contributors to Wikimedia projects. “Abigail Adams.” Wikipedia, December 4, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Adams. ———. “John Adams.” Wikipedia, December 15, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams. History.com Editors. “Abigail Adams.” HISTORY, October 27, 2009. https://www.history.com/topics/first-ladies/abigail-adams. 5 April 1776. “Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March.” Accessed December 15, 2022. https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17760331aa.

We had the fantastic opportunity to speak with Dr. Temple Grandin. We are in awe of her wisdom and learned so much not only about her path in this world but the path our children take. A life-changing experience for the five of us at the Table. We discussed sensory input, the frustration around communication, giving limited choices, transitions to adulthood, and how when you are looking for nothing, you might see everything. Dr. Temple Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed for handling livestock are used by many companies around the world. She has also been instrumental in implementing animal welfare auditing programs used by Mcdonalds', Wendy's, Whole Foods, and other corporations. Temple has appeared on numerous TV shows, such as 20/20 and Prime Time. Her books include Thinking in Pictures, Livestock Handling and Transport, and The Autistic Brain. Her books Animals in Translation and Visual Thinking have been on the New York Times Bestseller List. Temple was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in September 2017 and, in 2022, was named a Colorado State University Distinguished Professor. "Single most important picture that the Hubble took, and I learned about the story behind, and I wrote about the story behind that and wrote about it in my Visual Thinking Book. The scientist who did that wanted to take 10 days of precious observing time and point the Hubble at nothing, at nothing, and reviewers went you can't waste time doing that. When he pointed it nothing, he saw everything." Temple Grandin Her most recent book discussed in the episode: Visual Thinking: 9781846046872: Amazon.com: Books Other books: Amazon.com: The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum eBook : Grandin, Temple, Panek, Richard: Kindle Store Amazon.com: Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism eBook : Grandin, Temple, Oliver Sacks: Kindle Store Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals First, Grandin, Temple, Johnson, Catherine - Amazon.com Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (Scribner Classics): Grandin Ph.D., Temple, Johnson Ph.D., Catherine: 9781439187104: Amazon.com: Books The Outdoor Scientist: The Wonder of Observing the Natural World: Grandin PhD, Temple: 9780593115565: Amazon.com: Books Find Temple Grandin on Facebook: (2) Dr. Temple Grandin | Facebook and her website Welcome to Temple Grandin's Official Autism Website --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tableforfive/support

Temple Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University and she is a driving force behind the implementation of animal welfare and auditing programs used by restaurants like Whole Foods, Wendy's and McDonalds to name a few. She has several books including: Visual Thinking, Thinking in Pictures, Livestock Handling and Transport and The Autistic Brain. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in September 2017 and in 2022 was named a Colorado State University Distinguished Professor. She has been featured on many different shows including Larry King Live, 20/20, and Prime Time.   In today's episode, host Shay Beider welcomes Temple Grandin as they discuss brain variability, the school system and label locking. Temple talks about the different patterns of thinking, including visual, verbal and auditory, and the importance of understanding how these work together and individually. Temple discusses how to help children who struggle with sensory overload and how to implement different strategies to regain a sense of control. Finally, she shares personal experiences from her teenage years and how she was able to overcome bullying by finding friends who shared her interests and work that stimulated her.   Transcripts for this episode are available at: https://www.integrativetouch.org/conversations-on-healing    Show Notes: Check out Temple Grandin's website here Find Temple's newest book Read Thinking in Pictures here Look into Livestock Handling and Transport Read The Autistic Brain Check out Animals in Translation book Read Visual Thinking here   This podcast was created by Integrative Touch, which is working to change the way people experience healthcare. A leader in the field of pediatric integrative medicine, the organization supports families whose children have any type of special health or medical need. This includes kids with cancers, genetic conditions, autism, cerebral palsy, traumatic stress, and other serious health issues. The founder, Shay Beider, pioneered a new therapy called Integrative Touch™Therapy that supports healing from trauma and serious illness. The organization reaches thousands of people each year and is opening a new healing center in 2023. Thanks to the incredible support of volunteers and contributors, individuals are able to receive wellness education and integrative medical services at little or no cost.  

Dr. Peterson's extensive catalog is available now on DailyWire+: https://utm.io/ueSXh Dr Jordan B Peterson and Temple Grandin discuss the pros and cons of visual and verbal thinking, as well as categorization, animal welfare, targeted activism, and the importance of hands-on learning opportunities. Temple Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed for handling livestock are used by companies all around the world. Her work has also been instrumental in implementing animal welfare auditing programs, now used by McDonalds, Wendy's, Whole Foods, and many other major corporations. Temple has appeared on numerous shows across platforms, such as 20/20, Larry King Live, and Prime Time. Grandin is an accomplished author, with books such as Thinking in Pictures, Livestock Handling and Transport, and The Autistic Brain. A few of her other publications, Animals in Translation, as well as Visual Thinking, have even made it to the New York Times Bestseller List. In 2017, Grandin was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and in 2022 she was honored once again as a Colorado State Distinguished Professor.  - Sponsors - Black Rifle Coffee: Get 10% off your first order or Coffee Club subscription with code JORDAN: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Exodus90: Is it time for your Exodus? Find resources to prepare at https://exodus90.com/jordan.  - Links - For Temple Grandin Visual Thinking (Book): https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Thinking-Pictures-Patterns-Abstractions/dp/0593418360 Grandin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtemplegrandin Grandin's website: https://www.templegrandin.com/  - Chapters - (0:00) Coming up(1:00) Intro(3:00) Visual thinking and categorization(6:32) Thinking in words, comparative invention(8:50) Associative thinking, dreams(12:00) Thought process(13:00) Autism, things out of place(16:40) Skill loss, screened out(20:00) Two types of visual thinking(24:50) Skillsets geared toward visual thinkers(26:00) Grandin demonstrates associative thinking(28:15) Dreams and association webs(30:50) Cohen, shop taken out of schools(33:45) Virtualization, exposure learning(36:30) Removed from the practical(38:00) Citations, proof(41:30) Recommendations for visual thinkers(46:23) Working in tandem(47:50) Broad and pointed design(55:40) Gap between the practical and abstract(59:30) Competition, neuro diversity(1:02:00) Privileging of the semantic(1:04:00) Vintage textbooks, object visualization(1:07:00) Mechanics are not being replenished(1:08:30) Fragility of our power grid(1:10:40) Behavior of cows, follow the leader(1:16:45) Stopping cattle, novel attractors(1:18:50) Voluntary exposure(1:23:55) Humane slaughter, distress(1:27:00) How the plants work(1:28:20) Grandin on her early career(1:33:35) Animal welfare, targeted activism(1:36:40) Why cattle?(1:38:34) Facing fear and backdoors  // SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL //Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/jordanbpeterson.com/youtubesignupDonations: https://jordanbpeterson.com/donate // COURSES //Discovering Personality: https://jordanbpeterson.com/personalitySelf Authoring Suite: https://selfauthoring.comUnderstand Myself (personality test): https://understandmyself.com // BOOKS //Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life: https://jordanbpeterson.com/Beyond-Order12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-lifeMaps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: https://jordanbpeterson.com/maps-of-meaning // LINKS //Website: https://jordanbpeterson.comEvents: https://jordanbpeterson.com/eventsBlog: https://jordanbpeterson.com/blogPodcast: https://jordanbpeterson.com/podcast // SOCIAL //Twitter: https://twitter.com/jordanbpetersonInstagram: https://instagram.com/jordan.b.petersonFacebook: https://facebook.com/drjordanpetersonTelegram: https://t.me/DrJordanPetersonAll socials: https://linktr.ee/drjordanbpeterson #JordanPeterson #JordanBPeterson #DrJordanPeterson #DrJordanBPeterson #DailyWirePlus #csu #coloradostateuniversity #autism #livestock #animalcruelty #motivation #visuallearning #dreams #education

On the latest 51%, we tune into the induction ceremony for the latest class of the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. We also sit down with bestselling history author Katie Hickman to discuss her new book Brave Hearted: The Women of the American West. Guest: Katie Hickman, author of Brave Hearted: The Women of the American West You can learn more about the National Women's Hall of Fame here. 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It is hosted by Jesse King. Our associate producer is Jody Cowan, and our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock. Our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon. When she did this in 1967, let's just say that men were not ready for women to have this much equality. Because during the race, the race manager Jock Semple assaulted her by running up behind her and attempting to rip her bib number off of her shirt in order to disqualify her from the race. Switzer's boyfriend who was running alongside her was able to shove Semple to the ground and Switzer was able to finish the race. Following this incident, the Amateur Athletic Union (the governing body) would officially ban women from competing in long-distance running until 1972! Although we will be spending a lot of time talking about this infuriating setback in History, I do want to give a sneak peek to the ending so that we can all at least look forward to the eventual light at the end of the tunnel: Switzer would continue to run competitively and would even win the New York City Marathon in 1974, she would be named Female Runner of the Decade by Runner's World Magazine, she became an author, was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2011, would actually end up becoming good friends with the race manager that tried to kick her out of the race, and - finally - in 2017, on the 50th anniversary of running the Boston Marathon that first time around, Switzer would run the race again - for the ninth time! - and would be assigned the same bib number that she had when she ran it that first monument, groundbreaking time in 1967. Follow Hashtag History on Instagram @hashtaghistory_podcast for all of the pictures mentioned in this episode. Citations for all sources can be located on our website at www.HashtagHistory-Pod.com. You can also check out our website for super cute merch! You can now sponsor a cocktail and get a shout-out on air! Just head to www.buymeacoffee.com/hashtaghistory or head to the Support tab on our website! You can locate us on www.Patreon.com/hashtaghistory where you can donate $1 a month to our Books and Booze Supply. All of your support goes a long ways and we are endlessly grateful! To show our gratitude, all Patreon Supporters receive an automatic 15% OFF all merchandise in our merchandise store, bonus Hashtag Hangouts episodes, a shoutout on social media, and stickers! Check out Macy's delicious wine here → https://glnk.io/rpln/hashtaghistory-podcast #macyswineshop THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Oprah Gail Winfrey (/ˈoʊprə/; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century, was once the world's only black billionaire, and the greatest black philanthropist in U.S. history. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world.Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a single teenage mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teenage years and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Nashville, Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high school. By 19, she was a co-anchor for the local evening news. Winfrey's often emotional, extemporaneous delivery eventually led to her transfer to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company.By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, mindfulness, and spirituality. Though she has been criticized for unleashing a confession culture, promoting controversial self-help ideas, and having an emotion-centered approach, she has also been praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. Winfrey also emerged as a political force in the 2008 presidential race, with her endorsement of Barack Obama estimated to have been worth about one million votes during the 2008 Democratic primaries. In 2013, Winfrey was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama and received honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard. In 2008, she formed her own network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).Credited with creating a more intimate, confessional form of media communication, Winfrey popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue. In 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Winfrey has won many accolades throughout her career which includes 18 Daytime Emmy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Chairman's Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, including the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, a Tony Award, a Peabody Award and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, awarded by the Academy Awards and two additional Academy Award nominations. Winfey was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.

Victoria Jackson is the CEO of Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, a massive global cosmetics brand with over 600 beauty products and a billion dollars in sales. Along with Ellen Degeneres, Victoria is the co-founder of Kind Science, a skincare brand with a focus on not only being kind to your skin, but to the environment as well. She is also the founder of the Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation, which works to find a cure for neuromyelitis optica. Listen in as Victoria shares her incredible story of perseverance, self-discovery, and personal growth.  Timestamped show notes 02:21 - Bigger reasons 05:09 - Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation 06:17 - National Women's Hall of Fame 07:56 - Career as an author 10:03 - Tips for women entrepreneurs 11:09 - Finding and using your voice 13:43 - Cultivating resilience and perseverance 14:52 - Mentors 17:11 - Kind Science 19:09 - Having a business partner 20:59 - 0 to 1 billion 22:47 - Are entrepreneurs born or made 23:25 - Tips for mom entrepreneurs 26:42 - Looking at 2022 28:50 - Asking for help 30:03 - Using your voice Links NMO Resources: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nmo-resources/id1032001786 Guthy Jackson Foundation: https://guthyjacksonfoundation.org/ Kind Science: https://www.kindscience.com/

“Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.” Maggie Kuhn Elder rights activist & founder of the Gray Panthers   The Artwork: Maggie Kuhn's portrait in the Fearless Portrait project consists of an ink drawing of her Ink drawing on a map of Philadelphia, PA, where she lived and worked.   The Story: In 1970, Maggie Kuhn was working a job she loved at the Presbyterian Church when she was forced to retire due to the mandatory retirement age of 65. Despite 20 years of work for the church, her supervisors refused to let her stay on.  “I felt dazed. I was hurt and then, as time passed, outraged. Something clicked in my mind and I saw that my problem was not mine alone. Instead of sinking into despair, I did what came most naturally to me: I telephoned some friends and called a meeting,” she later wrote in her autobiography, No Stone Unturned, The Life and Times of Maggie Kuhn. Each of the meeting attendees was also being forced into retirement. “We discovered we had new freedom as a result of retiring,” wrote Kuhn. “We had no responsibility to a corporation or organization. We could take risks, speak out. We said, ‘With this new freedom we have, let's see what we can do to change the world.'” So, Kuhn and her friends created a movement. Initially given the ungainly name of Consultation of Older and Younger Adults for Social Change, the group was dubbed the Gray Panthers by a talk show host who quipped they were as militant as the Black Panthers. The moniker stuck and the Gray Panthers quickly carved out an advocacy niche. One hundred people attended its first public meeting.  The Gray Panthers worked to fight the idea of “disengagement theory,” a popular idea in the 70s that argued old age involved a necessary separation from work, families, communities, and general society as a prelude to death.  Kuhn believed this was nonsense, saying, “The first myth is that old age is a disease, a terrible disease that you never admit you've got, so you lie about your age. Well, it's not a disease—it's a triumph. Because you've survived. Failure, disappointment, sickness, loss—you're still here.” As a living refutation of the disengagement theory, Kuhn became a national celebrity, appearing on TV frequently and giving talks all over the US in her role as National Convener of the Panthers. She logged 100,000 miles annually, traveling from one event to another. Her grueling schedule was partly fueled through her motto of “do at least one outrageous thing a day.” In a full circle moment for Kuhn, the Gray Panthers were ultimately successful in getting Congress to ban mandatory retirement for most jobs in 1986. President Ronald Reagan—then the oldest ever President of the United States, signed the law.  Still extant today, the Gray Panthers' membership has declined as it faces stiff competition from AARP.   Background on Kuhn: Although she founded the Gray Panthers in response to mandatory retirement in 1970, Kuhn began advocating for elder rights in 1961 as an extension of her lifelong interest in human rights.  Kuhn attributed her activism to her sociology classes in college, saying, “Sociology, for me, related the community to the individual, and showed us a way to act responsibly in groups.” After attending the 1961 White House Conference on Aging in her professional capacity with the Presbyterian Church, she began visiting Presbyterian retirement homes and was dismayed with how she saw residents treated. As editor of the Presbyterian journal “Social Progress,” she encouraged church members to get involved with elder issues among a wide swath of social problems such as nuclear proliferation, gender equality and more.  After living a life of advocacy, her advice to activists interested in creating social change was to “Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind—even if your voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants.” Kuhn was born on August 3, 1095 in Buffalo, New York to a conservative middle class family. She died at her home in Philadelphia on April 22, 1995, at the age of 89.    Music: This episode contains music by Geovane Bruno, Oleksii Kaplunskyi, Musictown, and Sergei Chetnertnykh.   Sources: Douglas, S. J. (2020, September 9). Opinion | The Forgotten History of the Radical ‘Elders of the Tribe.' The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/opinion/sunday/gray-panthers-maggie-kuhn.html  Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). Maggie Kuhn | American activist. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maggie-Kuhn  Folkart, B. A. (2019, March 5). Maggie Kuhn, 89; Iconoclastic Founder of Gray Panthers. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-04-23-mn-58042-story.html  Gray Panthers. (n.d.). Maggie Kuhn. Gray Panthers NYC. https://www.graypanthersnyc.org/maggie-kuhn  Kuhn, M. (1991). No Stone Unturned: The Life and Times of Maggie Kuhn (1st ed.). Ballantine Books. Levy, C. (1995, April 23). Gray Panthers Co-Founder Maggie Kuhn Dies At 89. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/04/23/gray-panthers-co-founder-maggie-kuhn-dies-at-89/a7c55189-b388-4e95-aafe-0d7d9a9163a1/  Roberts, S. V. (1986, October 18). HOUSE VOTES TO END MANDATORY RETIREMENT RULES. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/18/us/house-votes-to-end-mandatory-retirement-rules.html  The National Women's Hall of Fame. (2015, October 17). Kuhn, Maggie. National Women's Hall of Fame. https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/maggie-kuhn/  Wikipedia contributors. (2021, December 7). Gray Panthers. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Panthers  Wikipedia contributors. (2022, February 1). Maggie Kuhn. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Kuhn Your Dictionary. (n.d.). Maggie Kuhn. YourDictionary.Com. https://biography.yourdictionary.com/maggie-kuhn

BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for April 27.Coretta Scott King was born.She was an American civil rights activist who was the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.She graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and in 1951 enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. While working toward a degree in voice, she met Martin Luther King, Jr., then a graduate theology student at Boston University.  Coretta Scott King joined her husband in civil rights activism in the 1950s and '60s, taking part in the Montgomery bus boycott (1955) and efforts to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.Following the assassination of her husband in 1968 and the conviction of James Earl Ray for the murder, she continued to be active in the civil rights movement.She founded in Atlanta the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which was led at the turn of the 21st century by her son Dexter.She was the recipient of various honors and tributes both before and after her death. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2011.Learn black history, teach black history at blackfacts.com 

On this week's 51%, we recognize Women's History Month. We learn about Sarah Smiley, a controversial Quaker minister who dared to preach to women — and men — in the 19th Century, and Nancy Brown of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites provides a more local lens on the women's suffrage movement. We also stop by the New York State Museum to learn about a new initiative to expand its collection on women's sports. Guests: Samantha Bosshart, executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation; Nancy Brown, National Collaborative for Women's History Sites; Ashley Hopkins-Benton, New York State Museum 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for joining us, I'm Jesse King. All month long, we've recognized Women's History Month by taking the time to learn about prominent American women, past and present. At the end of each episode, we visited exhibits at the New York State Capitol and spoke with the National Women's Hall of Fame. This week, I wanted to take a more local approach — mostly because, as a transplant in Central New York, I'm forever catching up on my Capital Region history, but also to serve as a reminder about the wealth of history that's right in our local communities. We're also flipping the script this week — rather than ending with a “woman you should know,” let's start with one. At the end of last year, the city council of Saratoga Springs, New York, unanimously voted to designate a small cottage on Excelsior Avenue a local landmark. The Smiley-Brackett Cottage, as it's called, is thought to be a prime example of the Gothic Revival style of architecture popularized by Andrew Jackson Downing in the 19th Century — but it's also noteworthy for those who lived there. The house was owned by and built for Sarah Smiley, a popular, yet controversial Quaker minister.  "She really had this significant impact, I think, on women and public speaking," says Samantha Bosshart, executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. The Foundation led the effort to acquire the local landmark designation. Smiley was born the daughter of a well-known Quaker family in Maine in 1830 (her father and brothers would go on to build the popular Mohonk Mountain House resort in the Catskills, which still operates today). She initially sought to become a teacher, but after the Civil War, Bosshart says Smiley went South to “relieve human suffering.”  "She traveled to Virginia and to North Carolina, aiding Quakers in organizing schools and libraries," Bosshart notes. "She helped to start a school for 1,000 free Black adults and children in Richmond, Virginia — but that's not really what made her well-known. She later spoke to what they called 'mixed audiences,' and when we say 'mixed audiences,' we're talking about men and women. Women did not speak in front of a congregation, that just wasn't happening." In 1872, popular minister Theodore Cuyler invited Smiley to preach before a mixed congregation at the Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn — making her the first woman to speak from a Presbyterian pulpit. "This caused a ruckus," says Bosshart. "This made Harper's Weekly news, and she was said to 'teach and to extort, or to lead in prayer in publ

On this week's 51%, we recognize Women's History Month. We learn about Sarah Smiley, a controversial Quaker minister who dared to preach to women — and men — in the 19th Century, and Nancy Brown of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites provides a more local lens on the women's suffrage movement. We also stop by the New York State Museum to learn about a new initiative to expand its collection on women's sports. Guests: Samantha Bosshart, executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation; Nancy Brown, National Collaborative for Women's History Sites; Ashley Hopkins-Benton, New York State Museum 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for joining us, I'm Jesse King. All month long, we've recognized Women's History Month by taking the time to learn about prominent American women, past and present. At the end of each episode, we visited exhibits at the New York State Capitol and spoke with the National Women's Hall of Fame. This week, I wanted to take a more local approach — mostly because, as a transplant in Central New York, I'm forever catching up on my Capital Region history, but also to serve as a reminder about the wealth of history that's right in our local communities. We're also flipping the script this week — rather than ending with a “woman you should know,” let's start with one. At the end of last year, the city council of Saratoga Springs, New York, unanimously voted to designate a small cottage on Excelsior Avenue a local landmark. The Smiley-Brackett Cottage, as it's called, is thought to be a prime example of the Gothic Revival style of architecture popularized by Andrew Jackson Downing in the 19th Century — but it's also noteworthy for those who lived there. The house was owned by and built for Sarah Smiley, a popular, yet controversial Quaker minister.  "She really had this significant impact, I think, on women and public speaking," says Samantha Bosshart, executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. The Foundation led the effort to acquire the local landmark designation. Smiley was born the daughter of a well-known Quaker family in Maine in 1830 (her father and brothers would go on to build the popular Mohonk Mountain House resort in the Catskills, which still operates today). She initially sought to become a teacher, but after the Civil War, Bosshart says Smiley went South to “relieve human suffering.”  "She traveled to Virginia and to North Carolina, aiding Quakers in organizing schools and libraries," Bosshart notes. "She helped to start a school for 1,000 free Black adults and children in Richmond, Virginia — but that's not really what made her well-known. She later spoke to what they called 'mixed audiences,' and when we say 'mixed audiences,' we're talking about men and women. Women did not speak in front of a congregation, that just wasn't happening." In 1872, popular minister Theodore Cuyler invited Smiley to preach before a mixed congregation at the Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn — making her the first woman to speak from a Presbyterian pulpit. "This caused a ruckus," says Bosshart. "This made Harper's Weekly news, and she was said to 'teach and to extort, or to lead in prayer in public and promiscuous assemblies...[it's] clearly forbidden to women in the Holy Oracles.' But what we learned, or what I learned after that, was that she was so well-received amongst her audiences that she was asked to speak across the country and abroad." Soon, Bosshart says Smiley was speaking in churches from Cincinnati, to London, to Cube. She was adamant that women could study the scriptures themselves, without the help of men. She started a home Bible study program for women, and would go on to write five books on the subject — some of which are still published today. Bosshart says Smiley's Gothic-Revival cottage was built the same year of her notorious appearance in Brooklyn. She's not sure why Smiley chose to settle in Saratoga Springs, but it appears she knew exactly what she wanted in terms of a home.  "Andrew Jackson Downing, he published his Cottage Residence in 1842, and The Architecture of Country Houses in 1850. Alexander Jackson Davis designed and drew the illustrations featured — her house looks nearly identical to one of those cottages. Perhaps because it was the gothic style that is reminiscent of churches, perhaps [she was] being influenced by seeing these rural cottages, and she wanted it to be in keeping with that," Bosshart adds. "She would come to Saratoga to study. In an article in 1874 in The Saratogian, it said, 'She speaks twice almost every day in the week. She only spends six months of the year in preaching, the remainder of the year, during the summer months, in diligent study in her cottage in Saratoga.' So I think, perhaps, it was where she had peace and quiet." Following Smiley's death in 1917, the cottage was left to The Society for the Home Study of Holy Scripture and Church History, the group she had founded to promote religious study by mail. It was ultimately bought by another famous name who owned the property until 1968: Charles W. Brackett. Brackett was a popular author, New Yorker drama critic, and screenwriter of films including Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend, and 1953's Titanic. In 1958, he received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. Bosshart says the cottage ultimately fell into disrepair following Brackett's death. The building is privately owned, so she notes there's nothing the Foundation or city can explicitly do to restore it at this time, but she remains hopeful that they can work with the owner down the line. In the meantime, the Foundation is celebrating the local landmark designation, which requires a review for any demolition or new construction in the future.  "I think it's important that we continue to recognize all the people that contribute to the stories of our communities. Having an opportunity to be a part of ensuring that Sarah Smiley's story is told and preserved is rewarding," says Bosshart. Saratoga Springs, as it turns out, saw many aspects of women's history. When we talk about the Women's Suffrage Movement, we tend to start with the Seneca Falls Convention and Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 — but as our next guest will tell us, there's a lot of local history to the movement, including in Saratoga Springs. Nancy Brown is a board member of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites, and chairperson of the National Votes for Women Trail, a database of more than 2,000 sites significant to women's suffrage across the U.S. She says the goal was to highlight the nationwide, grassroots commitment that was needed to gain women the vote, and honor the ongoing struggle for voting rights across the U.S.  How did you get involved in the National Votes for Women Trail? I think that my interest in women suffered comes from the fact that I'm a native of Johnstown, New York, and that is home to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, where not only she was born, but inspired. So I think that has always made me very interested in women's suffrage. I was a board member on the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites, and this became a project that was originally, actually, a funded project that was proposed by Hillary Clinton – to have a Votes for Women Trail. And it was passed, the legislation was passed, but there were never any funds appropriated for it. So I remember being on a phone call, years ago now, and we were bemoaning the fact that there was no money to tell the story of women's suffrage – how half of our democracy became enfranchised, which is a pretty huge story. And we got thinking that really, suffragists we're all volunteer operations. So that's how the National Votes for Women Trail got started: a number of volunteers stepped up and we ended up creating a national network. And our goal was to have 2,020 sites on a database, a mobile friendly, searchable database by 2020 – which we exceeded, and we're now at 2,300 sites, it at nvwt.org. And along the way, the William G. Pomeroy Foundation in Syracuse, New York, recognized the importance of the project and offered to fund historic markers for places of specific significance around the country. And they are doing that for over 200 markers. So it was through that project that I kind of stumbled across the wonderful suffrage history in Saratoga. So what role did Saratoga play in the women's suffrage movement? Well, I will tell you how I stumbled across it, to be honest with you. One of the most important and influential associations was the New York State Women's Suffrage Association. And when I was doing a little research on where it started, I realized that it started at a meeting in Saratoga in July of 1869. Matilda Joslyn Gage, who was famous suffragist from Syracuse, actually had called a meeting to form a state women's suffrage association, and it was held at Congress Hall, which is where the corner of Congress Park and Spring Street is in Saratoga. And it was chaired by Susan B. Anthony. And the result of it was the formation of the New York Women's Suffrage Association. Why that's so important is this will become the association that helps women win the right to vote in New York state, which happened in 1917. They lost the bid for voting in 1915, but were able to get it in 1917. And why that's so important is we were the 12th state in the nation to pass women's suffrage – but the other states were in the West, and we were the first state in the east to pass this. And Carrie Chapman Catt, the famous suffragist, called this the Gettysburg of the woman's suffrage association. So come to find out that started right in Saratoga. And when I looked back a little further, I found that that was not the first women's rights convention in Saratoga. Well, we know that the very first one was in Seneca Falls in 1848, that sort of began the idea of having women's rights conventions. And after that there was one in Rochester, but in 1854, actually – the suffragists were such strategic thinkers that there were some other associations meeting in Saratoga, and they decided to go to Nikolas Hall, which was on the corner of Phila and Broadway. And they had a meeting with Susan B. Anthony, and it was very well regarded, very well attended. It was before there was a race track, but still, it was very popular place to go for people who had money and influence, and they knew that that's what the suffrage movement needed, was money and influence. And they had another meeting again in 1855, because it went so well. Then they have the meeting in 1869, in Saratoga, that forms the New York State Women's Suffrage Association, which becomes so influential. And then what I think is so incredibly interesting is the last meeting of the New York State Women's Suffrage Association was held there in 1917. And that was the last one before the vote, and then fortunately, the vote was passed and women got the vote within our state. And that's a really interesting meeting. That is sort of a culmination of all the work that the Association had done throughout its history, and they had really won over all the legislators. They had worked during World War I, doing all kinds of anything that was asked of them. They had worked with the state military census, they had organized Red Cross chapters, they had sold bonds, they had organized food canning clubs, and every political party decided that they were going to support them. And it was quite a meeting. Even Woodrow Wilson wrote a letter and said, “I look forward to seeing the results of the meeting in Saratoga.” And it started out with a car parade, an automobile parade from Buffalo across the state to Saratoga. So that was August 1917. And hundreds of cars were coming down Broadway. And that's when about one in four people owned a car, so that must have really been quite a sight. And again, famous people like Woodrow Wilson wrote a letter, Samuel Gompers wrote a letter of support. Katrina Trask sent a letter saying that she supported suffrage and wanted to make a donation that would have been worth about $5,000 in today's money. So it was really quite an interesting place. I think what's especially interesting about it is it was a turning point, literally in the suffrage movement nationally. And Saratoga is known as the turning point of the Revolution, right? We all know that the American Revolution, and that enfranchised white men, essentially. But it was really a turning point in what many people have called the “bloodless revolution,” which was the 72-year-fight for women's suffrage over which no blood was shed, and voting rights were gained. So I think that its importance is very significant. You mentioned you're from Johnstown, and that's where Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born. And you also said it's where she was inspired. Can you go into what you mean by that for me? I sure can. Elizabeth was one of the children born to Judge [Cady] and his wife, and unfortunately, only one of their sons made it to adulthood. Eleazer. And when he came home from Union College, he passed away at the age of 20. And Elizabeth remembers in her autobiography, that, as her father, who saw this as the successor to his law practice, was sitting by the coffin, he was just despondent. She went, and she sat on his lap, and he said, “Oh, Elizabeth, if you've only been a boy.” And apparently after that, she talked to her neighbor, who was the Reverend Simon Hoosick, and asked if he thought boys are better than girls. And he said, “No, of course not.” And she vowed at that point in time that she was going to become as good as any boy. And she became a very good horse woman. And she went to the Johnstown Academy, and was in all the accelerated classes that very few girls were in. And there was a coveted Greek prize, that she won along with another gentleman at one point, and the story goes that she took that Greek prize, which was very coveted, and she ran it down the street, and she went to her father's law office and said, “There, I won the Greek prize.” And he said, “Elizabeth, if you'd only been a boy.” And because her father was a lawyer, and we believe that his law office was adjacent to their home, she spent time there and she learned about the law. And she learned how the law didn't favor women. And there's the story of a woman who came to see the judge, because she had no property rights, and her husband passed away, and her son and his wife were kicking her out of her house, and she had no rights to stay there. And Elizabeth heard this story and vowed to cut all the laws out of his logbooks. And he said, “Elizabeth, you would have to go and talk to the legislature to change a law,” never really realizing that she really would end up doing that one day, and she would help change the property law in New York state. So she really was inspired by the events of her youth that took place in Johnstown. You mentioned when you were describing the conventions that there's parades of cars and famous figures and big donations being made for the effort. Do you see it as a movement that, at the time in Saratoga, was particularly driven by the upper classes, or was there a movement for the everyday folks who wanted this too? I think that when we think about it, and we look at the suffrage movement in New York state, for example, there were women like Rose Schneiderman, who worked so hard for workers' rights as well as for suffrage, knowing that that would help the workers gain a voice in their destiny. But I also think women who had more money had more time to devote to this. And there were certainly women who were immigrants who were very interested in this and worked in suffrage, but they had so much on their plates just to survive and just to get educated and just to keep their families together. But there also were Black women who worked so hard to win the vote when the suffrage movement was not always kind to women of color. So there were really women of every class who worked terribly hard, and devoted themselves to a cause that they didn't even know if they were ever going to see. So I'm so impressed by that as well. And fortunately, I will say that the National Votes for Women Trail has worked hard to try and unearth as many stories as we could for those underrepresented women who aren't known as well as the upper class white women, who we tend to know their names. I was going to ask, as we're looking towards preserving sites that have to do with women's history, what are some things that we should keep in mind? And what are the obstacles that are we're running into nowadays to create more monuments to women in the U.S.? Well, the obstacles in terms of preserving sites are they weren't preserved, unfortunately. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's original house, for example, was moved, and a new one that she lived in was built out of stone, because there have been a number of fires in Johnstown. And it was taken down in 1963. And nobody thought a thing about it, actually. And she was a woman of means, so her family had some money. And that's why we on the National Votes for Women Trail are willing to mark sites, because so many homes, nobody preserved the history of them at all. And especially those that women of color [lived in], they're particularly hard to find. Before those names get lost, it's really our responsibility to do our best to shine a light on the information that we can find in for those few remaining places. Like fortunately, Katherine Starbucks' home is still there. So that's why it's so important to recognize it. Because so many of these homes in locations really are not. It's just, you know, ideally that that people really take some time and do their research. They can go on the National Votes for Women Trail and submit sites in their community, if they find information. We then have somebody who reviews them before they're released to populate the map. But we I just think, fortunately, with the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, there was more interested in women's history. And I think people are more interested in finding out who was in their communities that help them get the rights that they enjoy today. And we also need to be mindful of, you know, all women couldn't vote in 1920, Black Women's still had a long way to go to fight their way through Jim Crow laws before they could vote. And, you know, Native American women weren't even US citizens yet, not for another four years and women of Asian descent. Not until even after that they were not citizens yet, so they didn't get the vote. And as we know, unfortunately, today, voting rights are still being compromised in a variety of places. So I think that is equally important to commemorating their sites, I suppose is commemorating their struggle for the for the right to vote. Well, lastly, in looking at the local impact on women's suffrage movement, what has been your main takeaway? I think the main takeaways – I didn't know any of that history existed there, either. But in every county in New York state, there was an active women's suffrage association. That's how they were able to eventually get the New York state legislature to pass the amendment to the law so that they could vote. But so I think what I have learned is how widespread it was, how many people had to be involved to get this movement over the finish line, if you will. Also, there was a significant anti-suffrage movement that I wasn't aware of before I started doing research. And there were women as well as men who didn't think women voting was a good idea. They thought that they didn't need to vote to make their voice heard. If you dial it all the way back to that first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton said in her Declaration of Sentiments that she felt that women needed the right to vote, almost no one agreed with her then. They said, “Oh, that's too much. You know, we can't go quite that far.” But it was Frederick Douglass who stood up and said, “No, she's right. Without the right to vote…that's the right by which all other rights are gained.” It really was such a Herculean effort. There are so many people that we don't know about, that we should be so grateful for. I think there's so much research to do and so many people we need to try and remember their names and try and find out about them so that their efforts won't be lost. Nancy Brown is the chairperson of the National Votes for Women Trail. You can view the trail and learn more about a site near you on the website for the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation has a map for all of its historic markers at wgpfoundation.org.  Lastly, on the topic of preserving women's history, the New York State Museum in Albany has launched a new effort to expand and diversify its collections — specifically, its sports collections. It's all ahead of the 50th anniversary of Title IX this June — Title IX, of course, is the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. It applies to all aspects of education, but one of its most visual impacts was in sports, requiring schools to equally support girls' and boys' teams. The museum is trying to balance out its own recollection of sports history by recognizing juggernauts like the WNBA's New York Liberty, or special events like the all-female Aurora Games, which launched in Albany in 2019.  I spoke with the museum's senior historian and curator for social history, Ashley Hopkins-Benton, to learn more.  "At the New York State Museum, our entire history curatorial department has been working on really evaluating our collections, and what strengths we have, and also what stories we're missing," says Hopkins-Benton. "And diversity, of course, is always something that we're trying to get more into the collections. But a couple of years ago, in 2017, when we were working on the Votes for Women exhibit about the centennial of women's suffrage in New York state, we realized women's history collections were really lacking. And then shortly after that, Steve Loughman, who is our sports curator, also was realizing that sports were really lacking, which is crazy when you think about New York and all of the great sports teams and sports stories that we have. So simultaneously, we were both working on these things. And because of the upcoming anniversary of the passage of Title IX, it became very apparent that women's sports were a particular collection that was lacking." So what kinds of items are you looking for in this collection? Well, let me start with what we have, because it's very small. It's all out on the table in front of us right now, we really have two collections that speak to women's sports as they relate to New York state. So one is a collection of material from the New York Liberty basketball team, the WNBA team. And this came in from a woman named Pam Elam, who is a feminist and a women's history scholar, and was really interested in collecting women's history and LGBTQ history as it pertained to culture and politics and sports and everything. So this came in before we even knew that women's sports was something that was missing from our collections, and it includes tickets and calendars and bios of the players. So it's a really great snapshot of the league. And these all came from around 10 years of the league being in existence. So that was the first thing that we had. And then a couple years ago, when Albany hosted the Aurora games, a couple of us all went out to different events and collected pins and basketballs and shirts and other materials from that. So that was a great opportunity as well. So we have two examples, more on the professional sports side of things. But we would love to collect more amateur sports, girls playing in high school, women in college, and those stories. I'm definitely looking for stories of trailblazers, women who were the first to play their sports. New York has so many great stories of girls who play on their high school football team, or I spoke to a woman earlier who was the first girl in her high school to earn a letter by playing on the men's golf team back in the ‘60s. So I am also looking to speak to women. I'd like to do some oral histories of women who were involved in sports at various times in history. Cool. Now, if someone has something that they think might be a good addition to the collection, what is the process of giving that to the museum? Well, reaching out to the museum and to me in particular, and then I bring it to our collections committee, and we discuss it as a group – how it fits into the collection, if it's something that we can responsibly take care of, and if it's something that has research and exhibition value in the future. If you think you may have something you'd like to contribute to the collection, you can find more information at the museum's website. You can also email Ashley Hopkins-Benton at ashley.hopkins-benton@nysed.gov. Title IX turns 50 on June 23. 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

On this week's 51%, we recognize Women's History Month. We learn about Sarah Smiley, a controversial Quaker minister who dared to preach to women — and men — in the 19th Century, and Nancy Brown of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites provides a more local lens on the women's suffrage movement. We also stop by the New York State Museum to learn about a new initiative to expand its collection on women's sports. Guests: Samantha Bosshart, executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation; Nancy Brown, National Collaborative for Women's History Sites; Ashley Hopkins-Benton, New York State Museum 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for joining us, I'm Jesse King. All month long, we've recognized Women's History Month by taking the time to learn about prominent American women, past and present. At the end of each episode, we visited exhibits at the New York State Capitol and spoke with the National Women's Hall of Fame. This week, I wanted to take a more local approach — mostly because, as a transplant in Central New York, I'm forever catching up on my Capital Region history, but also to serve as a reminder about the wealth of history that's right in our local communities. We're also flipping the script this week — rather than ending with a “woman you should know,” let's start with one. At the end of last year, the city council of Saratoga Springs, New York, unanimously voted to designate a small cottage on Excelsior Avenue a local landmark. The Smiley-Brackett Cottage, as it's called, is thought to be a prime example of the Gothic Revival style of architecture popularized by Andrew Jackson Downing in the 19th Century — but it's also noteworthy for those who lived there. The house was owned by and built for Sarah Smiley, a popular, yet controversial Quaker minister.  "She really had this significant impact, I think, on women and public speaking," says Samantha Bosshart, executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. The Foundation led the effort to acquire the local landmark designation. Smiley was born the daughter of a well-known Quaker family in Maine in 1830 (her father and brothers would go on to build the popular Mohonk Mountain House resort in the Catskills, which still operates today). She initially sought to become a teacher, but after the Civil War, Bosshart says Smiley went South to “relieve human suffering.”  "She traveled to Virginia and to North Carolina, aiding Quakers in organizing schools and libraries," Bosshart notes. "She helped to start a school for 1,000 free Black adults and children in Richmond, Virginia — but that's not really what made her well-known. She later spoke to what they called 'mixed audiences,' and when we say 'mixed audiences,' we're talking about men and women. Women did not speak in front of a congregation, that just wasn't happening." In 1872, popular minister Theodore Cuyler invited Smiley to preach before a mixed congregation at the Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn — making her the first woman to speak from a Presbyterian pulpit. "This caused a ruckus," says Bosshart. "This made Harper's Weekly news, and she was said to 'teach and to extort, or to lead in prayer in public and promiscuous assemblies...[it's] clearly forbidden to women in the Holy Oracles.' But what we learned, or what I learned after that, was that she was so well-received amongst her audiences that she was asked to speak across the country and abroad." Soon, Bosshart says Smiley was speaking in churches from Cincinnati, to London, to Cube. She was adamant that women could study the scriptures themselves, without the help of men. She started a home Bible study program for women, and would go on to write five books on the subject — some of which are still published today. Bosshart says Smiley's Gothic-Revival cottage was built the same year of her notorious appearance in Brooklyn. She's not sure why Smiley chose to settle in Saratoga Springs, but it appears she knew exactly what she wanted in terms of a home.  "Andrew Jackson Downing, he published his Cottage Residence in 1842, and The Architecture of Country Houses in 1850. Alexander Jackson Davis designed and drew the illustrations featured — her house looks nearly identical to one of those cottages. Perhaps because it was the gothic style that is reminiscent of churches, perhaps [she was] being influenced by seeing these rural cottages, and she wanted it to be in keeping with that," Bosshart adds. "She would come to Saratoga to study. In an article in 1874 in The Saratogian, it said, 'She speaks twice almost every day in the week. She only spends six months of the year in preaching, the remainder of the year, during the summer months, in diligent study in her cottage in Saratoga.' So I think, perhaps, it was where she had peace and quiet." Following Smiley's death in 1917, the cottage was left to The Society for the Home Study of Holy Scripture and Church History, the group she had founded to promote religious study by mail. It was ultimately bought by another famous name who owned the property until 1968: Charles W. Brackett. Brackett was a popular author, New Yorker drama critic, and screenwriter of films including Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend, and 1953's Titanic. In 1958, he received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. Bosshart says the cottage ultimately fell into disrepair following Brackett's death. The building is privately owned, so she notes there's nothing the Foundation or city can explicitly do to restore it at this time, but she remains hopeful that they can work with the owner down the line. In the meantime, the Foundation is celebrating the local landmark designation, which requires a review for any demolition or new construction in the future.  "I think it's important that we continue to recognize all the people that contribute to the stories of our communities. Having an opportunity to be a part of ensuring that Sarah Smiley's story is told and preserved is rewarding," says Bosshart. Saratoga Springs, as it turns out, saw many aspects of women's history. When we talk about the Women's Suffrage Movement, we tend to start with the Seneca Falls Convention and Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 — but as our next guest will tell us, there's a lot of local history to the movement, including in Saratoga Springs. Nancy Brown is a board member of the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites, and chairperson of the National Votes for Women Trail, a database of more than 2,000 sites significant to women's suffrage across the U.S. She says the goal was to highlight the nationwide, grassroots commitment that was needed to gain women the vote, and honor the ongoing struggle for voting rights across the U.S.  How did you get involved in the National Votes for Women Trail? I think that my interest in women suffered comes from the fact that I'm a native of Johnstown, New York, and that is home to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, where not only she was born, but inspired. So I think that has always made me very interested in women's suffrage. I was a board member on the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites, and this became a project that was originally, actually, a funded project that was proposed by Hillary Clinton – to have a Votes for Women Trail. And it was passed, the legislation was passed, but there were never any funds appropriated for it. So I remember being on a phone call, years ago now, and we were bemoaning the fact that there was no money to tell the story of women's suffrage – how half of our democracy became enfranchised, which is a pretty huge story. And we got thinking that really, suffragists we're all volunteer operations. So that's how the National Votes for Women Trail got started: a number of volunteers stepped up and we ended up creating a national network. And our goal was to have 2,020 sites on a database, a mobile friendly, searchable database by 2020 – which we exceeded, and we're now at 2,300 sites, it at nvwt.org. And along the way, the William G. Pomeroy Foundation in Syracuse, New York, recognized the importance of the project and offered to fund historic markers for places of specific significance around the country. And they are doing that for over 200 markers. So it was through that project that I kind of stumbled across the wonderful suffrage history in Saratoga. So what role did Saratoga play in the women's suffrage movement? Well, I will tell you how I stumbled across it, to be honest with you. One of the most important and influential associations was the New York State Women's Suffrage Association. And when I was doing a little research on where it started, I realized that it started at a meeting in Saratoga in July of 1869. Matilda Joslyn Gage, who was famous suffragist from Syracuse, actually had called a meeting to form a state women's suffrage association, and it was held at Congress Hall, which is where the corner of Congress Park and Spring Street is in Saratoga. And it was chaired by Susan B. Anthony. And the result of it was the formation of the New York Women's Suffrage Association. Why that's so important is this will become the association that helps women win the right to vote in New York state, which happened in 1917. They lost the bid for voting in 1915, but were able to get it in 1917. And why that's so important is we were the 12th state in the nation to pass women's suffrage – but the other states were in the West, and we were the first state in the east to pass this. And Carrie Chapman Catt, the famous suffragist, called this the Gettysburg of the woman's suffrage association. So come to find out that started right in Saratoga. And when I looked back a little further, I found that that was not the first women's rights convention in Saratoga. Well, we know that the very first one was in Seneca Falls in 1848, that sort of began the idea of having women's rights conventions. And after that there was one in Rochester, but in 1854, actually – the suffragists were such strategic thinkers that there were some other associations meeting in Saratoga, and they decided to go to Nikolas Hall, which was on the corner of Phila and Broadway. And they had a meeting with Susan B. Anthony, and it was very well regarded, very well attended. It was before there was a race track, but still, it was very popular place to go for people who had money and influence, and they knew that that's what the suffrage movement needed, was money and influence. And they had another meeting again in 1855, because it went so well. Then they have the meeting in 1869, in Saratoga, that forms the New York State Women's Suffrage Association, which becomes so influential. And then what I think is so incredibly interesting is the last meeting of the New York State Women's Suffrage Association was held there in 1917. And that was the last one before the vote, and then fortunately, the vote was passed and women got the vote within our state. And that's a really interesting meeting. That is sort of a culmination of all the work that the Association had done throughout its history, and they had really won over all the legislators. They had worked during World War I, doing all kinds of anything that was asked of them. They had worked with the state military census, they had organized Red Cross chapters, they had sold bonds, they had organized food canning clubs, and every political party decided that they were going to support them. And it was quite a meeting. Even Woodrow Wilson wrote a letter and said, “I look forward to seeing the results of the meeting in Saratoga.” And it started out with a car parade, an automobile parade from Buffalo across the state to Saratoga. So that was August 1917. And hundreds of cars were coming down Broadway. And that's when about one in four people owned a car, so that must have really been quite a sight. And again, famous people like Woodrow Wilson wrote a letter, Samuel Gompers wrote a letter of support. Katrina Trask sent a letter saying that she supported suffrage and wanted to make a donation that would have been worth about $5,000 in today's money. So it was really quite an interesting place. I think what's especially interesting about it is it was a turning point, literally in the suffrage movement nationally. And Saratoga is known as the turning point of the Revolution, right? We all know that the American Revolution, and that enfranchised white men, essentially. But it was really a turning point in what many people have called the “bloodless revolution,” which was the 72-year-fight for women's suffrage over which no blood was shed, and voting rights were gained. So I think that its importance is very significant. You mentioned you're from Johnstown, and that's where Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born. And you also said it's where she was inspired. Can you go into what you mean by that for me? I sure can. Elizabeth was one of the children born to Judge [Cady] and his wife, and unfortunately, only one of their sons made it to adulthood. Eleazer. And when he came home from Union College, he passed away at the age of 20. And Elizabeth remembers in her autobiography, that, as her father, who saw this as the successor to his law practice, was sitting by the coffin, he was just despondent. She went, and she sat on his lap, and he said, “Oh, Elizabeth, if you've only been a boy.” And apparently after that, she talked to her neighbor, who was the Reverend Simon Hoosick, and asked if he thought boys are better than girls. And he said, “No, of course not.” And she vowed at that point in time that she was going to become as good as any boy. And she became a very good horse woman. And she went to the Johnstown Academy, and was in all the accelerated classes that very few girls were in. And there was a coveted Greek prize, that she won along with another gentleman at one point, and the story goes that she took that Greek prize, which was very coveted, and she ran it down the street, and she went to her father's law office and said, “There, I won the Greek prize.” And he said, “Elizabeth, if you'd only been a boy.” And because her father was a lawyer, and we believe that his law office was adjacent to their home, she spent time there and she learned about the law. And she learned how the law didn't favor women. And there's the story of a woman who came to see the judge, because she had no property rights, and her husband passed away, and her son and his wife were kicking her out of her house, and she had no rights to stay there. And Elizabeth heard this story and vowed to cut all the laws out of his logbooks. And he said, “Elizabeth, you would have to go and talk to the legislature to change a law,” never really realizing that she really would end up doing that one day, and she would help change the property law in New York state. So she really was inspired by the events of her youth that took place in Johnstown. You mentioned when you were describing the conventions that there's parades of cars and famous figures and big donations being made for the effort. Do you see it as a movement that, at the time in Saratoga, was particularly driven by the upper classes, or was there a movement for the everyday folks who wanted this too? I think that when we think about it, and we look at the suffrage movement in New York state, for example, there were women like Rose Schneiderman, who worked so hard for workers' rights as well as for suffrage, knowing that that would help the workers gain a voice in their destiny. But I also think women who had more money had more time to devote to this. And there were certainly women who were immigrants who were very interested in this and worked in suffrage, but they had so much on their plates just to survive and just to get educated and just to keep their families together. But there also were Black women who worked so hard to win the vote when the suffrage movement was not always kind to women of color. So there were really women of every class who worked terribly hard, and devoted themselves to a cause that they didn't even know if they were ever going to see. So I'm so impressed by that as well. And fortunately, I will say that the National Votes for Women Trail has worked hard to try and unearth as many stories as we could for those underrepresented women who aren't known as well as the upper class white women, who we tend to know their names. I was going to ask, as we're looking towards preserving sites that have to do with women's history, what are some things that we should keep in mind? And what are the obstacles that are we're running into nowadays to create more monuments to women in the U.S.? Well, the obstacles in terms of preserving sites are they weren't preserved, unfortunately. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's original house, for example, was moved, and a new one that she lived in was built out of stone, because there have been a number of fires in Johnstown. And it was taken down in 1963. And nobody thought a thing about it, actually. And she was a woman of means, so her family had some money. And that's why we on the National Votes for Women Trail are willing to mark sites, because so many homes, nobody preserved the history of them at all. And especially those that women of color [lived in], they're particularly hard to find. Before those names get lost, it's really our responsibility to do our best to shine a light on the information that we can find in for those few remaining places. Like fortunately, Katherine Starbucks' home is still there. So that's why it's so important to recognize it. Because so many of these homes in locations really are not. It's just, you know, ideally that that people really take some time and do their research. They can go on the National Votes for Women Trail and submit sites in their community, if they find information. We then have somebody who reviews them before they're released to populate the map. But we I just think, fortunately, with the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, there was more interested in women's history. And I think people are more interested in finding out who was in their communities that help them get the rights that they enjoy today. And we also need to be mindful of, you know, all women couldn't vote in 1920, Black Women's still had a long way to go to fight their way through Jim Crow laws before they could vote. And, you know, Native American women weren't even US citizens yet, not for another four years and women of Asian descent. Not until even after that they were not citizens yet, so they didn't get the vote. And as we know, unfortunately, today, voting rights are still being compromised in a variety of places. So I think that is equally important to commemorating their sites, I suppose is commemorating their struggle for the for the right to vote. Well, lastly, in looking at the local impact on women's suffrage movement, what has been your main takeaway? I think the main takeaways – I didn't know any of that history existed there, either. But in every county in New York state, there was an active women's suffrage association. That's how they were able to eventually get the New York state legislature to pass the amendment to the law so that they could vote. But so I think what I have learned is how widespread it was, how many people had to be involved to get this movement over the finish line, if you will. Also, there was a significant anti-suffrage movement that I wasn't aware of before I started doing research. And there were women as well as men who didn't think women voting was a good idea. They thought that they didn't need to vote to make their voice heard. If you dial it all the way back to that first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton said in her Declaration of Sentiments that she felt that women needed the right to vote, almost no one agreed with her then. They said, “Oh, that's too much. You know, we can't go quite that far.” But it was Frederick Douglass who stood up and said, “No, she's right. Without the right to vote…that's the right by which all other rights are gained.” It really was such a Herculean effort. There are so many people that we don't know about, that we should be so grateful for. I think there's so much research to do and so many people we need to try and remember their names and try and find out about them so that their efforts won't be lost. Nancy Brown is the chairperson of the National Votes for Women Trail. You can view the trail and learn more about a site near you on the website for the National Collaborative for Women's History Sites. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation has a map for all of its historic markers at wgpfoundation.org.  Lastly, on the topic of preserving women's history, the New York State Museum in Albany has launched a new effort to expand and diversify its collections — specifically, its sports collections. It's all ahead of the 50th anniversary of Title IX this June — Title IX, of course, is the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. It applies to all aspects of education, but one of its most visual impacts was in sports, requiring schools to equally support girls' and boys' teams. The museum is trying to balance out its own recollection of sports history by recognizing juggernauts like the WNBA's New York Liberty, or special events like the all-female Aurora Games, which launched in Albany in 2019.  I spoke with the museum's senior historian and curator for social history, Ashley Hopkins-Benton, to learn more.  "At the New York State Museum, our entire history curatorial department has been working on really evaluating our collections, and what strengths we have, and also what stories we're missing," says Hopkins-Benton. "And diversity, of course, is always something that we're trying to get more into the collections. But a couple of years ago, in 2017, when we were working on the Votes for Women exhibit about the centennial of women's suffrage in New York state, we realized women's history collections were really lacking. And then shortly after that, Steve Loughman, who is our sports curator, also was realizing that sports were really lacking, which is crazy when you think about New York and all of the great sports teams and sports stories that we have. So simultaneously, we were both working on these things. And because of the upcoming anniversary of the passage of Title IX, it became very apparent that women's sports were a particular collection that was lacking." So what kinds of items are you looking for in this collection? Well, let me start with what we have, because it's very small. It's all out on the table in front of us right now, we really have two collections that speak to women's sports as they relate to New York state. So one is a collection of material from the New York Liberty basketball team, the WNBA team. And this came in from a woman named Pam Elam, who is a feminist and a women's history scholar, and was really interested in collecting women's history and LGBTQ history as it pertained to culture and politics and sports and everything. So this came in before we even knew that women's sports was something that was missing from our collections, and it includes tickets and calendars and bios of the players. So it's a really great snapshot of the league. And these all came from around 10 years of the league being in existence. So that was the first thing that we had. And then a couple years ago, when Albany hosted the Aurora games, a couple of us all went out to different events and collected pins and basketballs and shirts and other materials from that. So that was a great opportunity as well. So we have two examples, more on the professional sports side of things. But we would love to collect more amateur sports, girls playing in high school, women in college, and those stories. I'm definitely looking for stories of trailblazers, women who were the first to play their sports. New York has so many great stories of girls who play on their high school football team, or I spoke to a woman earlier who was the first girl in her high school to earn a letter by playing on the men's golf team back in the ‘60s. So I am also looking to speak to women. I'd like to do some oral histories of women who were involved in sports at various times in history. Cool. Now, if someone has something that they think might be a good addition to the collection, what is the process of giving that to the museum? Well, reaching out to the museum and to me in particular, and then I bring it to our collections committee, and we discuss it as a group – how it fits into the collection, if it's something that we can responsibly take care of, and if it's something that has research and exhibition value in the future. If you think you may have something you'd like to contribute to the collection, you can find more information at the museum's website. You can also email Ashley Hopkins-Benton at ashley.hopkins-benton@nysed.gov. Title IX turns 50 on June 23. 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

On this week's 51%, Albany OB GYN Dr. Katherine Cartwright offers her guidance for those struggling with infertility, and we speak with Albany Medical Center's Dr. Erica Nicasio about her work monitoring high-risk pregnancies. Guests: Dr. Katherine Cartwright, Albany Obstetrics & Gynecology; Dr. Erica Nicasio, Albany Medical Center; Natalie Rudd, learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King.  We've got another roundup of health-related conversations for you today. Last week, we took an in-depth look at endometriosis, a disease that, in addition to causing a lot of pain, can also contribute to issues like infertility. But as our first guest today will tell us, there's actually a lot of reasons why someone may have trouble getting pregnant. It's an issue that can feel very personal and heartbreaking, so to dispel some myths right up front: infertility doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with your body, and it's actually more common than you might think. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly one in five American, heterosexual women up to age 49 (with no prior births) will have trouble conceiving after their first year of trying. So if you think you might fall in that group, hopefully today's episode has some basic information to get you thinking and put you at ease. Dr. Katherine Cartwright is an OB GYN with Albany Obstetrics & Gynecology. She got her medical degree from Nova Southeastern University and completed her residency at SUNY's University at Buffalo. Dr. Cartwright says she provides comprehensive women's health care for patients at various stages in their lives, but as part of that, she provides an awful lot of guidance to women (and couples) struggling to conceive. The way that we medically define infertility is 12 months of inability to conceive, despite regular intercourse and regular cycles. Within 12 months, somewhere between 80-90 percent of couples will be able to achieve a pregnancy on their own. So once they've reached a year, that's when we have a medical diagnosis of infertility. It's a little bit different in patients with different risk factors. So patients who are a little bit older, patients over 35, we use more of a six-month cut off. That has a little bit less to do with a difference in them suddenly being infertile after six months, and more to do with known declining fertility with age and wanting to get those people into medical care and into a workup [sooner]. When we have a patient that's concerned about infertility, there's a wide range of things that we really need to talk to them about. Their medical history is one of the most important things, and then talking to their partner and having a patient come in and be evaluated with their partner – or at least have good information about their partner – is really important. This is really a two-person issue, if there is a concern about ability to conceive, and about a third of infertility issues actually are male-factor issues. So I think it often is looked at as a solely female problem if someone's not conceiving, and it's something that we have to talk about very early on and make sure that we are looking at all angles. The basic workup is looking at the very basic building blocks of “How do we make a baby here?” And are all of those parts here? So, is this person making eggs? And are they releasing an egg every month? That's obviously something that's necessary. Is there sperm, and is the sperm normal? Is it present? And then the third thing that we really need to look at is, are they able to meet? So is there a structural thing that's preventing the egg from meeting with the sperm, and those are things we call “tubal factors,” where the actual fallopian tube where they're supposed to meet could be impacted by a variety of different disease processes that could inhibit the ability for an otherwise normal egg and sperm to meet. And that's really where the workup is focused. So we look at all three of those different things in a different way. Usually, we do blood testing, and just talk about a patient's medical history and cycles to see if it sounds like ovulation could potentially be an issue. We generally will get a semen analysis, so that is actual testing of the semen in the sperm from the male partner. And there are tests that we can do, either with dye or with saline that we put through the uterus to actually watch the tubes and see that they are open and able to have a sperm and an egg pass through them. Once you identify with what the issue is, is it usually an easy fix? So, it really depends what the causes are. One of the difficult things with infertility is the number one cause of infertility is “unexplained infertility” – that's an actual, medical diagnosis. And that is where most infertility workups land us, is with what we call “unexplained infertility.” So we do this whole workup, we do lab work, and we say everything looks normal. You know, it's always sort of a double-edged sword of good and bad, because for a patient, there's nothing wrong with you – but we don't have an answer as to why this is happening. [With] unexplained infertility, there are things we just sort of empirically do, which means we're just trying things, helping to time intercourse a little bit better. Sometimes we monitor their cycles and actually help make sure that they ovulate by giving them medications and monitoring their cycles. And even patients with unexplained infertility have relatively high rates of eventually being able to conceive. And sometimes we don't find an answer. But for a patient, what they really want is to have a baby, and so lots of times fertility doctors may say, “We don't have a good answer as to why this hasn't happened, but here are all of the options and things that we can try.” And that's everything from IUI, which is insemination, to IVF, which a lot of people are kind of familiar tangentially with IVF and how that works. And so sometimes patients ultimately go on to have these more invasive infertility interventions and treatments without ever having a definitive answer as to why they weren't able to get pregnant on their own. Do you have any thoughts on IVF or IUI? Like, is there one that I guess is easier? It depends, it depends on the patient. And I think there's different factors to consider. There are people who just don't want to go the route of creating embryos and re-implanting them – that's what IVF is. So IVF is where they actually take eggs out of someone's ovary, they fertilize them with sperm, they grow them, make sure that they're growing, and then they essentially put them back in the uterus to grow. And so it's definitely a lot of technology that's used. And that's medically amazing that we have [that], but for some people, it's just too much, and they don't want to do it. For other people, anything they could possibly do is something that they want to pursue. Financially, I think it's a concern for patients. Historically, many infertility treatments have not been well covered by insurance. In New York state, companies now are required to offer some fertility coverage. I don't know all of the details in it, it really depends on the size of the company, and there are some exemptions to that, but we do have better coverage than we used to. So hopefully, there's less of a financial constraint for people that are trying to use these services to grow a family. Would I be able to ask you about miscarriages? Yeah, yeah. So early pregnancy loss, or miscarriage, is very common. It's something that, you know, the numbers are mixed, because we know that there are very early pregnancies that are just not clinically recognized, meaning sperm meets the egg, it starts to implant, and the pregnancy fails before a patient even knows that she's pregnant, let alone is actually seen and has labs or an ultrasound or something done. Numbers vary anywhere between 25-30 percent in most documented research on this. So that means there's a quarter to a third of a chance, with every successful fertilized egg that is implanting or trying to implant in the uterus, that that could not result in a successful pregnancy with a baby at the end. Early on in pregnancy, it's something people worry about a lot. And, you know, we usually will bring them in for initial visits to meet with a doctor and evaluate in early pregnancy, somewhere around eight weeks or so. But in patients who are feeling well, they have a positive pregnancy test, they haven't had pain or bleeding, and they're feeling well, there's no real reason to rule out an early pregnancy loss unless they're having symptoms in most cases. So symptoms of an early pregnancy loss would be things like bleeding, or painful cramping. Those are really the two things that people present with most often. There can be cases of both pain and bleeding that don't result in miscarriage, and it can be a really scary time for patients, because if it's really early, we can't see a pregnancy on ultrasound, we don't have a really good way to confirm that things are moving forward normally, and so there's, unfortunately, a multiple-week period often of just waiting and seeing what will happen for patients. So that can be certainly anxiety-provoking for them. Reasons for miscarriage vary, and similar to infertility, we often just don't have a good answer as to why a miscarriage has happened. A single miscarriage with rates anywhere from 25-30 percent often is just kind of bad luck. Most of those miscarriages have to do with what we would consider a non-viable embryo, an embryo that, as it was dividing, had some kind of chromosomal abnormality that's not compatible with life. And so that's sort of the body's way of not continuing a pregnancy that would not be able to be successful. In patients who have had recurrent pregnancy loss, so multiple miscarriages, the workup becomes a little bit different, and there are other things that we need to look into. This is not infertility, necessarily, in that they haven't been able to get pregnant – that's what people think of as infertility – but recurrent pregnancy loss, where someone has been unable to have a baby, is still a form of infertility, and is something that needs to be to be looked at. What do you see as the future of treatment and research for infertility? It is a much newer field than I think people realize. The first baby ever born from IVF, I believe, is 40 or 41 now. And so if you think of that in the grand scheme of medical science, and what we know, it's really a very, very young field. I think continuing to find treatments and ways to predict fertility is one of the things that I hope we get better and better at. We have patients come in all the time that say, “I would love to have my fertility tested,” and it's just not something that you can do. We can't say, “Here's a test, this means for sure that you are fertile and you will not have any issues with infertility.” Continuing to look at what are some of the factors, especially in this unexplained infertility area where there are huge numbers of patients that have unexplained infertility, I think really focusing on ultimately, can we find a cause for that? What exactly is that cause? And how can we address that in the future is probably one of the biggest things that we need to do. If someone is struggling with their fertility, what advice do you have for them? It's always a good idea, before someone even starts to try to conceive, to have a conversation with their provider, whether they see a physician or a midwife, or whoever it is that they see for reproductive health care. Having a conversation, from the beginning, is a way to probably alleviate a lot of the unknowns and the anxieties related around conceiving, and how it will work if there's a problem. So that initial conversation we have with patients a lot, it's called a “preconception visit.” And we talked to them about things that potentially could influence their fertility: Do they have regular cycles? Do they have a history of infections, or pelvic infections? Do they have a history of endometriosis? Looking at the age of patients is something that we always think about in a preconception visit. If I have a patient who's coming to me and is 42, and just got married, and says, “I would like to try to conceive in this next year,” that's a patient that I often will immediately get some baseline labs on and actually recommend that they see a fertility specialist. Over 40 is a specific population of patients who have declining fertility at a rate that we really want to make sure that we're not wasting any time if they have decided that this is something that's important to them, and they want to move forward. These are not patients who I would wait 12 months or even six months to wait and see what happens. We often do what's called “concurrent management,” where they will actively be seeing an infertility specialist to start a workup while they're trying to start to conceive, because we really don't want to have delays in something that we know, biologically, does have some limitations. So looking at age, looking at all those risk factors, family history is something that we talk about a lot. And then other risk factors that could make a pregnancy more dangerous if they were to be pregnant. So something that would be a high-risk factor for a patient in a future pregnancy is important for us to talk about before they're pregnant. Do they have a cardiac condition? Is it well managed? Do we need to optimize their medical health and talk about medications that are safe in pregnancy, prior to them even conceiving? So that that's really where that conversation should start. If a patient has a concern that they are not pregnant as fast as they think they should, to me, that is enough to start a workup. So by definition, 12 months under 35, and six months over 35 is the definition of infertility, if you haven't been able to conceive. But if I have a patient who walks in and says, “I only get my period every three months,” it's not realistic to wait 12 months, because they haven't really had 12 months of chances if they're not ovulating every month, or they're not having regular cycles. Or if a patient says, “I conceived all of my other kids within one to two cycles, and it's been eight months so I'm really concerned,” that's a patient that I would also really start and initiate a workup. So I think the patient's concerns are important, and that's important to bring to any physician that you talk to, because that often is enough to at least start an initial workup for a patient. As Dr. Cartwright pointed out, conception is just the start — there's plenty to navigate going forward, and issues to look out for. Our next guest is a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Albany Medical Center. Dr. Erica Nicasio earned her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, and completed her residency at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She specializes in the diagnosis and management of fetal anomalies, preterm delivery, hypertensive disease and diabetes in pregnancy, multiple gestation, and more. What kinds of issues do you see people coming in for? Some of the more common things that we see are things that are becoming a lot more common for women just in general and in health care, in the population. We see a lot of women that have things like hypertensive diseases, so high blood pressure. The other really common medical issue that a lot of women have or developed during pregnancy is diabetes. So we take care of women both that have either Type I or Type II diabetes prior to pregnancy, to help them with insulin control and their pregnancy management, because it can change what happens with their blood sugars during pregnancy. And then also gestational diabetes, which is a specific form of the disease that develops because of the pregnancy, and can change as the pregnancy progresses. So those are some of the more common things that we deal with from a mom side. We also have complex pregnancies from the baby side, so we deal with those sorts of issues such as women that have had preterm labor, for example, going into labor early and delivering a baby. Or fetal anomalies, so a baby that developed some sort of congenital abnormality or a developmental abnormality that we can diagnose by ultrasound and sort of managing what we do with that going forward. At what point do people usually identify the fact that they might have a high-risk pregnancy? I'm guessing there's gonna be some people who are going into it knowing that they're going to have a high-risk pregnancy, but are there some identifying factors that they should watch out for? Absolutely. So that definitely varies, and there's a whole spectrum of high-risk pregnancies. And I think it is hard for women to know what that actually means, and what is defined as a high-risk pregnancy. For example, women that have had complicated medical problems may know that they have a complex medical history, and that makes them high-risk just because of their diseases that they bring to a pregnancy. So someone who has diabetes, someone who has had cancer before and chemotherapy, someone who has lupus, for example. Those sorts of conditions just become a little bit more complicated, or maybe more complex, in a pregnancy. And then as the pregnancies progress, sometimes we have women that develop high-risk issues and then get transferred to us, or have a consultation with us, so that we can discuss how to best manage those pregnancies and those risks that develop. Some examples would be if we do some genetic screening, that's something we offer for women in their first trimester, so early in pregnancy, to look for abnormal chromosomes in the baby. Every woman is offered that screening, if they want to know if they have a high-risk for a baby that has a chromosome abnormality. The most common thing that we see is something like Down syndrome, which would be an extra chromosome 21. So if we do that screening, and that comes back high-risk in their first trimester, often they'll come to us for further testing and discussion of sort of what to do about those findings. Similarly, as the pregnancy progresses, sometimes when we do their anatomic screening, which is an ultrasound, where we look at all of the parts of the baby like heart, lungs, belly, all of the different congenital development of the baby to make sure that everything has formed correctly, sometimes we find abnormalities on those ultrasounds, and often women that have those diagnoses get sent to a specialist like a maternal fetal medicine doctor to have higher level ultrasounds, detailed evaluation, and then again, discussion about how that might affect their baby in utero. How does multiple gestation complicate a pregnancy? What should people expect if they're planning to have twins or triplets? That's a good question. So that's definitely one of those high-risk pregnancy issues that get sent to us as well. So multiples have become much more commonplace because of infertility treatment and older women getting pregnant. And oftentimes, we get to diagnose that – so we get to tell a woman who's had a pregnancy test at home that's positive and comes to an ultrasound and, surprise, we see two babies in there. That can be very exciting. We also have to talk to them about the complications that are increased in those multiple gestations. Pretty much as an overarching rule, most of the complications that we see in pregnancy, like high blood pressure diseases, early labor, gestational diabetes, those sorts of things, are just more commonly seen in a twin pregnancy compared to a singleton pregnancy. You're twice as likely to have a genetic abnormality, for example, because of the additional fetus being there. So these pregnancies are definitely more high-risk than a typical single gestation, so we watch them much more closely than the typical, uncomplicated single baby. And then interestingly, there's different types of multiple gestations, including how the twins formed and how they live inside the uterus. So they can be in their own sac and have their own placentas – completely separate pregnancies, like two babies in there, doing their own thing. And that's generally the lowest risk type of twins. Or they can be sharing placenta, or they can even be sharing gestational sacs, so they're living in the same fluid-filled sac, and those become much more complicated as well. We have to monitor to make sure that they're each getting the nutrients and blood flow and oxygenation that they need to develop appropriately, and if they don't, it can be much more complicated. I've read that you've also done research on things like preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction and fetal testing and maternal obesity. Could you tell me a little bit about your research there? Absolutely. So I was looking at preeclampsia, which is basically a high blood pressure disease that develops during pregnancy. Usually after 20 weeks of pregnancy, so it can happen sort of any time. Women develop high blood pressure as well as protein in their urine, and then it can also affect their kidney function, their liver function and their blood counts, like their platelets. And the biggest risk is, you know, a neurologic risk woman can eventually have if not controlled. It can develop neurologic complications like strokes, and seizures, and really scary things that would be dangerous to pregnancy. So we often end up delivering babies on the earlier side, to protect mom's health, because of the risk of the severity of the disease to mom. And in other countries, they see a lot more eclampsia, which is actually the seizures that can develop. And unfortunately, though we see it relatively commonly, especially at a center where we have high-risk doctors, and we get referrals for it, we still don't exactly know even why it happens. So that's sort of what interests me, is sort of trying to help to understand why some women develop preeclampsia and other women don't. We know that there are risk factors from a health perspective – like having high blood pressure, or lupus, or things that affect your kidneys, for example, put you at risk for preeclampsia. But then otherwise, you know, healthy first-time moms [develop issues] – first pregnancies are actually more likely to get preeclampsia than women that have had multiple pregnancies before. And we don't exactly understand the reason for which women will develop this disease and which women will develop even more severe disease, but we think that it has to do with the placenta and how the placenta forms and invades into the uterus and communicates with the blood vessels in mom. That's sort of what I was looking at, was taking women that have preeclampsia and comparing them with women who don't, and looking at their placenta after they deliver, to see if there was a protein that was expressed differently from one pregnancy to the other. But to be honest, you know, people have been researching this topic for many, many years, and we still have lots of question marks. So it's a very, very complicated disease process that, if we were able to figure out the mechanism of why it happens, then we will be able to treat it better. But unfortunately, right now, the only solution is to deliver the baby early to help remove the placenta. And commonly, the disease actually gets much better after delivery. So this is of course, aside from the usual things people experience with pregnancy, the ways the body changes. I once had a nurse who told me her vision temporarily deteriorated during her pregnancy – is that a thing? What other things might women experience that we just don't talk as much about, or know as much about? There are a ton of changes just due to having a pregnancy in general. And so women's bodies are going through so many different changes, and then the changes change, as the pregnancy progresses. Pregnancy's 10 months long, and so it's definitely a journey. The big things that we see are, you know, some physiologic changes, meaning changes that just happened because of the pregnancy: increased blood volume, so you actually have more blood flowing through your body during pregnancy than you do normally, to feed the pregnancy, and then also in preparation for delivery, when the body loses blood. Many women get anemic during pregnancy. And many women can be anemic before pregnancy, but the way the blood is concentrated, actually causes some anemia. So some low blood counts, we monitor for that, for example. Your respiratory system changes, both the way that you're getting oxygen to your body and then also as the uterus grows, it can affect how you breathe, because the uterus gets big enough to affect the diaphragm and its ability to go up and down. And so many women will describe shortness of breath during pregnancy. Another really common one is reflux, acid reflux. A lot of people are prone to that baseline, but in pregnancy, the sphincter that closes your esophagus to your stomach off so that the acid in your stomach doesn't go back up into your esophagus and chest and cause that acid feeling gets looser, because of the hormones of pregnancy. And so a lot of women have issues with reflux getting worse during pregnancy. And then as the uterus grows, it also causes compression of all of your abdominal contents as the uterus kind of fills up the belly and makes that reflux worse. So we see a lot of that as well. Is the way that we're having babies changing at all in the U.S.? That's a good question. In terms of delivery type, our cesarean rates probably have increased over the years, but so has our high-risk pregnancy [rate], and high-risk pregnancies put you at risk for having a cesarean delivery. So I think a little bit of that has probably played into it. I think there's a lot of social pressures that come with the idea women have as to how their delivery should go. And with social media and Pinterest and things like this, people get the idea that it should be one thing for everybody, or that, you know, having a “natural birth” is the only way to successfully have a baby. But there's a lot of ways that babies come into this world. One of the things is, you never know how it's gonna go. And I think people have an idea that they should have a birth plan, and have everything set up and be ready. And having done this for long enough now, what we really know is that generally nothing goes according to plan. And so having a little bit of flexibility and being ready for whatever comes your way during the labor processes is usually a good way to go into it. Before we go, we're celebrating Women's History Month by taking some time each week to recognize prominent women in history. Last week Natalie Rudd joined us from the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, and she's back with us to share some more of the “women of the hall.” Dolores Huerta Dolores was born in New Mexico, however, she spent most of her life in Stockton, California. Her primary inspiration was her mother: she owned a 70-room hotel where she would often welcome low-wage workers and oftentimes waive the fee for them. She was an active participant in her community and really encouraged cultural diversity, which was really common in Stockton, which was a heavily agricultural-based community. So they had an agricultural community that was made up of Mexican, Filipino, American Japanese, and Chinese working families. Dolores found for inspiration as an organizer while serving in the leadership for the Stockton community service organization, or CSO. During this time, she set up voter registrations, and pressed local government for barrio improvements. And then in 1955, she was introduced to the CSO director, Cesar Chavez, and the two soon discovered that they had this shared vision of organizing farmworkers. Together, they launched the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. The two were partners in lobbying and really unionizing farm workers in America, and she really came to prominence when she helped organize the 1965 Delano strike of 5,000 grape workers. The strike lasted for five years, and drew national attention for its nonviolent resistance. During this time, during the national boycott of the California table grapes, she was in New York and she came in contact with Gloria Steinem, who was doing a huge part of the burgeoning feminist movement. And she realized that they have a lot in common, so she was advocating for farm workers while also advocating for women and how they are discriminated within the farm working movement. At the age of 58, she suffered a life-threatening assault while protesting against the policies of then-presidential candidate George Bush. A police officer with the baton ended up breaking for her ribs and shattering her spleen. And then during her really intensive recovery period, she took a leave of absence from the union and focused on women's rights. During this time she traveled the country on behalf of the feminist majority's “Feminization of Power,” which is a campaign that resulted in a significant increase in the number of women representatives at the local, state, and federal levels. So she began her career working with agricultural farm workers and has worked continuously for union rights as well as lobbying to get women into government. Even now, today, at 89 years old, she continues to work tirelessly to help leaders advocate for the working poor, women, and children. She founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation, where she travels across the country engaging in campaigns, all that supports equality defending civil rights, and she often speak to students and organizations about issues of social justice and public policy. Nellie Bly Nellie was a pioneer in investigative journalism in the late 1800s. She was one of the first reporters who truly went behind the scenes to get the real story. She had herself committed to a mental institution in an effort to expose the abuse that occurred there, and the results of this story were reforms that were actually made to living and care conditions at Blackwell's Island Mental Institute in New York City. When this story broke, she became like an overnight sensation, she became an extremely popular reporter. She ultimately ended up shining a light on everything from the improper treatment of prisoners in New York City jails, to the poor working conditions in factories, to corruption politics – she wrote about it all. She ended up gaining a ton of fame in 1899 when she traveled around the world in 72 days, which drew inspiration from the fiction novel Around the World in 80 Days, which is written by Jules Verne. She married a successful businessman, Robert Seaman. And then after he died in 1904, Nellie took control of his company and put into practice all of the workplace reforms that she had envisioned while working as a journalist, such as health care, and adding fitness centers into his company. She ended up unfortunately dying of pneumonia at a very young age of 57, but she had done so much in her lifetime. She really ushered in this whole new era of investigative journalism in such a short life, she really accomplished a lot. And that's like the quick version. I could spend hours talking about Nellie Bly. The small stories about her travels and her journals are really, really incredible. Natalie Rudd is the learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. The Hall will be inducting its next class, including Indra Nooyi, Mia Hamm, Octavia Butler, Michelle Obama, and more, this September. 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

On this week's 51%, Albany OB GYN Dr. Katherine Cartwright offers her guidance for those struggling with infertility, and we speak with Albany Medical Center's Dr. Erica Nicasio about her work monitoring high-risk pregnancies. Guests: Dr. Katherine Cartwright, Albany Obstetrics & Gynecology; Dr. Erica Nicasio, Albany Medical Center; Natalie Rudd, learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King.  We've got another roundup of health-related conversations for you today. Last week, we took an in-depth look at endometriosis, a disease that, in addition to causing a lot of pain, can also contribute to issues like infertility. But as our first guest today will tell us, there's actually a lot of reasons why someone may have trouble getting pregnant. It's an issue that can feel very personal and heartbreaking, so to dispel some myths right up front: infertility doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with your body, and it's actually more common than you might think. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly one in five American, heterosexual women up to age 49 (with no prior births) will have trouble conceiving after their first year of trying. So if you think you might fall in that group, hopefully today's episode has some basic information to get you thinking and put you at ease. Dr. Katherine Cartwright is an OB GYN with Albany Obstetrics & Gynecology. She got her medical degree from Nova Southeastern University and completed her residency at SUNY's University at Buffalo. Dr. Cartwright says she provides comprehensive women's health care for patients at various stages in their lives, but as part of that, she provides an awful lot of guidance to women (and couples) struggling to conceive. The way that we medically define infertility is 12 months of inability to conceive, despite regular intercourse and regular cycles. Within 12 months, somewhere between 80-90 percent of couples will be able to achieve a pregnancy on their own. So once they've reached a year, that's when we have a medical diagnosis of infertility. It's a little bit different in patients with different risk factors. So patients who are a little bit older, patients over 35, we use more of a six-month cut off. That has a little bit less to do with a difference in them suddenly being infertile after six months, and more to do with known declining fertility with age and wanting to get those people into medical care and into a workup [sooner]. When we have a patient that's concerned about infertility, there's a wide range of things that we really need to talk to them about. Their medical history is one of the most important things, and then talking to their partner and having a patient come in and be evaluated with their partner – or at least have good information about their partner – is really important. This is really a two-person issue, if there is a concern about ability to conceive, and about a third of infertility issues actually are male-factor issues. So I think it often is looked at as a solely female problem if someone's not conceiving, and it's something that we have to talk about very early on and make sure that we are looking at all angles. The basic workup is looking at the very basic building blocks of “How do we make a baby here?” And are all of those parts here? So, is this person making eggs? And are they releasing an egg every month? That's obviously something that's necessary. Is there sperm, and is the sperm normal? Is it present? And then the third thing that we really need to look at is, are they able to meet? So is there a structural thing that's preventing the egg from meeting with the sperm, and those are things we call “tubal factors,” where the actual fallopian tube where they're supposed to meet could be impacted by a variety of different disease processes that could inhibit the ability for an otherwise normal egg and sperm to meet. And that's really where the workup is focused. So we look at all three of those different things in a different way. Usually, we do blood testing, and just talk about a patient's medical history and cycles to see if it sounds like ovulation could potentially be an issue. We generally will get a semen analysis, so that is actual testing of the semen in the sperm from the male partner. And there are tests that we can do, either with dye or with saline that we put through the uterus to actually watch the tubes and see that they are open and able to have a sperm and an egg pass through them. Once you identify with what the issue is, is it usually an easy fix? So, it really depends what the causes are. One of the difficult things with infertility is the number one cause of infertility is “unexplained infertility” – that's an actual, medical diagnosis. And that is where most infertility workups land us, is with what we call “unexplained infertility.” So we do this whole workup, we do lab work, and we say everything looks normal. You know, it's always sort of a double-edged sword of good and bad, because for a patient, there's nothing wrong with you – but we don't have an answer as to why this is happening. [With] unexplained infertility, there are things we just sort of empirically do, which means we're just trying things, helping to time intercourse a little bit better. Sometimes we monitor their cycles and actually help make sure that they ovulate by giving them medications and monitoring their cycles. And even patients with unexplained infertility have relatively high rates of eventually being able to conceive. And sometimes we don't find an answer. But for a patient, what they really want is to have a baby, and so lots of times fertility doctors may say, “We don't have a good answer as to why this hasn't happened, but here are all of the options and things that we can try.” And that's everything from IUI, which is insemination, to IVF, which a lot of people are kind of familiar tangentially with IVF and how that works. And so sometimes patients ultimately go on to have these more invasive infertility interventions and treatments without ever having a definitive answer as to why they weren't able to get pregnant on their own. Do you have any thoughts on IVF or IUI? Like, is there one that I guess is easier? It depends, it depends on the patient. And I think there's different factors to consider. There are people who just don't want to go the route of creating embryos and re-implanting them – that's what IVF is. So IVF is where they actually take eggs out of someone's ovary, they fertilize them with sperm, they grow them, make sure that they're growing, and then they essentially put them back in the uterus to grow. And so it's definitely a lot of technology that's used. And that's medically amazing that we have [that], but for some people, it's just too much, and they don't want to do it. For other people, anything they could possibly do is something that they want to pursue. Financially, I think it's a concern for patients. Historically, many infertility treatments have not been well covered by insurance. In New York state, companies now are required to offer some fertility coverage. I don't know all of the details in it, it really depends on the size of the company, and there are some exemptions to that, but we do have better coverage than we used to. So hopefully, there's less of a financial constraint for people that are trying to use these services to grow a family. Would I be able to ask you about miscarriages? Yeah, yeah. So early pregnancy loss, or miscarriage, is very common. It's something that, you know, the numbers are mixed, because we know that there are very early pregnancies that are just not clinically recognized, meaning sperm meets the egg, it starts to implant, and the pregnancy fails before a patient even knows that she's pregnant, let alone is actually seen and has labs or an ultrasound or something done. Numbers vary anywhere between 25-30 percent in most documented research on this. So that means there's a quarter to a third of a chance, with every successful fertilized egg that is implanting or trying to implant in the uterus, that that could not result in a successful pregnancy with a baby at the end. Early on in pregnancy, it's something people worry about a lot. And, you know, we usually will bring them in for initial visits to meet with a doctor and evaluate in early pregnancy, somewhere around eight weeks or so. But in patients who are feeling well, they have a positive pregnancy test, they haven't had pain or bleeding, and they're feeling well, there's no real reason to rule out an early pregnancy loss unless they're having symptoms in most cases. So symptoms of an early pregnancy loss would be things like bleeding, or painful cramping. Those are really the two things that people present with most often. There can be cases of both pain and bleeding that don't result in miscarriage, and it can be a really scary time for patients, because if it's really early, we can't see a pregnancy on ultrasound, we don't have a really good way to confirm that things are moving forward normally, and so there's, unfortunately, a multiple-week period often of just waiting and seeing what will happen for patients. So that can be certainly anxiety-provoking for them. Reasons for miscarriage vary, and similar to infertility, we often just don't have a good answer as to why a miscarriage has happened. A single miscarriage with rates anywhere from 25-30 percent often is just kind of bad luck. Most of those miscarriages have to do with what we would consider a non-viable embryo, an embryo that, as it was dividing, had some kind of chromosomal abnormality that's not compatible with life. And so that's sort of the body's way of not continuing a pregnancy that would not be able to be successful. In patients who have had recurrent pregnancy loss, so multiple miscarriages, the workup becomes a little bit different, and there are other things that we need to look into. This is not infertility, necessarily, in that they haven't been able to get pregnant – that's what people think of as infertility – but recurrent pregnancy loss, where someone has been unable to have a baby, is still a form of infertility, and is something that needs to be to be looked at. What do you see as the future of treatment and research for infertility? It is a much newer field than I think people realize. The first baby ever born from IVF, I believe, is 40 or 41 now. And so if you think of that in the grand scheme of medical science, and what we know, it's really a very, very young field. I think continuing to find treatments and ways to predict fertility is one of the things that I hope we get better and better at. We have patients come in all the time that say, “I would love to have my fertility tested,” and it's just not something that you can do. We can't say, “Here's a test, this means for sure that you are fertile and you will not have any issues with infertility.” Continuing to look at what are some of the factors, especially in this unexplained infertility area where there are huge numbers of patients that have unexplained infertility, I think really focusing on ultimately, can we find a cause for that? What exactly is that cause? And how can we address that in the future is probably one of the biggest things that we need to do. If someone is struggling with their fertility, what advice do you have for them? It's always a good idea, before someone even starts to try to conceive, to have a conversation with their provider, whether they see a physician or a midwife, or whoever it is that they see for reproductive health care. Having a conversation, from the beginning, is a way to probably alleviate a lot of the unknowns and the anxieties related around conceiving, and how it will work if there's a problem. So that initial conversation we have with patients a lot, it's called a “preconception visit.” And we talked to them about things that potentially could influence their fertility: Do they have regular cycles? Do they have a history of infections, or pelvic infections? Do they have a history of endometriosis? Looking at the age of patients is something that we always think about in a preconception visit. If I have a patient who's coming to me and is 42, and just got married, and says, “I would like to try to conceive in this next year,” that's a patient that I often will immediately get some baseline labs on and actually recommend that they see a fertility specialist. Over 40 is a specific population of patients who have declining fertility at a rate that we really want to make sure that we're not wasting any time if they have decided that this is something that's important to them, and they want to move forward. These are not patients who I would wait 12 months or even six months to wait and see what happens. We often do what's called “concurrent management,” where they will actively be seeing an infertility specialist to start a workup while they're trying to start to conceive, because we really don't want to have delays in something that we know, biologically, does have some limitations. So looking at age, looking at all those risk factors, family history is something that we talk about a lot. And then other risk factors that could make a pregnancy more dangerous if they were to be pregnant. So something that would be a high-risk factor for a patient in a future pregnancy is important for us to talk about before they're pregnant. Do they have a cardiac condition? Is it well managed? Do we need to optimize their medical health and talk about medications that are safe in pregnancy, prior to them even conceiving? So that that's really where that conversation should start. If a patient has a concern that they are not pregnant as fast as they think they should, to me, that is enough to start a workup. So by definition, 12 months under 35, and six months over 35 is the definition of infertility, if you haven't been able to conceive. But if I have a patient who walks in and says, “I only get my period every three months,” it's not realistic to wait 12 months, because they haven't really had 12 months of chances if they're not ovulating every month, or they're not having regular cycles. Or if a patient says, “I conceived all of my other kids within one to two cycles, and it's been eight months so I'm really concerned,” that's a patient that I would also really start and initiate a workup. So I think the patient's concerns are important, and that's important to bring to any physician that you talk to, because that often is enough to at least start an initial workup for a patient. As Dr. Cartwright pointed out, conception is just the start — there's plenty to navigate going forward, and issues to look out for. Our next guest is a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Albany Medical Center. Dr. Erica Nicasio earned her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, and completed her residency at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She specializes in the diagnosis and management of fetal anomalies, preterm delivery, hypertensive disease and diabetes in pregnancy, multiple gestation, and more. What kinds of issues do you see people coming in for? Some of the more common things that we see are things that are becoming a lot more common for women just in general and in health care, in the population. We see a lot of women that have things like hypertensive diseases, so high blood pressure. The other really common medical issue that a lot of women have or developed during pregnancy is diabetes. So we take care of women both that have either Type I or Type II diabetes prior to pregnancy, to help them with insulin control and their pregnancy management, because it can change what happens with their blood sugars during pregnancy. And then also gestational diabetes, which is a specific form of the disease that develops because of the pregnancy, and can change as the pregnancy progresses. So those are some of the more common things that we deal with from a mom side. We also have complex pregnancies from the baby side, so we deal with those sorts of issues such as women that have had preterm labor, for example, going into labor early and delivering a baby. Or fetal anomalies, so a baby that developed some sort of congenital abnormality or a developmental abnormality that we can diagnose by ultrasound and sort of managing what we do with that going forward. At what point do people usually identify the fact that they might have a high-risk pregnancy? I'm guessing there's gonna be some people who are going into it knowing that they're going to have a high-risk pregnancy, but are there some identifying factors that they should watch out for? Absolutely. So that definitely varies, and there's a whole spectrum of high-risk pregnancies. And I think it is hard for women to know what that actually means, and what is defined as a high-risk pregnancy. For example, women that have had complicated medical problems may know that they have a complex medical history, and that makes them high-risk just because of their diseases that they bring to a pregnancy. So someone who has diabetes, someone who has had cancer before and chemotherapy, someone who has lupus, for example. Those sorts of conditions just become a little bit more complicated, or maybe more complex, in a pregnancy. And then as the pregnancies progress, sometimes we have women that develop high-risk issues and then get transferred to us, or have a consultation with us, so that we can discuss how to best manage those pregnancies and those risks that develop. Some examples would be if we do some genetic screening, that's something we offer for women in their first trimester, so early in pregnancy, to look for abnormal chromosomes in the baby. Every woman is offered that screening, if they want to know if they have a high-risk for a baby that has a chromosome abnormality. The most common thing that we see is something like Down syndrome, which would be an extra chromosome 21. So if we do that screening, and that comes back high-risk in their first trimester, often they'll come to us for further testing and discussion of sort of what to do about those findings. Similarly, as the pregnancy progresses, sometimes when we do their anatomic screening, which is an ultrasound, where we look at all of the parts of the baby like heart, lungs, belly, all of the different congenital development of the baby to make sure that everything has formed correctly, sometimes we find abnormalities on those ultrasounds, and often women that have those diagnoses get sent to a specialist like a maternal fetal medicine doctor to have higher level ultrasounds, detailed evaluation, and then again, discussion about how that might affect their baby in utero. How does multiple gestation complicate a pregnancy? What should people expect if they're planning to have twins or triplets? That's a good question. So that's definitely one of those high-risk pregnancy issues that get sent to us as well. So multiples have become much more commonplace because of infertility treatment and older women getting pregnant. And oftentimes, we get to diagnose that – so we get to tell a woman who's had a pregnancy test at home that's positive and comes to an ultrasound and, surprise, we see two babies in there. That can be very exciting. We also have to talk to them about the complications that are increased in those multiple gestations. Pretty much as an overarching rule, most of the complications that we see in pregnancy, like high blood pressure diseases, early labor, gestational diabetes, those sorts of things, are just more commonly seen in a twin pregnancy compared to a singleton pregnancy. You're twice as likely to have a genetic abnormality, for example, because of the additional fetus being there. So these pregnancies are definitely more high-risk than a typical single gestation, so we watch them much more closely than the typical, uncomplicated single baby. And then interestingly, there's different types of multiple gestations, including how the twins formed and how they live inside the uterus. So they can be in their own sac and have their own placentas – completely separate pregnancies, like two babies in there, doing their own thing. And that's generally the lowest risk type of twins. Or they can be sharing placenta, or they can even be sharing gestational sacs, so they're living in the same fluid-filled sac, and those become much more complicated as well. We have to monitor to make sure that they're each getting the nutrients and blood flow and oxygenation that they need to develop appropriately, and if they don't, it can be much more complicated. I've read that you've also done research on things like preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction and fetal testing and maternal obesity. Could you tell me a little bit about your research there? Absolutely. So I was looking at preeclampsia, which is basically a high blood pressure disease that develops during pregnancy. Usually after 20 weeks of pregnancy, so it can happen sort of any time. Women develop high blood pressure as well as protein in their urine, and then it can also affect their kidney function, their liver function and their blood counts, like their platelets. And the biggest risk is, you know, a neurologic risk woman can eventually have if not controlled. It can develop neurologic complications like strokes, and seizures, and really scary things that would be dangerous to pregnancy. So we often end up delivering babies on the earlier side, to protect mom's health, because of the risk of the severity of the disease to mom. And in other countries, they see a lot more eclampsia, which is actually the seizures that can develop. And unfortunately, though we see it relatively commonly, especially at a center where we have high-risk doctors, and we get referrals for it, we still don't exactly know even why it happens. So that's sort of what interests me, is sort of trying to help to understand why some women develop preeclampsia and other women don't. We know that there are risk factors from a health perspective – like having high blood pressure, or lupus, or things that affect your kidneys, for example, put you at risk for preeclampsia. But then otherwise, you know, healthy first-time moms [develop issues] – first pregnancies are actually more likely to get preeclampsia than women that have had multiple pregnancies before. And we don't exactly understand the reason for which women will develop this disease and which women will develop even more severe disease, but we think that it has to do with the placenta and how the placenta forms and invades into the uterus and communicates with the blood vessels in mom. That's sort of what I was looking at, was taking women that have preeclampsia and comparing them with women who don't, and looking at their placenta after they deliver, to see if there was a protein that was expressed differently from one pregnancy to the other. But to be honest, you know, people have been researching this topic for many, many years, and we still have lots of question marks. So it's a very, very complicated disease process that, if we were able to figure out the mechanism of why it happens, then we will be able to treat it better. But unfortunately, right now, the only solution is to deliver the baby early to help remove the placenta. And commonly, the disease actually gets much better after delivery. So this is of course, aside from the usual things people experience with pregnancy, the ways the body changes. I once had a nurse who told me her vision temporarily deteriorated during her pregnancy – is that a thing? What other things might women experience that we just don't talk as much about, or know as much about? There are a ton of changes just due to having a pregnancy in general. And so women's bodies are going through so many different changes, and then the changes change, as the pregnancy progresses. Pregnancy's 10 months long, and so it's definitely a journey. The big things that we see are, you know, some physiologic changes, meaning changes that just happened because of the pregnancy: increased blood volume, so you actually have more blood flowing through your body during pregnancy than you do normally, to feed the pregnancy, and then also in preparation for delivery, when the body loses blood. Many women get anemic during pregnancy. And many women can be anemic before pregnancy, but the way the blood is concentrated, actually causes some anemia. So some low blood counts, we monitor for that, for example. Your respiratory system changes, both the way that you're getting oxygen to your body and then also as the uterus grows, it can affect how you breathe, because the uterus gets big enough to affect the diaphragm and its ability to go up and down. And so many women will describe shortness of breath during pregnancy. Another really common one is reflux, acid reflux. A lot of people are prone to that baseline, but in pregnancy, the sphincter that closes your esophagus to your stomach off so that the acid in your stomach doesn't go back up into your esophagus and chest and cause that acid feeling gets looser, because of the hormones of pregnancy. And so a lot of women have issues with reflux getting worse during pregnancy. And then as the uterus grows, it also causes compression of all of your abdominal contents as the uterus kind of fills up the belly and makes that reflux worse. So we see a lot of that as well. Is the way that we're having babies changing at all in the U.S.? That's a good question. In terms of delivery type, our cesarean rates probably have increased over the years, but so has our high-risk pregnancy [rate], and high-risk pregnancies put you at risk for having a cesarean delivery. So I think a little bit of that has probably played into it. I think there's a lot of social pressures that come with the idea women have as to how their delivery should go. And with social media and Pinterest and things like this, people get the idea that it should be one thing for everybody, or that, you know, having a “natural birth” is the only way to successfully have a baby. But there's a lot of ways that babies come into this world. One of the things is, you never know how it's gonna go. And I think people have an idea that they should have a birth plan, and have everything set up and be ready. And having done this for long enough now, what we really know is that generally nothing goes according to plan. And so having a little bit of flexibility and being ready for whatever comes your way during the labor processes is usually a good way to go into it. Before we go, we're celebrating Women's History Month by taking some time each week to recognize prominent women in history. Last week Natalie Rudd joined us from the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, and she's back with us to share some more of the “women of the hall.” Dolores Huerta Dolores was born in New Mexico, however, she spent most of her life in Stockton, California. Her primary inspiration was her mother: she owned a 70-room hotel where she would often welcome low-wage workers and oftentimes waive the fee for them. She was an active participant in her community and really encouraged cultural diversity, which was really common in Stockton, which was a heavily agricultural-based community. So they had an agricultural community that was made up of Mexican, Filipino, American Japanese, and Chinese working families. Dolores found for inspiration as an organizer while serving in the leadership for the Stockton community service organization, or CSO. During this time, she set up voter registrations, and pressed local government for barrio improvements. And then in 1955, she was introduced to the CSO director, Cesar Chavez, and the two soon discovered that they had this shared vision of organizing farmworkers. Together, they launched the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. The two were partners in lobbying and really unionizing farm workers in America, and she really came to prominence when she helped organize the 1965 Delano strike of 5,000 grape workers. The strike lasted for five years, and drew national attention for its nonviolent resistance. During this time, during the national boycott of the California table grapes, she was in New York and she came in contact with Gloria Steinem, who was doing a huge part of the burgeoning feminist movement. And she realized that they have a lot in common, so she was advocating for farm workers while also advocating for women and how they are discriminated within the farm working movement. At the age of 58, she suffered a life-threatening assault while protesting against the policies of then-presidential candidate George Bush. A police officer with the baton ended up breaking for her ribs and shattering her spleen. And then during her really intensive recovery period, she took a leave of absence from the union and focused on women's rights. During this time she traveled the country on behalf of the feminist majority's “Feminization of Power,” which is a campaign that resulted in a significant increase in the number of women representatives at the local, state, and federal levels. So she began her career working with agricultural farm workers and has worked continuously for union rights as well as lobbying to get women into government. Even now, today, at 89 years old, she continues to work tirelessly to help leaders advocate for the working poor, women, and children. She founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation, where she travels across the country engaging in campaigns, all that supports equality defending civil rights, and she often speak to students and organizations about issues of social justice and public policy. Nellie Bly Nellie was a pioneer in investigative journalism in the late 1800s. She was one of the first reporters who truly went behind the scenes to get the real story. She had herself committed to a mental institution in an effort to expose the abuse that occurred there, and the results of this story were reforms that were actually made to living and care conditions at Blackwell's Island Mental Institute in New York City. When this story broke, she became like an overnight sensation, she became an extremely popular reporter. She ultimately ended up shining a light on everything from the improper treatment of prisoners in New York City jails, to the poor working conditions in factories, to corruption politics – she wrote about it all. She ended up gaining a ton of fame in 1899 when she traveled around the world in 72 days, which drew inspiration from the fiction novel Around the World in 80 Days, which is written by Jules Verne. She married a successful businessman, Robert Seaman. And then after he died in 1904, Nellie took control of his company and put into practice all of the workplace reforms that she had envisioned while working as a journalist, such as health care, and adding fitness centers into his company. She ended up unfortunately dying of pneumonia at a very young age of 57, but she had done so much in her lifetime. She really ushered in this whole new era of investigative journalism in such a short life, she really accomplished a lot. And that's like the quick version. I could spend hours talking about Nellie Bly. The small stories about her travels and her journals are really, really incredible. Natalie Rudd is the learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. The Hall will be inducting its next class, including Indra Nooyi, Mia Hamm, Octavia Butler, Michelle Obama, and more, this September. 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

In 1967 Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to officially register and run in the Boston Marathon; but that was just the beginning.  By the end of the race, she had her life's mission:  to provide opportunities for women all over the world to experience the same empowerment she felt through running. Switzer founded a global running initiative that has created events in 27 countries with over 1 million female runners participating. She's a best-selling author, an Emmy Award-winning TV commentator, a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame and the National Distance Running Hall of Fame.  A true trailblazer in women's sports history, Kathrine joins Marc for episode 10 of FOY to discuss that first race in Boston, her 261 Fearless foundation and what running and the National Senior Games mean to her now at age 75. You can learn more about Kathrine at kathrineswitzer.com &  Follow her on Facebook , IG, & Twitter Follow Growing Bolder Follow National Senior Games Association For more information on Growing Bolder & the NSGA, visit growingbolder.com/nsga #mastersathletics #womensrunningcommunity #marathonwoman #mastersrunning

One of America's greatest female swimmers of all time, Donna de Varona, will be the featured guest on A Mick A Mook and A Mic on March 16th.  At the age of 17, Donna appeared on ABC's Wide World of Sports, becoming the youngest and one of the first women sportscasters for a national network. Her groundbreaking career has earned her an Emmy, two Gracies, and the opportunity to cover a wide variety of sports events including 17 winter and summer Olympic games.In 1969 de Varona was inducted to the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an “Honor Swimmer.” In 2003, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.And in 2006, she was inducted into the Museum of Television & Radio's first class of fifty “She Made It” pioneers in media.Donna has also served as an activist for sports and fitness opportunities for America's youth. Since her retirement from competitions in 1965, she has served five terms on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and has been appointed to Presidential Commissions under presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush.A consultant to the United States Senate, de Varona took a leave of absence from her pioneering television career to help with the passage of the 1978 Amateur Sports Act, which restructured how Olympic sports are governed in the United States.A promoter of women in sport, Donna joined Billie Jean King, in the mid-70s, establishing the Women's Sports Foundation. She served as its first President (1979–1984) and subsequently, became the chairman and Honorary Trustee for the Foundation. Under de Varona's leadership, the Women's Sport Foundation initiated the Hall of Fame Dinner (now the Annual Salute to Women in Sports Awards Dinner). Over the years, the Foundation has raised more than $30 million to support its programs.Donna's professional and personal contributions as an athlete, sportscaster and an activist are vast and extremely impressive – and her appearance on A Mick A Mook and A Mic is a must see.

On this week's 51%, we discuss the inflammatory condition endometriosis: what it is, what it looks like, and how it's treated. We also speak with Linda Griffith, scientific director of the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research, about how engineers are working to better understand the disease. Guests: Linda Griffith, scientific director and co-founder of the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research; Dr. Kathy Huang, director of the NYU Langone Endometriosis Center; Sarah Digby; Natalie Rudd, learning and education manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. Most of us are aware that it's Women's History Month, but the month of March is also an important time to discuss women's health. It's Endometriosis Awareness Month, a time to read up and spread the news on a condition that impacts roughly 1 in 10 women (or people with uteruses) worldwide. Despite those numbers, endometriosis has historically been written off as a “women's disease,” a taboo topic of conversation, or simply part of being a woman in general (after all, no one enjoys their period) — so there's still a lot we don't know about it. So that's what we're focusing on today. The big questions: what is it, what does it look like, and how is it treated. To use the definition offered by the Endometriosis Foundation of America: endometriosis is when tissue similar to the inner lining of your uterus, called the endometrium, is found outside your uterus — where it shouldn't be. Typically, endometriosis is found on organs like the uterus, the fallopian tubes, ovaries, bladder, etc., but in extreme cases it can advance outside the pelvic cavity to other areas, like your appendix or even your lungs. The problem is that this tissue still acts like the tissue inside your uterus, so it bleeds with your monthly menstrual cycle. This can result in painful inflammation and lesions that contribute to symptoms including: painful and abnormal periods, bowel and urinary issues, neuropathy, infertility, and more. Currently, there is no cure. Our first guest today is Sarah Digby, a 32-year-old former education specialist now living in New York City. Digby grew up in San Antonio, Texas, where she says her access to sex education was extremely limited. Even at home, it wasn't typical for her family to talk about their bodies, so she grew up knowing very little about her own. But the moment she started getting her period at age 12, she knew something was off.  "The way that I was experiencing periods, the way that I was bleeding, and the amount of pain that I was in — it was nothing I had been led to expect I would experience from the pre-teen magazines I'd read, and what cramps would feel like," says Digby. "They would be really bad the first couple days of my period — and I had long periods, they lasted about seven or eight days. They'd kind of abate, and then I'd have some pain towards the end...How could something so painful be so accepted and natural? Even though that's what people were telling me. To be fair, I was a dramatic teenager — but I was also in a lot of pain." Digby says her period caused her to routinely miss school during her high school and college years — but that didn't seem to concern many of the people in her life. She never got used to the pain, but over time, Digby says she basically learned to live around it, or at least, in her words, “shut up about it.” By the time she moved to New York and started seeing a new OB GYN in 2008, and it didn't even occur to her to mention the regular pain she was experiencing. But the cysts started happening. "One of them happened on a plane, right before takeoff, while I was on a layover. I passed out and had to be pulled off the plane by EMTs. Even then, no one could figure out what was wrong," Digby explains. "At the time I was actually a teacher, and one time I had an endometrioma rupture on the subway — didn't know that's what it was — [I] barely made it into the school, and then [I] had to have someone cover my class, because I was down for the whole rest of the day, unable to walk, unable to do anything, and just in excruciating pain. I was quickly becoming pretty disabled." What Digby was experiencing were rupturing endometriomas, blood-filled cysts that typically start on one or both of the ovaries. Endometriosis is currently classified in four official stages according to morphology — basically, how many lesions or cysts you have, and where they are. At the time, the flare-ups around Digby's periods had died down — she was on the IUD, so she stopped getting her period — but over time her lesions had increased in number and gotten deeper, and with the added cysts now bursting multiple times a year, her pain was no longer tied to her menstrual cycle. It could hit at almost any time. A precautionary sonogram by Digby's OB GYN showed an unruptured endometrioma on her right ovary, which then prompted her doctor to schedule a laparoscopy, or diagnostic surgery. At age 26, nearly 15 years after experiencing her first symptoms, Digby finally had her diagnosis: she had Stage 3 endometriosis.  "Finally, some good doctors were able to identify what was going on," she notes. We'll check back with Sarah Digby later on in the show, but before we head on, I feel like it's important to ask — what causes endometriosis in the first place? As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, there's still a lot we don't know about this disease, and although Congress has increased funding for endometriosis research over the past couple of years, it's still largely under-researched and under-funded compared to other conditions. Our next guest is Linda Griffith, a top bio engineer at MIT and co-founder of its Center for Gynepathology Research — currently the only engineering lab in the nation to focus on endometriosis. In some ways, Griffith's story is similar to Digby's: she'd always had painful periods, but it took decades for her to actually get a diagnosis. Even then, she required several surgeries to combat the disease (including a hysterectomy), and in the late 2000s she founder herself watching her niece begin to grapple with the same obstacles and frustrations. So in 2009, Griffith co-founded the CGR with the goal of better understanding endometriosis, so that it can be more quickly diagnosed and more successfully treated.  How does the CGR approach its research on endometriosis? What struck us at the time we started to work together was the incredible diversity of patient presentations of endometriosis: the age of onset, the symptoms that they have, the types of lesions, the geographic locations of lesions, co-morbidities, response or not to drugs that are already available. After we started working together, I got breast cancer, and I was immediately classified on a molecular basis as triple negative. So there were three markers, they were related to the mechanism of cancer, to the prognosis, and to the therapies. Why is there not a molecular classification for endometriosis? It's so prevalent. There's got to be different molecular subtypes. So the approach at the CGR became "How do we start to classify patients by molecular mechanism?" with a hypothesis that patients could be different, sort of like cancer patients are different, and need different therapies and have different prognoses. So that was our starting point, and this was really, really not done at the time we started. In doing that, we published the first two studies describing approaches to molecular classification. They're not definitive, they were small patient samples, but this has sparked other people to be thinking in this way as well. And it's something that we continue to pursue, both by looking at patient samples, but also by building little, what we call "avatars" of the patients. We take their tissues back to the lab, and we make 3D tissue, engineered little mimics of the patients, and then we can start to test whether molecular things we find in our analyses allow us to intervene with drugs that are not currently in the clinic. So it's really this idea, which was novel, and now more people are thinking that we need to classify patients, because we know that they're not all the same, and we need to figure out how new drugs that are not hormones, for example, could work in different groups of patients. Do we know for sure what causes it in the first place? The causes of endometriosis are highly debated and speculated on, and we don't really know if there's one cause. I tend to think there's many causes. It's like if a patient shows up in the emergency room and has a smashed tibia: it could have been a motorcycle accident, it could have been a brick falling on him, it could have been somebody hitting him with a baseball bat, etc. So there could be many things that converge on similar symptoms, and this falls in with our molecular mechanism hypothesis. There's very, very interesting data supporting many hypotheses about developmental defects. Very clear data that's support for some patients that, during development, cells can go out of the way and get the wrong place. There's very clear circumstantial evidence supporting Sampson's Theory. Some people really reject this theory, but it's not been proved wrong, and there are many, many circumstantial supports for it — where most women have reflux of menstrual tissue during their periods, and it goes in the abdominal cavity. Most women will clear it, but it's conceivable that some of that tissue implants and turns into lesions. That theory is not very consistent with onset at the time of monarch — we know that some girls, including myself, including my niece, had symptoms from my very first period, before there was all of this reflux. And so then there's a hybrid around the time that babies are born. In some babies, there's a little bit of bleeding seen coming from the vagina, and it's about 5 percent of babies, tending to be babies born late. So there's a hypothesis that there may be bleeding, shedding of the endometrial lining around the time of birth, because you have a huge fall in progesterone — and maybe that seeds the abdominal cavity with cells that came from the endometrium around the time of birth. And then when hormones surge during puberty, it wakes those cells up and they cause lesions. I think that there's credible evidence in all of those arenas. The interplay between infection/environmental exposure is still very much provocative, and circumstantial and epidemiological data suggests, for example, exposure to dioxin [could cause endometriosis]. Animal studies implicate exposure to environmental chemicals. This may be something that affects your immune system, and now your immune system is unable to clear the tissue that goes into your abdominal cavity. So many theories, and probably many of them are correct. There's probably many causes. Does the location of endometriosis have an impact on what you experience? So there's not a strong correlation between lesion morphology — meaning how big the lesion is and where the lesion is — and symptoms. Some patients can have Stage 4, lot of lesions, big lesions, deep lesions...and have no symptoms. And I know people like that. Other patients can have one tiny lesion and be in crippling, excruciating pain. Now, those patients may also have things going on with adenomyosis, and if you haven't heard about adenomyosis, it's important to bring it up. It is when endometriosis is in the wall of the uterus, in the muscle. And you don't see it during surgery, typically, and you can infer it by doing an ultrasound or MRI of the uterus — but there's no for-sure diagnosis other than hysterectomy and pathology, or some other interventions that involve surgery of the actual uterine wall. So some patients who are told they have Stage 1 [endometriosis] and feel like they have a lot of symptoms may have something else going on in the uterus, that's actually a version of endometriosis that not a lot of doctors look for. We know very little about adenomyosis. Just for calibration, Crohn's disease affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population, and in PubMed, where all the scientific papers are collated, there are listed about 60,000 papers for Crohn's disease — which is great, it's a terrible condition. But if you look up adenomyosis, which may affect about 10 percent of women, so that means about 5 percent of the population, or definitely more than 1 percent of the whole population, there's only about 3,000 papers. That that's for the whole world. So now you've got 5 percent of the number of publications for a disease that afflicts a lot more people. So this just tells you how little, you know, attention has been paid to gynecology at the level of funding agencies. What do you feel are some of the biggest misconceptions about endometriosis? Fortunately, many of the misunderstandings are being addressed through greater awareness and things like this. There is something that is troubling to me as a scientist, and as a patient, that I see on Facebook groups. There's a particular Facebook group, "Nancy's Nook," and there's a rejection of the idea that Sampson's hypothesis, the reflux, menstrual tissue, is valid. A complete rejection of that. And I can understand that we want to highlight that there could be other causes, and I believe there are other causes, but it's unfortunate when you throw out a scientific hypothesis without a basis for throwing it out. And there's a lot of misinformation now being promulgated by patients who feel that they know more than the average patient — but they know far, far less than the informed clinicians and scientists who work in the field, and they're very dangerous, in my view, because they promote patients to go seek care from people who may be promising them things that are not true. So if you promise a patient that excision surgery will cure them, publish the data saying that you cure patients that way, and then then you can say that. So I'd say some of the big misunderstandings rights now are actually misinformation being given to patients about cures that are not backed up by rigorous data. What do you feel about the different treatments that are out there for endometriosis? And do you have hope someday for a cure? As for treatments right now, it really depends on the patient. Some patients respond quite well to hormonal therapies. A lot of patients respond, some patients get great relief from the Mirena IUD, for example. Other patients do need to have surgery, and in the case of surgery, there's a lot of debate about this so called "ablation versus excision." You absolutely need excision if you have lesions that go deep into the underlying tissue. Ablation is simply burning them off — and if they're very superficial, ablation can be sufficient. However, you have to be very sure that what you see as a superficial lesion is not invading deeper into the tissue. And so I think that this is where there, again, is some confusion in the way that certain patients on social media are advocating for certain kinds of treatment when there are nuances. I would highlight surgeons who have done a fellowship supported by the American Association for Gynecologic Laparoscopy, [they] are going to be trained to do the most severe endometriosis excision surgery. People may say they're doing excision, and if they're not trained through a fellowship, then it's a lot less clear that they were trained with all the methods that are accepted by the professional societies to do that surgery. You don't know until the surgery happens, generally, what the patient's going to present with, and a surgeon who is trained to do only ablation, if a patient presents with more severe disease, will typically sew that patient up and refer them to an excision specialist. So I think we need to be cognizant that there's a spectrum of therapies that for today are adequate for a lot of patients, but some patients are still not served by those: either they have no access to appropriate surgeons; their disease has progressed to a very difficult state, even for really good surgeons; and they may have complex pain phenotypes. Changes in the brain can make the pain more severe and persistent, and this is not a fault of the patient, this is a consequence of the disease. And one of the things we're doing is trying to work with pain specialists to start understanding differences in patients who have different kinds of pain processing in their brains. How might learning about endometriosis help us better understand other diseases or vice versa? There's amazing opportunity to learn about other diseases, particularly the other chronic inflammatory diseases such as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. [As well as] some autoimmune diseases, because inherently, endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease — something is wrong with the immune system or the body's response to tissue that's displaced. There may be connections to infection, or exposure to certain things, or maybe genetics. And so by understanding the relationships between the immune system and the lesions in patients, we are gaining insights into other chronic diseases. For example, we have just started a chronic Lyme Disease study in collaboration with several others at MIT, and there's some fascinating crossovers between what the Lyme Disease researchers see in the mice, and the potential for there to be uterine phenotypes due to infection. And so there may be, potentially, some links between prior infection and development of disease. We don't know. There's a publication in the field that suggests certain kinds of infections predispose patients to certain kinds of endometriosis, but this is all very early studies. These kinds of studies will inform, in general, our understanding of female immunology — which by the way, is very different. We have in our local area actually started a discussion group that meets every two months called Sex and Immunity, trying to understand the differences between the immunological responses in men and women to infection and to vaccinations. Once Sarah Digby was diagnosed with endometriosis, she eventually found her way to Dr. Kathy Huang, director of NYU Langone's Endometriosis Center. Huang says her office takes a holistic approach to treatment, using MRI scans and ultrasound imaging to get a better sense of each patient's individual case. She says the first-line of treatment includes hormonal suppression (including hormonal contraceptives), painkillers, pelvic floor therapy, mental health support, and even acupuncture. But as Dr. Griffith mentioned earlier, there are some cases where your options are limited: if you're trying to conceive, then hormonal suppression isn't going to be the immediate option for you. If you're a more advanced case, like Digby, then some level of surgery — be it ablation or excision — may be necessary. Huang says she specializes in robot-assisted, fertility-preserving gynecologic surgery.  "All of my endometriosis surgeries are done robotically, which means that it's minimally invasive, it's a small incision, and the patients will go home the same day. And what the MRI helps us with, is if the patient has endometriosis, where are the lesions of the endometriosis, so that if we plan for a surgical excision, we have the right partners in the room to do it, " she explains. "So if the patient has endometriosis on the bladder, we will have a urology partner [in the room]. If the patient has significant bowel endometriosis, we may have a colorectal surgeon partner, so that we can do one surgery for the patient and have complete treatment for the condition, rather than multiple surgeries. There are times that patients come in asking for a hysterectomy, which is the removal of the uterus. And I have seen multiple reports on patients undergoing a hysterectomy to treat endometriosis. And I think it's really important to stress that, by definition, endometriosis is an extra-uterine disease. So removing the uterus itself is not going to help patients with endometriosis, unless the patient also has adenomyosis. That is the only situation where a hysterectomy will actually be helpful for the condition. The other that we talk about in fertility-preserving surgery is also not removing the ovaries. So the ovaries produce the hormones, and endometriosis is a hormone-responsive condition — however, if we're able to preserve the patient's ovaries, we do our best to do that, because it does continue to provide antigens even when the patient enters menopause. So it gives you hormones, it helps with your cardiac health, bone density, sexual health, all of those things. So it's a fine line between doing definitive surgery, and stripping the patient of the ovaries and the uterus, versus symptom relief." Digby credits Huang and her gynecologists in New York for helping her get her life back. Through robotic excision surgery, Huang was able to remove more than a decade's worth of lesions without damaging Digby's pelvic organs, successfully bringing her from Stage 3 of the disease to Stage 0. While it could always come back, Digby says she keeps her endometriosis in check with regular monitoring and multiple forms of birth control (in her case: the arm implant and an IUD). The whole process, from diagnosis to remission, took Digby just a year and a half — but she can't help but wonder about those 15 years prior to her diagnosis. How might she have spent her 20s, if she had received treatment as a teenager? How much grief might she have been spared, if someone at home, her school, her college, or doctor's office had noticed the signs? For Digby, spreading awareness is key to ensuring better treatment for future generations. “Here's something where, I think back, and it's just wild: my mom had endometriosis. Never once did it occur to her, as she saw her daughter struggling with a gynecological disease, that there might be a connection there. Because she had been treated for endometriosis and had the surgery before my brother and I were born, but — and this not to say that this is any of her fault at all, the society's falling — but she only had one or two symptoms, and they weren't related to her menstrual cycle," says Digby. "This is how this keeps happening from generation to generation. We all know what to do when somebody's in diabetic shock: get them blood sugar. We all know what to do, or how to recognize, symptoms of a heart attack. And yet we don't know, as a society, the most common symptoms of a debilitating disease in well over 10 percent of the female population, who could also benefit from that widespread awareness.”  "The one message I always have for women is that pain is not normal. So if your doctor is not taking you seriously, then you need to get a second opinion, because pain is never normal. And it doesn't need to be endometriosis, there are other reasons for pelvic pain. We just did a study for sexual trauma, to see how often are OB GYNs actually asking women the question of, 'If you have pain, is there any history of sexual trauma in your life?'" adds Huang. "I just think we need to talk about all these things more, it's not just a single-lever problem. Even though I am a surgeon by training, I really don't think the answer is surgery alone, and nor is it always the answer. It is only seldom the answer, and even when it is, it is not the entire answer. We still need other specialists to continue to help us, to help the patient. Again, the one message is that pain is not normal. So if your doctor is not hearing you, please seek a second opinion." If you think you might be experiencing symptoms of endometriosis or adenomyosis, Dr. Huang advises that you contact your OB GYN and then a specialist if needed. You can learn more about endometriosis and adenomyosis online. The NYU Langone Endometriosis Center, MIT Center for Gynepathology Research, and the Endometriosis Foundation of America all have info and even webinars on their websites to get you started. As part of her own effort to raise awareness, Sarah Digby has her own collection of easy-to-share diagrams and infographics at her website, endographics.org.  Before we head out, we're celebrating Women's History Month by taking some time each week to recognize prominent women in history. Joining me today is someone who's been on the show before: Natalie Rudd is the learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. More than 290 women, past and present, have been inducted into the Hall since its start in 1969, and Natalie has a couple she'd like to share with us today. Sarah Winnemucca "She was a northern Piute author, actor, and activist. She was alive from 1844-1897, and she was raised by an influential Piute family in Nevada. For her, being American was a really complicated process, especially during the late 19th Century. It was a process of adopting the behaviors and languages of white people, who she had often been taught to distrust, but [she] had to do that to kind of assimilate and survive. She worked as a translator, which then eventually led to her becoming an activist for Native American rights. In 1865, her family was actually attacked by a U.S. cavalry, which killed 29 Piutes, including her mother and several members of her family, which then launched her into her advocacy for Native American rights. So she travelled all across the U.S., basically telling white Americans about the destruction and colonization of native peoples. She eventually worked for the U.S. as a messenger, an interpreter, and as a teacher for imprisoned Native Americans. She ended up publishing a book called Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims. The book is both a memoir and a history of her people during their first 40 years of contact with European Americans. It's considered the first known autobiography written by a Native American woman, and then eventually she returned out west, where she founded a private school for Native American children in Nevada." Aimee Mullins "So Aimee has had a really cool career, in that she's done literally everything. She was born with fibular hemimelia, which basically means she was missing her fibula bones, and as a result she had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was one year old. She was told that she would probably have to use a wheelchair for most of her life, and probably never walk, but by the age of two, she had already learned to walk with prosthetic legs. Aimee has always been about going above and beyond. She ended up becoming an athlete with her prosthetics. She got a full academic scholarship to Georgetown, and there she ended up pursuing a career at the School of Foreign Service. When she was there, she earned a top secret security clearance with the Pentagon at the age of 17. She worked there as an intelligence analyst as a teenager — which that alone is incredible. But simultaneously, she was running track and field for Georgetown, and went on to compete for the NCAA Division I track and field events. She was the first amputee student to ever compete in an NCAA women's or men's event. She later went on to compete in the Paralympics in 1996 in Atlanta, and she helped with the design of her prosthetic legs, which are designed after the hind legs of a cheetah. So a lot of the prosthetic legs you see now, she was involved with the design process of. So again, that alone would have been amazing. After she retired, she then went on to be a model. Not only doing print, but also runway modeling. She modeled for Alexander McQueen, Kenneth Cole. She was named one of People's 50 most beautiful women in the world. And she's also worked as an actress in both television in film. My favorite role of hers was she played Eleven's mom in Stranger Things." Natalie Rudd is the learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. The Hall will be inducting its next class, including Indra Nooyi, Mia Hamm, Octavia Butler, Michelle Obama, and more, this September. 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

On this week's 51%, we discuss the inflammatory condition endometriosis: what it is, what it looks like, and how it's treated. We also speak with Linda Griffith, scientific director of the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research, about how engineers are working to better understand the disease. Guests: Linda Griffith, scientific director and co-founder of the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research; Dr. Kathy Huang, director of the NYU Langone Endometriosis Center; Sarah Digby; Natalie Rudd, learning and education manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. Most of us are aware that it's Women's History Month, but the month of March is also an important time to discuss women's health. It's Endometriosis Awareness Month, a time to read up and spread the news on a condition that impacts roughly 1 in 10 women (or people with uteruses) worldwide. Despite those numbers, endometriosis has historically been written off as a “women's disease,” a taboo topic of conversation, or simply part of being a woman in general (after all, no one enjoys their period) — so there's still a lot we don't know about it. So that's what we're focusing on today. The big questions: what is it, what does it look like, and how is it treated. To use the definition offered by the Endometriosis Foundation of America: endometriosis is when tissue similar to the inner lining of your uterus, called the endometrium, is found outside your uterus — where it shouldn't be. Typically, endometriosis is found on organs like the uterus, the fallopian tubes, ovaries, bladder, etc., but in extreme cases it can advance outside the pelvic cavity to other areas, like your appendix or even your lungs. The problem is that this tissue still acts like the tissue inside your uterus, so it bleeds with your monthly menstrual cycle. This can result in painful inflammation and lesions that contribute to symptoms including: painful and abnormal periods, bowel and urinary issues, neuropathy, infertility, and more. Currently, there is no cure. Our first guest today is Sarah Digby, a 32-year-old former education specialist now living in New York City. Digby grew up in San Antonio, Texas, where she says her access to sex education was extremely limited. Even at home, it wasn't typical for her family to talk about their bodies, so she grew up knowing very little about her own. But the moment she started getting her period at age 12, she knew something was off.  "The way that I was experiencing periods, the way that I was bleeding, and the amount of pain that I was in — it was nothing I had been led to expect I would experience from the pre-teen magazines I'd read, and what cramps would feel like," says Digby. "They would be really bad the first couple days of my period — and I had long periods, they lasted about seven or eight days. They'd kind of abate, and then I'd have some pain towards the end...How could something so painful be so accepted and natural? Even though that's what people were telling me. To be fair, I was a dramatic teenager — but I was also in a lot of pain." Digby says her period caused her to routinely miss school during her high school and college years — but that didn't seem to concern many of the people in her life. She never got used to the pain, but over time, Digby says she basically learned to live around it, or at least, in her words, “shut up about it.” By the time she moved to New York and started seeing a new OB GYN in 2008, and it didn't even occur to her to mention the regular pain she was experiencing. But the cysts started happening. "One of them happened on a plane, right before takeoff, while I was on a layover. I passed out and had to be pulled off the plane by EMTs. Even then, no one could figure out what was wrong," Digby explains. "At the time I was actually a teacher, and one time I had an endometrioma rupture on the subway — didn't know that's what it was — [I] barely made it into the school, and then [I] had to have someone cover my class, because I was down for the whole rest of the day, unable to walk, unable to do anything, and just in excruciating pain. I was quickly becoming pretty disabled." What Digby was experiencing were rupturing endometriomas, blood-filled cysts that typically start on one or both of the ovaries. Endometriosis is currently classified in four official stages according to morphology — basically, how many lesions or cysts you have, and where they are. At the time, the flare-ups around Digby's periods had died down — she was on the IUD, so she stopped getting her period — but over time her lesions had increased in number and gotten deeper, and with the added cysts now bursting multiple times a year, her pain was no longer tied to her menstrual cycle. It could hit at almost any time. A precautionary sonogram by Digby's OB GYN showed an unruptured endometrioma on her right ovary, which then prompted her doctor to schedule a laparoscopy, or diagnostic surgery. At age 26, nearly 15 years after experiencing her first symptoms, Digby finally had her diagnosis: she had Stage 3 endometriosis.  "Finally, some good doctors were able to identify what was going on," she notes. We'll check back with Sarah Digby later on in the show, but before we head on, I feel like it's important to ask — what causes endometriosis in the first place? As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, there's still a lot we don't know about this disease, and although Congress has increased funding for endometriosis research over the past couple of years, it's still largely under-researched and under-funded compared to other conditions. Our next guest is Linda Griffith, a top bio engineer at MIT and co-founder of its Center for Gynepathology Research — currently the only engineering lab in the nation to focus on endometriosis. In some ways, Griffith's story is similar to Digby's: she'd always had painful periods, but it took decades for her to actually get a diagnosis. Even then, she required several surgeries to combat the disease (including a hysterectomy), and in the late 2000s she founder herself watching her niece begin to grapple with the same obstacles and frustrations. So in 2009, Griffith co-founded the CGR with the goal of better understanding endometriosis, so that it can be more quickly diagnosed and more successfully treated.  How does the CGR approach its research on endometriosis? What struck us at the time we started to work together was the incredible diversity of patient presentations of endometriosis: the age of onset, the symptoms that they have, the types of lesions, the geographic locations of lesions, co-morbidities, response or not to drugs that are already available. After we started working together, I got breast cancer, and I was immediately classified on a molecular basis as triple negative. So there were three markers, they were related to the mechanism of cancer, to the prognosis, and to the therapies. Why is there not a molecular classification for endometriosis? It's so prevalent. There's got to be different molecular subtypes. So the approach at the CGR became "How do we start to classify patients by molecular mechanism?" with a hypothesis that patients could be different, sort of like cancer patients are different, and need different therapies and have different prognoses. So that was our starting point, and this was really, really not done at the time we started. In doing that, we published the first two studies describing approaches to molecular classification. They're not definitive, they were small patient samples, but this has sparked other people to be thinking in this way as well. And it's something that we continue to pursue, both by looking at patient samples, but also by building little, what we call "avatars" of the patients. We take their tissues back to the lab, and we make 3D tissue, engineered little mimics of the patients, and then we can start to test whether molecular things we find in our analyses allow us to intervene with drugs that are not currently in the clinic. So it's really this idea, which was novel, and now more people are thinking that we need to classify patients, because we know that they're not all the same, and we need to figure out how new drugs that are not hormones, for example, could work in different groups of patients. Do we know for sure what causes it in the first place? The causes of endometriosis are highly debated and speculated on, and we don't really know if there's one cause. I tend to think there's many causes. It's like if a patient shows up in the emergency room and has a smashed tibia: it could have been a motorcycle accident, it could have been a brick falling on him, it could have been somebody hitting him with a baseball bat, etc. So there could be many things that converge on similar symptoms, and this falls in with our molecular mechanism hypothesis. There's very, very interesting data supporting many hypotheses about developmental defects. Very clear data that's support for some patients that, during development, cells can go out of the way and get the wrong place. There's very clear circumstantial evidence supporting Sampson's Theory. Some people really reject this theory, but it's not been proved wrong, and there are many, many circumstantial supports for it — where most women have reflux of menstrual tissue during their periods, and it goes in the abdominal cavity. Most women will clear it, but it's conceivable that some of that tissue implants and turns into lesions. That theory is not very consistent with onset at the time of monarch — we know that some girls, including myself, including my niece, had symptoms from my very first period, before there was all of this reflux. And so then there's a hybrid around the time that babies are born. In some babies, there's a little bit of bleeding seen coming from the vagina, and it's about 5 percent of babies, tending to be babies born late. So there's a hypothesis that there may be bleeding, shedding of the endometrial lining around the time of birth, because you have a huge fall in progesterone — and maybe that seeds the abdominal cavity with cells that came from the endometrium around the time of birth. And then when hormones surge during puberty, it wakes those cells up and they cause lesions. I think that there's credible evidence in all of those arenas. The interplay between infection/environmental exposure is still very much provocative, and circumstantial and epidemiological data suggests, for example, exposure to dioxin [could cause endometriosis]. Animal studies implicate exposure to environmental chemicals. This may be something that affects your immune system, and now your immune system is unable to clear the tissue that goes into your abdominal cavity. So many theories, and probably many of them are correct. There's probably many causes. Does the location of endometriosis have an impact on what you experience? So there's not a strong correlation between lesion morphology — meaning how big the lesion is and where the lesion is — and symptoms. Some patients can have Stage 4, lot of lesions, big lesions, deep lesions...and have no symptoms. And I know people like that. Other patients can have one tiny lesion and be in crippling, excruciating pain. Now, those patients may also have things going on with adenomyosis, and if you haven't heard about adenomyosis, it's important to bring it up. It is when endometriosis is in the wall of the uterus, in the muscle. And you don't see it during surgery, typically, and you can infer it by doing an ultrasound or MRI of the uterus — but there's no for-sure diagnosis other than hysterectomy and pathology, or some other interventions that involve surgery of the actual uterine wall. So some patients who are told they have Stage 1 [endometriosis] and feel like they have a lot of symptoms may have something else going on in the uterus, that's actually a version of endometriosis that not a lot of doctors look for. We know very little about adenomyosis. Just for calibration, Crohn's disease affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population, and in PubMed, where all the scientific papers are collated, there are listed about 60,000 papers for Crohn's disease — which is great, it's a terrible condition. But if you look up adenomyosis, which may affect about 10 percent of women, so that means about 5 percent of the population, or definitely more than 1 percent of the whole population, there's only about 3,000 papers. That that's for the whole world. So now you've got 5 percent of the number of publications for a disease that afflicts a lot more people. So this just tells you how little, you know, attention has been paid to gynecology at the level of funding agencies. What do you feel are some of the biggest misconceptions about endometriosis? Fortunately, many of the misunderstandings are being addressed through greater awareness and things like this. There is something that is troubling to me as a scientist, and as a patient, that I see on Facebook groups. There's a particular Facebook group, "Nancy's Nook," and there's a rejection of the idea that Sampson's hypothesis, the reflux, menstrual tissue, is valid. A complete rejection of that. And I can understand that we want to highlight that there could be other causes, and I believe there are other causes, but it's unfortunate when you throw out a scientific hypothesis without a basis for throwing it out. And there's a lot of misinformation now being promulgated by patients who feel that they know more than the average patient — but they know far, far less than the informed clinicians and scientists who work in the field, and they're very dangerous, in my view, because they promote patients to go seek care from people who may be promising them things that are not true. So if you promise a patient that excision surgery will cure them, publish the data saying that you cure patients that way, and then then you can say that. So I'd say some of the big misunderstandings rights now are actually misinformation being given to patients about cures that are not backed up by rigorous data. What do you feel about the different treatments that are out there for endometriosis? And do you have hope someday for a cure? As for treatments right now, it really depends on the patient. Some patients respond quite well to hormonal therapies. A lot of patients respond, some patients get great relief from the Mirena IUD, for example. Other patients do need to have surgery, and in the case of surgery, there's a lot of debate about this so called "ablation versus excision." You absolutely need excision if you have lesions that go deep into the underlying tissue. Ablation is simply burning them off — and if they're very superficial, ablation can be sufficient. However, you have to be very sure that what you see as a superficial lesion is not invading deeper into the tissue. And so I think that this is where there, again, is some confusion in the way that certain patients on social media are advocating for certain kinds of treatment when there are nuances. I would highlight surgeons who have done a fellowship supported by the American Association for Gynecologic Laparoscopy, [they] are going to be trained to do the most severe endometriosis excision surgery. People may say they're doing excision, and if they're not trained through a fellowship, then it's a lot less clear that they were trained with all the methods that are accepted by the professional societies to do that surgery. You don't know until the surgery happens, generally, what the patient's going to present with, and a surgeon who is trained to do only ablation, if a patient presents with more severe disease, will typically sew that patient up and refer them to an excision specialist. So I think we need to be cognizant that there's a spectrum of therapies that for today are adequate for a lot of patients, but some patients are still not served by those: either they have no access to appropriate surgeons; their disease has progressed to a very difficult state, even for really good surgeons; and they may have complex pain phenotypes. Changes in the brain can make the pain more severe and persistent, and this is not a fault of the patient, this is a consequence of the disease. And one of the things we're doing is trying to work with pain specialists to start understanding differences in patients who have different kinds of pain processing in their brains. How might learning about endometriosis help us better understand other diseases or vice versa? There's amazing opportunity to learn about other diseases, particularly the other chronic inflammatory diseases such as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. [As well as] some autoimmune diseases, because inherently, endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease — something is wrong with the immune system or the body's response to tissue that's displaced. There may be connections to infection, or exposure to certain things, or maybe genetics. And so by understanding the relationships between the immune system and the lesions in patients, we are gaining insights into other chronic diseases. For example, we have just started a chronic Lyme Disease study in collaboration with several others at MIT, and there's some fascinating crossovers between what the Lyme Disease researchers see in the mice, and the potential for there to be uterine phenotypes due to infection. And so there may be, potentially, some links between prior infection and development of disease. We don't know. There's a publication in the field that suggests certain kinds of infections predispose patients to certain kinds of endometriosis, but this is all very early studies. These kinds of studies will inform, in general, our understanding of female immunology — which by the way, is very different. We have in our local area actually started a discussion group that meets every two months called Sex and Immunity, trying to understand the differences between the immunological responses in men and women to infection and to vaccinations. Once Sarah Digby was diagnosed with endometriosis, she eventually found her way to Dr. Kathy Huang, director of NYU Langone's Endometriosis Center. Huang says her office takes a holistic approach to treatment, using MRI scans and ultrasound imaging to get a better sense of each patient's individual case. She says the first-line of treatment includes hormonal suppression (including hormonal contraceptives), painkillers, pelvic floor therapy, mental health support, and even acupuncture. But as Dr. Griffith mentioned earlier, there are some cases where your options are limited: if you're trying to conceive, then hormonal suppression isn't going to be the immediate option for you. If you're a more advanced case, like Digby, then some level of surgery — be it ablation or excision — may be necessary. Huang says she specializes in robot-assisted, fertility-preserving gynecologic surgery.  "All of my endometriosis surgeries are done robotically, which means that it's minimally invasive, it's a small incision, and the patients will go home the same day. And what the MRI helps us with, is if the patient has endometriosis, where are the lesions of the endometriosis, so that if we plan for a surgical excision, we have the right partners in the room to do it, " she explains. "So if the patient has endometriosis on the bladder, we will have a urology partner [in the room]. If the patient has significant bowel endometriosis, we may have a colorectal surgeon partner, so that we can do one surgery for the patient and have complete treatment for the condition, rather than multiple surgeries. There are times that patients come in asking for a hysterectomy, which is the removal of the uterus. And I have seen multiple reports on patients undergoing a hysterectomy to treat endometriosis. And I think it's really important to stress that, by definition, endometriosis is an extra-uterine disease. So removing the uterus itself is not going to help patients with endometriosis, unless the patient also has adenomyosis. That is the only situation where a hysterectomy will actually be helpful for the condition. The other that we talk about in fertility-preserving surgery is also not removing the ovaries. So the ovaries produce the hormones, and endometriosis is a hormone-responsive condition — however, if we're able to preserve the patient's ovaries, we do our best to do that, because it does continue to provide antigens even when the patient enters menopause. So it gives you hormones, it helps with your cardiac health, bone density, sexual health, all of those things. So it's a fine line between doing definitive surgery, and stripping the patient of the ovaries and the uterus, versus symptom relief." Digby credits Huang and her gynecologists in New York for helping her get her life back. Through robotic excision surgery, Huang was able to remove more than a decade's worth of lesions without damaging Digby's pelvic organs, successfully bringing her from Stage 3 of the disease to Stage 0. While it could always come back, Digby says she keeps her endometriosis in check with regular monitoring and multiple forms of birth control (in her case: the arm implant and an IUD). The whole process, from diagnosis to remission, took Digby just a year and a half — but she can't help but wonder about those 15 years prior to her diagnosis. How might she have spent her 20s, if she had received treatment as a teenager? How much grief might she have been spared, if someone at home, her school, her college, or doctor's office had noticed the signs? For Digby, spreading awareness is key to ensuring better treatment for future generations. “Here's something where, I think back, and it's just wild: my mom had endometriosis. Never once did it occur to her, as she saw her daughter struggling with a gynecological disease, that there might be a connection there. Because she had been treated for endometriosis and had the surgery before my brother and I were born, but — and this not to say that this is any of her fault at all, the society's falling — but she only had one or two symptoms, and they weren't related to her menstrual cycle," says Digby. "This is how this keeps happening from generation to generation. We all know what to do when somebody's in diabetic shock: get them blood sugar. We all know what to do, or how to recognize, symptoms of a heart attack. And yet we don't know, as a society, the most common symptoms of a debilitating disease in well over 10 percent of the female population, who could also benefit from that widespread awareness.”  "The one message I always have for women is that pain is not normal. So if your doctor is not taking you seriously, then you need to get a second opinion, because pain is never normal. And it doesn't need to be endometriosis, there are other reasons for pelvic pain. We just did a study for sexual trauma, to see how often are OB GYNs actually asking women the question of, 'If you have pain, is there any history of sexual trauma in your life?'" adds Huang. "I just think we need to talk about all these things more, it's not just a single-lever problem. Even though I am a surgeon by training, I really don't think the answer is surgery alone, and nor is it always the answer. It is only seldom the answer, and even when it is, it is not the entire answer. We still need other specialists to continue to help us, to help the patient. Again, the one message is that pain is not normal. So if your doctor is not hearing you, please seek a second opinion." If you think you might be experiencing symptoms of endometriosis or adenomyosis, Dr. Huang advises that you contact your OB GYN and then a specialist if needed. You can learn more about endometriosis and adenomyosis online. The NYU Langone Endometriosis Center, MIT Center for Gynepathology Research, and the Endometriosis Foundation of America all have info and even webinars on their websites to get you started. As part of her own effort to raise awareness, Sarah Digby has her own collection of easy-to-share diagrams and infographics at her website, endographics.org.  Before we head out, we're celebrating Women's History Month by taking some time each week to recognize prominent women in history. Joining me today is someone who's been on the show before: Natalie Rudd is the learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. More than 290 women, past and present, have been inducted into the Hall since its start in 1969, and Natalie has a couple she'd like to share with us today. Sarah Winnemucca "She was a northern Piute author, actor, and activist. She was alive from 1844-1897, and she was raised by an influential Piute family in Nevada. For her, being American was a really complicated process, especially during the late 19th Century. It was a process of adopting the behaviors and languages of white people, who she had often been taught to distrust, but [she] had to do that to kind of assimilate and survive. She worked as a translator, which then eventually led to her becoming an activist for Native American rights. In 1865, her family was actually attacked by a U.S. cavalry, which killed 29 Piutes, including her mother and several members of her family, which then launched her into her advocacy for Native American rights. So she travelled all across the U.S., basically telling white Americans about the destruction and colonization of native peoples. She eventually worked for the U.S. as a messenger, an interpreter, and as a teacher for imprisoned Native Americans. She ended up publishing a book called Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims. The book is both a memoir and a history of her people during their first 40 years of contact with European Americans. It's considered the first known autobiography written by a Native American woman, and then eventually she returned out west, where she founded a private school for Native American children in Nevada." Aimee Mullins "So Aimee has had a really cool career, in that she's done literally everything. She was born with fibular hemimelia, which basically means she was missing her fibula bones, and as a result she had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was one year old. She was told that she would probably have to use a wheelchair for most of her life, and probably never walk, but by the age of two, she had already learned to walk with prosthetic legs. Aimee has always been about going above and beyond. She ended up becoming an athlete with her prosthetics. She got a full academic scholarship to Georgetown, and there she ended up pursuing a career at the School of Foreign Service. When she was there, she earned a top secret security clearance with the Pentagon at the age of 17. She worked there as an intelligence analyst as a teenager — which that alone is incredible. But simultaneously, she was running track and field for Georgetown, and went on to compete for the NCAA Division I track and field events. She was the first amputee student to ever compete in an NCAA women's or men's event. She later went on to compete in the Paralympics in 1996 in Atlanta, and she helped with the design of her prosthetic legs, which are designed after the hind legs of a cheetah. So a lot of the prosthetic legs you see now, she was involved with the design process of. So again, that alone would have been amazing. After she retired, she then went on to be a model. Not only doing print, but also runway modeling. She modeled for Alexander McQueen, Kenneth Cole. She was named one of People's 50 most beautiful women in the world. And she's also worked as an actress in both television in film. My favorite role of hers was she played Eleven's mom in Stranger Things." Natalie Rudd is the learning and engagement manager at the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. The Hall will be inducting its next class, including Indra Nooyi, Mia Hamm, Octavia Butler, Michelle Obama, and more, this September. 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. It's produced by Jesse King. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and our theme is "Lolita" by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue.

Fannie Lou Hamer began civil rights activism in 1962, continuing until her health declined nine years later. She was known for her use of spiritual hymnals and quotes and her resilience in leading the civil rights movement for black women in Mississippi. She was extorted, threatened, harassed, shot at, and assaulted by racists, including police, while trying to register for and exercise her right to vote. She later helped and encouraged thousands of African-Americans in Mississippi to become registered voters and helped hundreds of disenfranchised people in her area through her work in programs like the Freedom Farm Cooperative. She unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1964 and the Mississippi State Senate in 1971. In 1970 she led legal action against the government of Sunflower County, Mississippi for continued illegal segregation.Hamer died on March 14, 1977, aged 59, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Her memorial service was widely attended and her eulogy was delivered by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young. She was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.FANNIE LOU HAMERhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Lou_HamerDON'T FORGET TO RATE, COMMENT AND SUBSCRIBEJoin us on social mediaVisit our website www.adaywithcrime.comadaywithcrime@gmail.comCover Art created by Geneva McClamSound Mixing and editing by David McClamIntro and outro jingle by David McClam

My special guest is author Lizzette Martinez who's here to discuss the years of sexual abuse and trauma she suffered at the hands of popular Grammy-winning music artist R. Kelly. Get her explosive book Jane Doe #9: How I Survived R.Kelly right now on Amazon. "Lizzette Martinez's story embodies the fire energy that gives light and life to survivors all around her! Survivors need to see strength and perseverance despite opposition, and Lizzette models just that." -- Melissa Schuman, actress and singer In January of 1995, 17-year-old Lizzette Martinez met Grammy-winning musician and record producer R. KELLY at Aventura Mall in Florida where he was performing. At first, it seemed that her hopes of becoming a professional singer were about to come true when he offered to help boost her career. However, this mentorship quickly turned into sexual grooming, leading to years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. After struggling to free herself of the relationship and rebuild on her own, Lizzette's successful new life, far away from the entertainment industry, was interrupted in 2017 by allegations against R. Kelly by other women. This led her to coming forward to the authorities with her own history of abuse by the music icon. In January 2019, she participated with other survivors in a documentary series with Lifetime called “Surviving R. Kelly.” It should have been a healing experience but instead left them feeling abandoned and fearful for their lives. In August 2021, Kelly went on trial in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges and was found guilty of all charges. In JANE DOE #9 by Lizzette Martinez and Keelin MacGregor, readers get a no-holds-barred look at Martinez's relationship with Kelly, her efforts to break free and pursue her dreams, and courage to take on her abuser and seek justice. "Lizzette has been very courageous and persistent in her battle to make sure that R. Kelly was held accountable. I am honored to represent her." - Gloria Allred, women's rights attorney and National Women's Hall Of Fame inductee "In twenty-one years of reporting on R. Kelly abusing his wealth and fame to prey on so many girls and young women—and it was their bravery in speaking out that finally stopped the worst predator in the history of popular music—Lizzette Martinez has always struck me as one of the strongest and most courageous. I could not admire her more, and I am eager indeed to read her story in her own words. She is an inspiration." - Jim DeRogatis, music critic, journalist, and author of Soulless: The Case Against R. K Do you enjoy paranormal episodes? Follow our new podcast 'Paranormal Fears' on any podcast app or Apple Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My special guest is author Lizzette Martinez who's here to discuss the years of sexual abuse and trauma she suffered at the hands of popular Grammy-winning music artist R. Kelly. Get her explosive book Jane Doe #9: How I Survived R.Kelly right now on Amazon.   "Lizzette Martinez's story embodies the fire energy that gives light and life to survivors all around her! Survivors need to see strength and perseverance despite opposition, and Lizzette models just that." -- Melissa Schuman, actress and singer   In January of 1995, 17-year-old Lizzette Martinez met Grammy-winning musician and record producer R. KELLY at Aventura Mall in Florida where he was performing. At first, it seemed that her hopes of becoming a professional singer were about to come true when he offered to help boost her career. However, this mentorship quickly turned into sexual grooming, leading to years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.   After struggling to free herself of the relationship and rebuild on her own, Lizzette's successful new life, far away from the entertainment industry, was interrupted in 2017 by allegations against R. Kelly by other women. This led her to coming forward to the authorities with her own history of abuse by the music icon.   In January 2019, she participated with other survivors in a documentary series with Lifetime called “Surviving R. Kelly.” It should have been a healing experience but instead left them feeling abandoned and fearful for their lives.   In August 2021, Kelly went on trial in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges and was found guilty of all charges.   In JANE DOE #9 by Lizzette Martinez and Keelin MacGregor, readers get a no-holds-barred look at Martinez's relationship with Kelly, her efforts to break free and pursue her dreams, and courage to take on her abuser and seek justice. "Lizzette has been very courageous and persistent in her battle to make sure that R. Kelly was held accountable. I am honored to represent her." - Gloria Allred, women's rights attorney and National Women's Hall Of Fame inductee "In twenty-one years of reporting on R. Kelly abusing his wealth and fame to prey on so many girls and young women—and it was their bravery in speaking out that finally stopped the worst predator in the history of popular music—Lizzette Martinez has always struck me as one of the strongest and most courageous. I could not admire her more, and I am eager indeed to read her story in her own words. She is an inspiration." - Jim DeRogatis, music critic, journalist, and author of Soulless: The Case Against R. K  

Episode Overview: Pictures are worth so much more than a thousand words-- in my guest's case, her one photo sparked a revolution and laid the tracks for millions of women around the globe, and completely flipped the running industry on its head. This week, I'm honored to be joined by marathon legend Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially complete the Boston Marathon in 1967. During a time when myths about women and their biology were rampant, her formal entry into the marathon was proof that women were more than capable of keeping up and smashing barriers in sports. Kathrine Switzer is a sports and social advocate, with her photo at the Boston Marathon featured as one of Time's “100 Photos that Changed the World”. Through her many social campaigns, Kathrine has truly made our society a much more accepting one, empowering women to come together and accomplish so much more than what was previously allowed. In a world where women still have to negotiate for their space, it's stories like Kathrine's that really highlight just how far we've come - and why it's so important to acknowledge that all our actions can start seemingly as small as a ripple.   Episode Highlights: Kathrine's origin story Recounting the events of the Boston Marathon The cultural and global impact of Kathrine that led her to become an activist How she deals with the weight of responsibility and negative reception The reception from fellow women and the importance of solidarity Her relationship with lipstick as a symbol of empowerment What's next in store for her Her advice for women in male-dominated fields   About the Guest: Iconic athlete, sports and social advocate, author, and Emmy award-winning television commentator. Kathrine Switzer is famous for breaking gender barriers by being the first registered woman to run in the Boston Marathon in 1967 when it was considered a men's only race.  Her entry revolutionized the sports world when the race director attempted to remove her for wearing official bib numbers forcibly. The photo of this incident spread throughout the globe and became one of Time-Life's “100 Photos that Changed the World.” The race served as a huge turning point for her and began her multifaceted career intending to empower and create more opportunities for women.  Thanks to her campaigning, women were officially allowed to register in the Boston Marathon in 1972.  Some of Kathrine's multiple accomplishments include founding the Avon's Running Global Women's Circuit and 261 Fearless, author of books such as Running and Walking for Women Over 40 and Marathon Woman, being inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in October 2011 for positive global social change, being an Emmy Award-winning television commentator who has done broadcast work for ABC, CBS, NBC, and ESPN.  Kathrine has run 39 marathons and was the winner of the 1974 New York City Marathon. She still runs today and has long solidified herself as a historic figure in the sport of running. She revolutionized the sport for women across the globe and continues to pave the way for them.   Connect with Kathrine: Website: 261fearless.org  Website: marathonwoman.com   Did you enjoy today's episode? Please click here to leave a review for The 6%, with NancyMD. Be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app to get notified when a new episode comes out!   Do you know someone who might enjoy this episode? Share this episode to inspire and empower!   Let's get social! Instagram: @_nancymd Facebook: @nancymdpdx Twitter: @_nancymd LinkedIn: @nancyyenshipleymd Website: www.nancymd.com   Subscribe to The 6%, with NancyMD ++ Apple Podcasts ++ Spotify ++ Google Podcasts

Let's talk about some groundbreaking and scandalous sisters: Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin. These 2 sisters went from rags to riches to rags to affairs with Vanderbilts and free love and running for president. Neither saints nor sinners but possibly both, their lives are one heck of a ride. Join Becca and Rebecca as we discuss two fascinating and often vilified women, The Beguiling Brokers, the Claflin sisters.  Comments or Questions? Or have an idea for future episodes - #pitchtothepod? Email us tourguidetellall@gmail.com Support Tour Guide Tell All: • Want to send a one off donation to support the podcast team? We have a venmo @tourguide-tellall • Become a Patron for bonus episodes and early release: https://www.patreon.com/tourguidetellall   If you are looking for more information, we found these resources to be helpful:   A full length book: The Scarlet Sister, by Myra MacPherson   Victoria Woodhull: https://ehistory.osu.edu/biographies/victoria-woodhull   National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-first-woman-to-run-for-president-victoria-woodhull.htm   National Women's Hall of Fame: https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/victoria-woodhull/   Tennie: https://www.thevictoriawoodhullsaga.com/tennessee-celeste-claflin/   Relationship to Commodore Vanderbilt: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/45189   You're Listening To: Rebecca Fachner and Rebecca Grawl Production & Editing Canden Arciniega Intro/Outro Music: Well-Seasoned from Audio Hero  

It's a well-worn cliché that oceans cover seventy percent of the surface of Earth, but we tend to give them secondary consideration when thinking about the environment. But climate change is wreaking havoc on the oceans, not to mention pollution and overfishing — 90% of the world's marine fish stocks are fully exploited or depleted. Today's guest, Sylvia Earle, is a well-known ocean scientist, a celebrated underwater explorer, and a tireless advocate for the world's oceans. We talk about the current state of our oceans, what we know and have yet to learn about them, and what we can do individually and collectively to make things better.Support Mindscape on Patreon.Sylvia Earle received her Ph.D. in phycology from Duke University. She is currently National Geographic's Rosemary and Roger Enrico Chair for Ocean Exploration, as well as founder of Mission Blue, SEAlliance and Deep Ocean Exploration and Research. She formerly served as Chief Scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Among her awards are the TED Prize, the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the Seattle Aquarium. She is the author of several books, the most recent of which is National Geographic Ocean: A Global Odyssey.Mission BlueNational Geographic profile pageNational Women's Hall of FameWikipediaIMDb pageAmazon author pageTwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

USAF Col. Nicole Malachowski has a remarkable story Nicole Malachowski wanted to be a fighter pilot since she was a little girl. The problem was, it was against the law for women to serve in combat roles, and no women were allowed to fly fighter aircraft. That could have been the end of her story, but she didn't give up. The rest of her story is an unbelievable example of the power of persistence, passion, and hope. Nicole is a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame, was one of the first female fighter pilots, and was THE first female pilot to fly as an Air Force Thunderbird.  But that's not why I invited her onto the show. She also had to overcome tremendous adversity when she was afflicted with a deadly disease at the height of her professional career. Her story of how she overcame and turned that challenge into a new career and calling is inspiring and phenomenal.  We had a great conversation about following your dreams, about never giving up, and about her career now as a high-demand public speaker and advocate. Check out her blog and learn more at nicolemalachowski.com!

Mark 10:46-52They came to Jericho. As [Jesus] and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus the son of Timaeus, a blind beggar was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he shouted even more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” When Jesus heard him he stood still and said, “Call him here.” So they said to the blind man, “Take heart. Get up. He's calling to you.” Throwing off his cloak, the blind man sprang up and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him, “What is it you want me to do for you?” He said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” And Jesus said to him, “Go. Your faith has made you well.” And immediately, he regained his sight and followed him on the way.I want to think about the miracle of Bartimaeus differently this time around than I ever have before. And I want to start by wondering a pretty simple thing. What if there wasn't anything “WRONG” with Bartimaeus? Think about that for a minute. What if there wasn't anything “WRONG” with Bartimaeus? Yes, he's blind. Sure, he wanted to see again. Yes, Jesus gives him what he asks for. But what if it doesn't have nearly as much to do with what Bartimaeus needed as with what everyone else who was there to witness this miracle back in the day – needed to see, in the end? (And you and I, too, of course.)What I mean is – and some of you have heard me talk about this in the context of other healing miracles before – the First Century world view, the limited scientific understanding, the lack of medical wisdom of the day led people to view anyone with a physical difference or illness or so-called “disability” as sinful in some way; broken somehow; under judgement, even, by the God they supposedly offended in some way.And as silly as that seems to us now – to assume that a person who is blind or deaf or sick is being judged and punished by their lack of a sense or by some kind of illness – as silly as that sounds, I wonder if we don't still manage to approach this story with that same mentality when we presume there's something wrong with Bartimaeus; or at least that he's lacking something – that he's less than – because he can't see with his eyes. We able-bodied people … you and I with typical abilities and intact faculties and all of our modern-day wisdom, scientific understanding and medical insight … still might be failing to really see the point of this miracle and the challenge for us in this story.You and I, so wrapped up in and blind to our own privilege as part of the majority – people who can see with our eyes, in this case, anyway – make all kinds of assumptions about Bartimaeus' desire to regain his sight. We make some pretty self-centered presumptions about the source of his longing. Like, that his life is less than… that he's missing out on so much that we enjoy. What a pity. How sad. What a shame it is not to be able to see. “What a shame it is not to be able to see.” Do you notice how close that notion is to the ancient worldview and limited understanding that connects SIN and SHAME to differing abilities, so-called “disabilities,” and even illness. “What a shame…” Really?And there's a word for this in the 21st Century. It's called ableism and it's the discrimination of and prejudice against people with different abililities based on the belief that typical, majority-type abilities are superior. Ableism implies that people with differing abilities (notice I'm trying really hard not to call them “disabilities”) require “fixing” – or healing, if you will – and it often defines people and limits their status and potential as a result. In other words, they are “less than,” “inferior,” “other,” unless or until they find a way to be more like the rest of us. And praise be to God when that happens!But, again, what if there's nothing WRONG with Bartimaeus, just because he's blind?I ask this with the writing of Helen Keller in mind. Helen Keller, most of us know, lost her hearing and her sight when she was just 19 months old but eventually learned to read, write, and even speak thanks to the patient, faithful, wise, work of her teacher and friend, Anne Sullivan. (Among other things, Helen Keller published 12 books, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame.)Anyway, I dug up a piece Helen Keller wrote in 1933 for The Atlantic, where she mused about how much we seeing people don't see, don't understand, or don't appreciate about the world around us.Simply put, Helen Keller wrote this, “…Recently I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. ‘Nothing in particular,' she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little. “How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter's sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open fingers. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. To me the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending drama, the action of which streams through my fingertips.” Bartimaeus was like Helen Keller in this way. See, blind Bartimaeus already saw and knew, he perceived and understood things the world around him was so very blind to. It matters that he so loudly and clearly and defiantly cried out to Jesus by name, calling him “Son of David.” This is the first and only time in all of Mark's Gospel that anyone identifies Jesus by this title that carries with it so much weight, and history, and power and faithfulness. Bartimaeus identifies Jesus as the promised Messiah, The Son of God, The Savior of the world, and all the rest. Even without his eyes, Bartimaeus could see and know, understand and appreciate just exactly who Jesus was.In other words, there was absolutely nothing WRONG with Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus isn't the one who needed to see differently. It was everyone else who was blind to what mattered – to who Jesus was – to what God was up to in and for the sake of the world.So, I can't help but wonder if Bartimaeus didn't want to see again – not because he missed his vision – but because he was treated so differently because of what he lacked by the world's estimation. He was relegated to begging by the roadside after all, very likely alongside the other outcasts of his day – the widows, people who were crippled, deaf, sick with leprosy, mentally ill, and more. And who wouldn't want to be liberated from that kind of exclusion; that sort of discrimination; that measure of unmitigated, unmerited, unbearable shame?So, I imagine his plea to Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again,” was as much – or more – about being freed from his oppression, liberated from his “otherness,” plucked out of his poverty, as it was about simply, physically seeing. I suspect what was more powerful and appealing to Bartimaeus than being able to lay eyes upon the ugliness of the knuckleheads who treated him so poorly, was the prospect of being seen, himself, as a whole and worthy, valuable and loved child of God.There was nothing WRONG with Bartimaeus. He was just different … a minority in a culture that refused to see, to accommodate, to make room for, and to love him – not in spite of his differences – but because of them, which is what Jesus did.All of which is to suggest that this story isn't just a story of hope for blind people, but a challenge for those who were silencing Bartimaeus that day when he got loud, shouting after Jesus for help. What if it's more for the disciples who were just fine, following after Jesus on their way out of Jericho and on to the next town, but not paying attention to the likes of Bartimaeus, along the way. What if it's for those who deemed Bartimaeus and the other blind guys, lepers, widows and lame ones outcasts or outsiders or worse. What if the ones who really need the miracle – who need to learn to see again and differently with the loving eyes of faith – are you and me? What if we're called to marvel, not that Bartimaeus became more like us? That seems kind of arrogant and privileged and simple, really. So what if we were to wonder – more humbly – what it would take for us to become more like him? What if we are called to marvel at the miracle of what he could see all along – even without his sight – and which we miss so much of the time, in spite of our own?:…That you don't need eyes to recognize love. That you don't need sight to see God. That even when we have eyes and vision, we can miss what's right in front of us. Even when we see, we don't always pay attention. Even when we look, we miss what matters most a lot of the time.What if we looked to and listened for what the “others” and the “outcasts” in our world were searching for – the blind, the brown, the Black; the poor, the imprisoned, the unpopular, the lost? And what if we wondered why? And what if we helped them find it? I think we might find ourselves along the way, behind the likes of Bartimaeus, and always following Jesus.Amen

Colonel Nicole M. E. Malachowski is a retired fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. She was among the first group of women allowed to fly a modern fighter plane and was recognized for her accomplishments in the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2019. With over 21 years of experience in the United States Air Force including 188 hours in combat and more than 2,300 logged flight hours, she built an incredibly successful military career as a leader, an officer, and a fighter pilot. But in her life, she's built two careers — one in the United States Air Force, and one in advocacy and government service after a tick bite forced her into medical retirement. Today, she's the Commissioner of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships, a board member of the LivLyme foundation, and a fierce advocate for individuals with Tick Borne illnesses. Do you have any thoughts? Please email us at hello@rosenmaninstitute.org. We post new episodes every Monday. “The Health Technology Podcast” is produced by Herminio Neto, hosted by Christine Winoto, and engineered by Andrew John Rojek.

Dolores Huerta, 91, has been an activist for more than six decades. To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, she sat down with KING 5 anchor Jessica Janner Castro to talk about her advocacy work, immigration and equity in governance.   Huerta has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she was the first Latina to be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.   Resources Dolores Huerta Foundation Dolores Huerta Biography via the National Women's History Museum Dolores Huerta biography via the National Park Service

Colonel Nicole Malachowski is a nationally recognized fighter pilot and military commander. Her 21-year military career included flying 26 combat missions, serving as the first female Thunderbird pilot, serving as a White House Fellow in the administrations of Presidents Bush and Obama, and commanding the 333rd Fighter Squadron at Seymour Air Force Base in North Carolina. Colonel Malachowski is a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame and is the recipient of 11 Air Force medals including the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Force Medal and the Air Force Commendation Medal. As commander of the 333rd Fighter Squadron, she participated in outdoor training “without taking precautions for preventing insect bites.” Upon returning from training, she visited military doctors to be treated for “flu like symptoms” and an “EM rash.” The doctor diagnosed her rash as a spider bite “because [they] don't have Lyme in North Carolina.” Shortly thereafter, Colonel Malachowski was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island and discovered an engorged tick on her leg. Her military doctors warned her to “watch for a rash,” which never appeared. Three months later she tested IgM positive for Lyme disease and was prescribed 28 days of antibiotics. Colonel Malachowski's health quickly declined over the course of the 3 years following her 2nd tick bite. She became wheelchair bound despite treating with 24 military and civilian doctors. She was finally “fully diagnosed” after she was granted permission to treat at the civilian Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness – Spaulding Rehabilitation Network. Unfortunately, the late-stage diagnosis and treatment were too late to preserve Colonel Malachowski's military career. She was forced to retire in 2017 because she contracted “tick-borne illnesses.” Today, Colonel Malachowski is a public speaker and patient advocate for people suffering from tick-borne illnesses. If you would like to learn more about how a fighter pilot is using her military education, experience and training to win the battle with Lyme disease, then tune in now!

A classic story from the late 1800s about a woman's descent into madness when her depression goes untreated.Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a utopian feminist who served as a role model for future generations of feminists. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and her story The Yellow Wallpaper is a semi-autobiographical account of her postpartum depression.You can read today's story and all the stories featured on kaidankai at https://www.whiteenso.com/100-stories.html. Follow us on twitter at: Japanese Ghost Stories @ghostJapanese Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaidankai100/

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 239, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Friday The 13Th 1: Friday October 13, 1944: Greek patriots retake Athens from this group after 3 1/2 years of occupation. Germany (or the Nazis). 2: Friday January 13, 1995: The first all-female crew wins a qualifying race for this contest. the America's Cup. 3: Friday October 13, 1967: This president signs an executive order banning sex discrimination in the U.S. govt.. (Lyndon) Johnson. 4: Friday, February 13, 1914:This 5-letter organization is set up to collect royalties when music is performed. ASCAP. 5: 1994: The first handover of a West Bank city from Israel to the Palestinians--this one where a battle was fit. Jericho. Round 2. Category: Starts With "Ke" 1: A cooking pot for Ma and Pa. Kettle. 2: Thd standard version of this gambling game is a lot like Lotto. Keno. 3: Its national anthem is "Wimbo Wa Taifa", Swahili for "anthem of the nation". Kenya. 4: The name of this Wisconsin city is Potawatomi for "pike" or "pickerel". Kenosha. 5: This county is known as the "Garden of England". Kent. Round 3. Category: English Class 1: This part of speech doesn't always end in "ly"; once, there and often are other examples. adverb. 2: Capt. Kirk's mission was "to boldly go" where no man had gone before, but he split one of these along the way. an infinitive. 3: Lay is the past tense of lie; this is the past tense of lay. laid. 4: It's the indirect object of the sentence "Carmen gave Jose a cookie". Jose. 5: "City" is a common noun; Virginia City is this kind of noun. proper noun. Round 4. Category: The Dreaded Oprah Category 1: Saleswoman Oprah has tote bags specially for the items you saw on this popular segment of her show. Oprah's Book Club. 2: Healthy Oprah lost 33 lbs. in one of these military-sounding programs with Sgt.--er, trainer Bob Greene. a boot camp. 3: Career woman Oprah has said marriage wouldn't work with this beau she calls "a traditional black man". Stedman Graham. 4: Educator Oprah taught a graduate course on leadership at this university based in Evanston. Northwestern University. 5: Mogul Oprah co-founded this media company, a breath of fresh air with its women's cable network. Oxygen. Round 5. Category: Deck The Halls 1: The Ecology Hall of Fame cites him as "the first American president to take seriously the...protection of nature". Teddy Roosevelt. 2: The Robot Hall of Fame honored this "Star Wars" character for his endearing "human foibles". C-3PO. 3: This founder of the city of Quebec is in an Explorers' Hall of Fame online. Champlain. 4: Now home to the National Women's Hall of Fame, this N.Y. city was the site of the USA's first Women's Rights Convention. Seneca Falls. 5: He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his process of condensing milk. (Gail) Borden. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

On this week's 51%, we take a tour of the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. Executive Director Jennifer Gabriel previews the hall's latest class, and shares her goals for the museum's expansion. (more…)

On July 21, 1828, the Rev. John Johns, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Frederick, tendered his resignation to accept a call to Christ Church, Baltimore. On July 21, 1861, Calvin Lamar, of Adamstown, was shot and killed by Samuel Webster, a Union soldier, during a quarrel over the use of a railroad handcar. On July 21, 1863, General George G. Meade's Union troops crossed the Potomac River at Berlin (Brunswick) on a pontoon bridge. On July 21, 1979, Dr. A. Austin Pearre, prominent local physician and among the founders of the county's Heart Association, died at his home on Upper College Terrace in Frederick. He was born February 1, 1899. Today in 1865, Wild Bill Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in the market square of Springfield, Missouri. The incident is regarded as the first true western showdown Today in 1925, John Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 in Dayton, Tennessee, for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution in a public school. The conviction was later reversed. In 1960, the film "Inherit the Wind,” which was based on the Scopes trial, premiered in Dayton, Tennessee. It starred Spencer Tracy, Frederic March and Gene Kelly. Today in 1972, George Carlin was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for using profanity onstage during a show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Today in 1979, the National Women's Hall of Fame, honoring the women important to America's history, was dedicated. Today in 1980, draft registration began in the United States for 19 and 20-year-old men. Today in 1992, murder charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian were dropped in Pontiac, Michigan. He was accused of helping four chronically ill women commit suicide with a machine he built that dispensed lethal gas and drugs. Today in 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, swimmer Tom Dolan gave the United States its first Gold Medal in the 400-meter individual medley. The men's 800-meter freestyle relay team also won. Today in 1999, Navy divers found the bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, in the wreckage of Kennedy's plane in the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard. Today in 1999, after spending 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom's "Liberty Bell Seven" capsule was lifted to the surface. Today in 2011, NASA's Space Shuttle program ended with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135. Today in 2017, Justin Bieber was barred from performing in China by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture citing his "bad behavior." Today in 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned after opposing appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as White House Director of Communications. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the hundreds of walks that you've taken this past year, to get out of the house and flee from screens, have you noticed things around you that you have questions about but don't have the tools to answer? Maybe you've wondered how exactly that mushroom got there or thought again about the mysterious migratory patterns of birds. Join New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned scientist and autism spokesperson Dr. Temple Grandin to hear about her newest book The Outdoor Scientist: The Wonder of Observing the Natural World. Indulging our curiosity about the natural systems at work around us, Dr. Grandin introduced us to scientists from fields of study such as geology, astrophysics, and oceanography to explain how they research their own curiosities and what tools we can use to discover more ourselves. Bring the whole family and learn many ways you can conduct scientific research together! Following her presentation, Dr. Grandin will join ISB President Dr. Jim Heath for a conversation and will answer questions from the audience. Dr. Temple Grandin is one of the world's most accomplished and well-known adults with autism. She has a PhD in animal science from the University of Illinois and is a professor at Colorado State University. She is the author of twelve books on autism and animal behavior, including the national bestsellers Calling All Minds, Thinking in Pictures, and Animals in Translation. Dr.Grandin was inducted in the National Women's Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2018 she was made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She lectures to parents and teachers throughout the U.S. on her experiences with autism, and her work has been covered in the New York Times, People, National Public Radio, and 20/20. The 2010 HBO movie based on her life, starring Claire Danes, received seven Emmy Awards. Dr. Jim Heath is a chemist and the president and professor of Institute of Systems Biology. He also has the position of Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA, and he has directed the National Cancer Institute-funded NSB Cancer Center since 2005. Buy the Book: https://www.elliottbaybook.com/book/9780593115558  Watch the live event Presented by Town Hall Seattle and KUOW. 

About Gloria Steinem Gloria Steinem is a writer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She was a founder of New York and Ms. magazines, and is the author of The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, My Life on the Road, Moving Beyond Words, Revolution from Within, and Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, all published in the United States, and in India, As If Women Matter. She co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women's Media Center in the United States. As links to other countries, she helped found Equality Now, Donor Direct Action, and Direct Impact Africa. For her writing, Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, the National Magazine Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism. In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce an Emmy Award–winning TV documentary for HBO, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories. She and Amy Richards co-produced a series of eight documentaries on violence against women around the world for VICELAND in 2016. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. She is the subject of Julie Taymor's recent biopic, The Glorias, released in Fall 2020.In 1972, she co-founded Ms. magazine, and remained one of its editors for fifteen years. She continues to serve as a consulting editor for Ms., and was instrumental in the magazine's move to join and be published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. In 1968, she had helped to found New York magazine, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. As a freelance writer, she was published in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and women's magazines as well as for publications in other countries. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film about the death penalty for Lifetime, and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime.Ms. Steinem helped to found the Women's Action Alliance, a pioneering national information center that specialized in nonsexist, multiracial children's education, and the National Women's Political Caucus, a group that continues to work to advance the numbers of pro-equality women in elected and appointed office at a national and state level. She also co-founded the Women's Media Center in 2004. She was president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, a pro-choice political action committee for twenty-five years, then with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund when it merged with VFC for the 2004 elections. She was also co-founder and serves on the board of Choice USA (now URGE), a national organization that supports young pro-choice leadership and works to preserve comprehensive sex education in schools. She is the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national multi-racial, multi-issue fund that supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls, and also a founder of its Take Our Daughters to Work Day, a first national day devoted to girls that has now become an institution here and in other countries. She was a member of the Beyond Racism Initiative, a three-year effort on the part of activists and experts from South Africa, Brazil and the United States to compare the racial patterns of those three countries and to learn cross-nationally. As a writer, Ms. Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, National Magazine awards, an Emmy Citation for excellence in television writing, the Women's Sports Journalism Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for Journalism, the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism and the 2015 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.  In addition to her bestsellers, her writing also appears in many anthologies and textbooks, and she was an editor of Houghton Mifflin's The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History.Ms. Steinem graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1956, and then spent two years in India on a Chester Bowles Fellowship. She wrote for Indian publications, and was influenced by Gandhian activism. She also received the first Doctorate of Human Justice awarded by Simmons College, the Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the National Gay Rights Advocates Award, the Liberty award of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Ceres Medal from the United Nations, and a number of honorary degrees. Parenting magazine selected her for its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995 for her work in promoting girls' self-esteem, and Biography magazine listed her as one of the 25 most influential women in America. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. In 2014, she received The Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal Award and in 2013, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. Rutgers University is now creating the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies. In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce and narrate an Emmy Award winning TV documentary for HBO, "Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories." With Rosilyn Heller, she also co-produced an original 1993 TV movie for Lifetime, "Better Off Dead," which examined the parallel forces that both oppose abortion and support the death penalty. She is also host and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated VICE series, WOMAN.Gloria has been the subject of three television documentaries, including HBO's Gloria: In Her Own Words, and she is among the subjects of the 2013 PBS documentary MAKERS, a continuing project to record the women who made America. She was the subject of The Education of a Woman, a biography written by Carolyn Heilbrun.   About Amanda WhiteAmanda White is responsible for the content across all Conexus Financial's institutional media and events. In addition to being the editor of Top1000funds.com, she is responsible for directing the global bi-annual Fiduciary Investors Symposium which challenges global investors on investment best practice and aims to place the responsibilities of investors in wider societal, and political contexts.  She holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Masters of Art in Journalism and has been an investment journalist for more than 25 years. She is currently a fellow in the Finance Leaders Fellowship at the Aspen Institute. The two-year program seeks to develop the next generation of responsible, community-spirited leaders in the global finance industry. What is the Fiduciary Investors series?The COVID-19 global health and economic crisis has highlighted the need for leadership and capital to be urgently targeted towards the vulnerabilities in the global economy.Through conversations with academics and asset owners, the Fiduciary Investors Podcast Series is a forward looking examination of the changing dynamics in the global economy, what a sustainable recovery looks like and how investors are positioning their portfolios.The much-loved events, the Fiduciary Investors Symposiums, act as an advocate for fiduciary capitalism and the power of asset owners to change the nature of the investment industry, including addressing principal/agent and fee problems, stabilising financial markets, and directing capital for the betterment of society and the environment. Like the event series, the podcast series, tackles the challenges long-term investors face in an environment of disruption,  and asks investors to think differently about how they make decisions and allocate capital. 

Its #WomensHistoryMonth and The Queens are back with another action packed episode with guest @LoveConflicts_Yany. The episode kicks off with #HellaTea saluting out FOREVER First Lady Michelle Obama and other women on being inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Oh and how can we forget the Tea Filled Interview with Prince Harry & Megan Markle...chilleeee Oprah asked EVERY question and got all up in the business! The conversation/interview with @LoveConflicts_Yany was super dope! She discussed the birthing of her Love Conflicts show and Do's and Dont's for online dating. Oh and lets not forget how she met her person on #Hinge dating app. Tune in to this months episode and dont forget to #Like, #Share and #Comment.

The Hake Report, Wednesday, March 10, 2021: Michelle Obama makes the Women's Hall of Fame; George Floyd drama continues; GREAT CALLS! French victim Samuel Paty was allegedly framed by a bad-behaving 13-year-old daughter and her angry father! End: Feminist Bible teacher Beth Moore leaves Southern Baptist church after smearing President Trump!  Also check out Hake News from today.  CALLERS Israel from Houston, TX goes after Trump and Melania; he's a fiscal conservative who loved Obama and Michelle.  Craig from Illinois tells the truth about George Floyd after the previous caller's mess.  Zach from Columbus, OH thinks Maze and Earl are scared of him. I think he exposed the National Women's Hall of Fame's history.  Robert from Kansas wants big government in order to bring morals back so society doesn't self-destruct.  Art from Ohio goes in on society today with yet another great rant!  Bobby from TX also responds to the first caller.  Blaze n' Hawgs from Dayton, OH urges people to move forward in life, buy land outside the city!  Rick from Hampton, VA has a great call, and he asks James his real opinion on Mike Huckabee.  TIME STAMPS 0:00 Wed, Mar 10, 2021 0:42 Glasgow, The Out_Circuit 7:45 Hey, guys! 8:27 Super Chats back! 12:12 False culture 13:48 Michelle Hall of Fame 18:17 BLM-corrupted courts 22:26 Women's Hall of Fame 24:48 Israel, Houston, TX (long!) 47:57 Samuel Paty FRAMED 55:46 Craig in IL 1:01:46 Gone, Bright Lights 1:04:10 Zach, Columbus, OH 1:10:03 More Super Chats 1:13:38 Robert in KS 1:22:43 Art in OH 1:32:57 Bobby in TX 1:38:19 Blaze'n Hawgs 1:47:22 Beth Moore hates Trump 1:55:12 Rick, Hampton, VA 1:59:44 Thanks, all! HAKE LINKS VIDEO ARCHIVE: Facebook | Periscope/Twitter | YouTube | Audio podcast links below LIVE VIDEO: Trovo | DLive | Periscope | Facebook | YouTube* | Twitch*  PODCAST: Apple | Podcast Addict | Castbox | Stitcher | Spotify | Amazon | PodBean | Google  SUPPORT: SubscribeStar | Patreon | Teespring | SUPER CHAT: Streamlabs | Trovo   Call in! 888-775-3773, live Monday through Friday 9 AM (Los Angeles) https://thehakereport.com/show  Also see Hake News from JLP's show today.  *NOTE: YouTube and Twitch have both censored James's content on their platforms lately, over fake "Community Guidelines" violations.  BLOG POST: https://www.thehakereport.com/blog/2021/3/10/031021-wed-unladylike-michelle-o-george-floyd-wasnt-murdered 

In your evening news brief, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat steps down; More than 20 lakh people were inoculated against coronavirus on March 8 and Michelle Obama will be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Download the Deccan Herald app for iOS devices here: https://apple.co/30eOFD6 For latest news and updates, log on to www.deccanherald.com Check out our e-paper www.deccanheraldepaper.com

Rebekah Skovron The Caring Economy podcast series Executive Producer and a Digital Marketing Specialist. Previously, Rebekah graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 2018 as a double major in Women's Studies and Media and Society with a minor in Studio Art. She earned an award for Cum Laude and the Toni Flores Prize, that is for “Celebrating her unselfish spirit of caring and her ability to teach us to live fully in a blazing world.” During her time at HWS, Rebekah started working for the National Women's Hall of Fame, a national non-profit that preserves and celebrates women's achievements throughout history, in Seneca Falls as their Social Media Strategist. Throughout her time at The Hall, she helped to start their online fundraising efforts, grow their organic social media presence to a few hundred to a few thousand, and promote events. This was the starting point of her career where marketing and being a change maker merged. Shortly after graduating college, Rebekah backpacked around the world for six months with her sister, where they visited over 10 countries in Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. Upon returning from the backpacking adventures, she landed a job at Ad Council, an American non-profit marketing agency, as the Digital Marketing Assistant. Currently, Rebekah works as the Digital Marketing Manager at the International Rescue Committee, an NGO dedicated to aiding refugees in war-torn countries around the world. In her free time, Rebekah loves to volunteer her marketing skills to smaller non-profits. Her most recent project was Digital Wish, a national organization that provides children with a technology-rich education and closing the digital gap. She also loves to edit Toby's podcast episodes, meet new people, cook, paint, travel, practice aerial silks and yoga, and explore her city NYC. Don't forget to check out my book that inspired this podcast series, The Caring Economy: How to Win With Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/toby-usnik/support

Winona LaDuke—an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) member of the White Earth Nation—is an environmentalist, economist, author, and prominent Native American activist working to restore and preserve indigenous cultures and lands.She graduated from Harvard University in 1982 with a B.A. in economics (rural economic development) and from Antioch University with an M.A. in community economic development. While at Harvard, she came to understand that the problems besetting native nations were the result of centuries of governmental exploitation. At age 18 she became the youngest person to speak to the United Nations about Native American issues.In 1989 LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota, focusing on the recovery, preservation, and restoration of land on the White Earth Reservation. This includes branding traditional foods through the Native Harvest label.In 1993 LaDuke gave the Annual E. F. Schumacher Lecture entitled “Voices from White Earth.” That same year she co-founded and is executive director of Honor the Earth, whose goal is to support Native environmental issues and to ensure the survival of sustainable Native communities. As executive director she travels nationally and internationally to work with Indigenous communities on climate justice, renewable energy, sustainable development, food sovereignty, environmental justice, and human rights.Among the books she has authored are All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999, 2016); The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings (2002); Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming (2005); The Militarization of Indian Country (2013).LaDuke's many honors include nomination in 1994 by Time magazine as one of America's 50 most promising leaders under 40; the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, the Ann Bancroft Award for Women's Leadership in 1997, and the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1998. In 1998 Ms. Magazine named her Woman of the Year for her work with Honor the Earth. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2007, and in 2017 she received the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy, and Tolerance.Winona LaDuke was an active leader as a Water Protector with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2017 at Standing Rock, where the Sioux Nation and hundreds of their supporters fought to preserve the Nation's drinking water and sacred lands from the damage the pipeline would cause. Over the years her activism has not deviated from seeking justice and restoration for Indigenous peoples.Leah Penniman is an educator, farmer/peyizan, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. She co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2011 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land. Penniman is part of a team that facilitates powerful food sovereignty programs – including farmer trainings for Black & Brown people, a subsidized farm food distribution program for people living under food apartheid, and domestic and international organizing toward equity in the food system.Penniman holds an MA in Science Education and BA in Environmental Science and International Development from Clark University. She has been farming since 1996 and teaching since 2002. The work of Penniman and Soul Fire Farm has been recognized by the Soros Racial Justice Fellowship, Fulbright Program, Omega Sustainability Leadership Award, Presidential Award for Science Teaching, NYS Health Emerging Innovator Awards, and Andrew Goodman Foundation, among others. She is the author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land (2018).

If you've ever wondered what life is like after 90, just ask Sylvia Anthony who believes life begins at 90. Sylvia knows what she's talking about too because in 2020 she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her inspirational story is one of perseverance and focus. Sylvia believes "the golden years" are a time to gear up and get busy, not relax and take it easy. She has faced many hardships over her lifetime but she says they have made her stronger and more determined. After losing her second husband to cancer she became the founder and president of Sylvia's Haven, a shelter for women and children near Boston. Through her ministry at Sylvia's Haven, she has helped transform over 1086 lives in the past 35 years! This organization is everything to her, she even calls it her "magnificent obsession!" Sylvia has also authored a book about her life called "Till the End of Time" which was published when she was 85 years old. In her book she tells the story of being born an unwanted child, abused and neglected by her parents but loved and cherished by her grandparents. Her story takes us through all of her challenges and triumphs including an abusive marriage resulting in 3 children, to becoming a single mother and finding love in a second marriage. While she admits that life hasn't been easy throughout the years, Sylvia firmly believes that God not only gives her courage during times of hardship, but also keeps her healthy so that she may realize a dream of hers which is to open up a shelter, Sylvia's Haven, in all 50 states! Join us for an inspiring conversation with this amazing 91 year old dynamo who is living a vibrant, active and incredibly meaningful life helping homeless women. Grab a cuppa something wonderful, a good friend and get ready to get inspired! www.feminineroadmap.com/episode207/

As momentum built following another successfully rally and march in Seneca Falls in January, this year was set to be a landmark occasion for the National Women's Hall of Fame. Then, a pandemic struck, throwing everything in the air. Liza Kiernan, the social media coordinator for the National Women's Hall of Fame talks about how they are handling the delayed grand opening of the Seneca Falls Knitting Mill, which corresponds in observance with this year's 100th anniversary celebration of the 19th amendment.

Alan and Kerri celebrate Labor Day weekend with their exclusive interview with Pat McGee, the director of "The Deported," a new documentary about the realities of tearing families apart through deportation. The film features the stories of four immigrants and their families facing the uncertainties of deportation and the impact on the family unit. Gurvey's Law is also honored to have Native American activist and law professor Sarah Deer on the show. Sarah will discuss her one-of-a kind career, and the distinction of being part of the 2019 class being inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame on September 14th. Honor the workers of this country, whether documented or not, who make it so great by listening to Gurvey's Law.  Join us on Sundays at 5 p.m. PST on KABC-AM 790 TalkRadioand streaming live on Kabc.com! #immigration #deportation #documentary #interview #activist #laborday

Gloria Allred is the most famous woman attorney practicing law in the world today. She is a tireless and relentless advocate for victims' rights. Her high-profile legal battles have led to many landmark precedent-setting court decisions, and have impacted law and policy throughout our country. For her illustrious life's work, she is being inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame on September 14th, along with actress Jane Fonda, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and 7 other women luminaries. Alan Gurvey sits down with Gloria to talk about her life, career, the issues of the day, as well as this monumental honor. This Gurvey's Law episode, replete with surprise guests, as well as an appearance by Kate Bennett, the President of the Hall of Fame, is not to be missed. Tune in on Sundays at 5 p.m. on KABC-AM 790 TalkRadio or hear it streaming live on kabc.com! #womensrights #attorney #talkradio #halloffame #interview #victimsrights

Today's episode takes place in Boston, just three days before the Boston Marathon, with a LEGEND, Kathrine Switzer who, in 1967, became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as an official registered participant.  Many of us know the iconic photo of the moment where the race director Jock Semple saw Kathrine running and tried to knock her off the course and steal her number. It is a picture that not only broke barriers but changed women's history, sport's history, and, frankly, the world. Kathrine has since run numerous marathons, was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, is a speaker, author, television personality, and so much more. Her charity, 261 Fearless (261 being the number she wore in that 1967 race), is a movement that is helping to empower women all over the world through running.  You won't want to miss her amazing story.  Thank you, Kathrine, for spending some time with us! And a very grateful thank you to our sponsor Aftershokz for inviting me up to share this day with them. Please check them out at charitymiles.org/aftershokz for more information. 261fearless.org  charitymiles.org  #EveryMileMatters 

Schulder speaks with former First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, for the National Women's Hall of Fame oral history project. Mrs. Carter shares stories from her active role in the women's rights movement, the resistance she encountered advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment, the backstory of the first federally funded National Women's Conference, the personal encounters that triggered her early advocacy of mental health coverage, the biggest disappointment in her life, her advice for young girls and boys, and her days growing up in Plains, Georgia. As you'll hear, Mrs. Carter's full immersion in the issues she cares most about continues, today, at the age of 87.

On this week's 51%, we take a tour of the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. Executive Director Jennifer Gabriel previews the hall's latest class, and shares her goals for the museum's expansion. Guests: Jennifer Gabriel, Executive Director of the National Women's Hall of Fame; Natalie Rudd, Learning & Engagement Manager 51% is a national production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio. The show is hosted by Jesse King, its executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock, and its theme is “Lolita” by the Albany-based artist Girl Blue. Follow Along You're listening to 51%, a WAMC production dedicated to women's issues and experiences. Thanks for tuning in, I'm Jesse King. This week, we're taking a field trip to Seneca Falls, New York. Now, Seneca Falls is an important location for women's history, being the site of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, where activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Martha Wright signed the “Declaration of Sentiments” calling for equal rights for women.  There are a lot of places we could visit in Seneca Falls and talk about, but today we're stopping at the National Women's Hall of Fame. It's been a part of the area for decades, but after years of renovations it now occupies the historic Seneca Knitting Mill on Canal Street, in plain view of the recreated Wesleyan Chapel, where the Seneca Falls Convention took place.  So after saddling up the company vehicle and making my way west to Seneca County, I found my way to the wool mill, a large stone structure nestled by the Seneca-Cayuga Canal. I'm immediately greeted by Executive Director Jennifer Gabriel and Learning & Engagement Manager Natalie Rudd, who are kind enough to hold open the door as I lug in my recording equipment. Gabriel was selected to be the museum's new executive director after a six-month, national search in July. She says she's spent the past two decades working in non-profit organizations in New York, Colorado, and California - particularly in fundraising - and that might come in handy for the National Women's Hall of Fame, as it grows into its new space and navigates the coronavirus pandemic. I got the change to sit down with Gabriel, and started by asking about the Hall's history, and her vision for its future. How has the museum gotten to where it is today? What are your goals as executive director? So the National Women's Hall of Fame is over 50 years old, we're the first and oldest organization and museum dedicated to telling the stories of great American women. The whole organization began in the late ‘60s, when a woman named Shirley Hartley learned about the Hall of Great Americans, which was housed at New York University. And she was really troubled to learn that only a small portion of the people that were honored there were women. And being from Seneca Falls and working in Seneca Falls, she really felt strongly that this was the place that needed to house an organization dedicated specifically to celebrating women. And so she came back to Seneca Falls, gathered her friends and some associates and colleagues, and created what she called “The Founders Tea,” which was a homage to the tea that Elizabeth Cady Stanton first organized with Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott, and all of the people that we associate with the women's rights movement. So Shirley Hartley did a similar tea, and that was the impetus for the founding of the National Women's Hall of Fame. So a year later in 1969, we were incorporated as a nonprofit organization. And we've been right here in Seneca Falls ever since. Sometime in the late ‘70s, the organization moved from the basement of one of the local colleges to a small storefront on Fall Street in downtown Seneca Falls, and that's where we lived and thrived for 41 years. Eventually, we got to the point where we had outgrown that space, and so, in 2007, the organization embarked on a major campaign to purchase and renovate the building that we're in right now. So is this the Seneca Knitting Mill, which has been around since 1844, and was a producer of wool yarn and wool goods for its entire 155-year history. And one of the things I find really fascinating about this, is that the history of the building that we're in now, the Seneca Knitting Mill, and the history of the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the women's rights movement, are really, deeply intertwined. Some of the owners of the of the Seneca Knitting Mill in 1848, when the first women's rights convention was happening, were actually signers on the Declaration of Sentiments. The business itself was really committed to supporting women's rights and equity issues from the very beginning. We purchased the building in 2007, and began an extensive campaign to renovate the building. And actually, what you see today is a stone structure with a brick smokestack - it's incredibly beautiful, right on the shores of the Seneca-Cayuga canal. And at the time that we purchased it, it had really fallen into disrepair. The Seneca Knitting Mill went out of business in 1999, so it had been largely neglected. It needed a new roof, new windows. And so the organization embarked on this initiative to make this our new home. We were able to move into this building in August of 2020. So it's just been just over a year since we've been here. To get back to your question about where the organization is going and what's on the horizon. It's really threefold. So the first is to complete the Seneca Knitting Mill project, and to have four floors of exhibits and event space and spaces that are designed to create interactive educational experiences for people of all ages, all genders, you know, from all across the country. The second is to ensure that our induction ceremony, which happens every two years, is the premier event that celebrates great American women and their achievements. And then the third piece is to launch a series of programs that inspire people across the nation and bring us together to have important conversations about, you know, all of the issues that women face, and continuing to use our inductees and their stories as a way to showcase how far we've come and what the dynamics are now, being a woman in the United States, and where we're going in the future. So we're incredibly fortunate we have 293 inductees in total in the National Women's Hall of Fame. About a third of them are still alive, and actively engaged in the organization, and want to see us grow and thrive and to share their stories with the nation. So we'll be utilizing our relationships with them for panel discussions, events post-COVID. We hope to actually have in person events across the country and really build up that national profile. And I always think about it as you know, the little girl who lives in Wyoming - I want her to experience the National Women's Hall of Fame in the same way that I was able to experience it as an eighth grader right here in in the Finger Lakes. So that's the overall trajectory. So you've got 293 inductees in the Hall of Fame. How does the induction process work? And what's the status of the Hall of Fame during the pandemic? The National Women's Hall of Fame accepts nominations for inductees from the public, it really is a public-driven effort. And so anyone can make a nomination through our website. The requirements to be inducted into the Hall of Fame are that you are an American citizen, either by birth or by naturalization, and that you have contributed something that has national significance and enduring value. So anyone that falls into those criteria can be nominated for the National Women's Hall of Fame. Then we have a whole judging process, and go through a pretty intensive research and conversation process, and then eventually select the classes that we are able to induct into the Hall of Fame. Right now we do induction every two years. And this year's class, which is nine extraordinary women, we had hoped to induct this coming Saturday, on October 2, and obviously with COVID, and the Delta variant spiking, we were having a lot of conversations towards the end of the summer [about postponing]. And you know, we had upwards of 1,000 people traveling from all across the United States to come here to Seneca Falls to celebrate these women. And overall, it was the right decision for the health of our community and the health of our nation to postpone the event. And so the new day is September 23-25, 2022. And what this additional runway has allowed us to do, as we approach that new date, is to really celebrate this class of inductees in a way that we have not been able to do in the past, and hopefully set the tone for how all future inductions are able to take place, where we really can spend some dedicated time unpacking and telling the stories of the great American women that we are honoring, building that energy and excitement, introducing more people to the themes and to the stories that they tell. And then to really have a great celebration, you know, at the actual induction ceremony. Let's talk about some of these women, then. Who is in the latest class? So the 2022 induction ceremony will be honoring the achievements of Octavia Butler, Judy Chicago, Rebecca Halstead, Mia Hamm, Joy Harjo, Emily Howland, Katherine Johnson, Indra Nooyi, and Michelle Obama. So it's a pretty incredible class of women whose achievements ranged from the arts, to politics, to science, to the military. It's a really exceptional class of women. Obviously, I think most people are familiar with names like Michelle Obama and Mia Hamm, but tell me about some of the inductees people might not be as familiar with. So Octavia Butler became the first science fiction writer, and one of the first black women, to receive a MacArthur Genius fellowship grant. She's the author of many, many books that have inspired people ranging from Amanda Gorman, LeVar Burton, to Viola Davis. She was a very quiet author and somebody who did not love the limelight, so she used her words and her books to really inspire action and to tell important stories that needed to be told. Judy Chicago is an incredible artist, and in 1974, she created her most well-known work which is called “The Dinner Party,” which was she produced with hundreds of volunteers. The idea of the installation was to provide a symbolic history of women in western civilization by actually creating a dinner party plate set for each of these women that would be around a dinner party table. The piece is now permanently installed on the Brooklyn Museum, I highly recommend that people go and take a look at it, because it's really incredible, and it was very provocative for its time. Now she does all kinds of art all across the country, all kinds of teaching, and is able to really highlight how art actually plays a huge role in our world. Becky Halstead is amazing. She's from here in the Finger Lakes, she grew up in Candor, which is right outside of Ithaca, and went on to serve in the military. She'd became the first female in U.S. history to command in combat at the strategic level. She's done a lot of work since retiring from the military in terms of leadership, and talking about sort of the perception of women in the military versus the reality, and really lifting women who serve our country in a really substantial way. And through her teachings, she actually expands beyond the military, and works to inspire all of us, regardless of the sectors. We're very excited that she's going to be a part of the National Women's Hall of Fame. Joy Harjo is a multi-disciplinary artist. She's a poet, a musician, a playwright, a painter, an author. She's done a lot of work and various pieces of art. And she draws on First Nations storytelling - the pieces of work that she has done really allow those indigenous voices to come out in ways that they have not been able to in the past. Katherine Johnson! So Katherine Johnson's story, which most people know from the movie, Hidden Figures, really highlights how often women's stories and women's achievements have been overlooked, especially in STEM fields, although actually across all disciplines. And unfortunately, Katherine passed away in 2020, but her daughters have been very involved with us. And they are looking forward to working to continue telling the story of their mom, and also lifting up all women who feel like they have been overlooked in some way, shape, or form. And what's so fascinating about these women that we induct into the National Women's Hall of Fame, is even the people that tend to be more well-known, like Michelle Obama, or Mia Hamm, there's aspects of their stories that still aren't told. And so that's one of the things that we really tried to do is highlight not just these women and their achievements, but also some of the things that may be lesser known about their work in the world. So it sounds like this has been a big year for the museum. You moved into a new building in the middle of a pandemic, the induction ceremony was also postponed by the pandemic. How are you faring during COVID? Because for a lot of museums, this has been a pretty difficult time. Yeah, that's a great question. It's really been an interesting trajectory. So [there have been] lots of things that we don't like about COVID, lots of ways in which the pandemic has really stifled growth and progress. In other ways, though, it's opened us up to new technologies and new ways of connecting to one another. And although we've all got some level of Zoom fatigue, I think we've learned in a really powerful way, that we can still connect to one another through a digital platform. You know, the organization itself moved in the height of the pandemic last August, into this new building, we've had to go through a lot of different phases of reservation systems and you know, limiting the number of people in the gallery at any given time. Those restrictions remain to this day. But at the same time, it allowed us to really go national in a new and intriguing way. Natalie was brought in to actually create programming, and to do the organization's first virtual induction ceremony. So last year, after George Floyd's death, and the national conversation that ignited around the way that especially Black men and women in this country have often been overlooked, the organization made the decision to host a virtual induction series, which we will plan to do every year or two to really highlight the accomplishments of an overlooked group of women. Last year's virtual induction, which was our first one ever, focused on Black women who are no longer with us, and whose stories deserve to be told. Flowing from that was a series of programs that we call “The Forum.” That's a national effort to ignite conversations with our inductees, with other experts in the field, and really to advance some of these conversations that need to be had around gender and equality and equity, and really being able to, you know, dive deeply into some of the topics that we don't normally get to talk about. So it's been really exciting. And we've been doing OK. Tourism has picked up throughout the summer, we've been seeing more and more visitors. Leaf peeping season is coming. So that's always a very busy time in Seneca Falls. And you know, in terms of fundraising, being able to celebrate our inductees and create these programs that are going to inspire people across the nation is very attractive to a lot of corporate partners and business partners and individual donors. And so we're having a lot of conversations with people about what philanthropy can do and how we can really use it to not just sustain operations, but really grow them over time. Lastly, why do you feel it's important to have a museum dedicated to women and women's history? Oh, gosh. I mean, I can't speak enough to how important it is. I think we all want to be able to see ourselves in history, and we all want to know our place in history. And you know, the women's rights movement began in 1848, it's not that old. It's only maybe five generations of women that have come since that time. We've as a nation, really deserve to prioritize the accomplishments of 51 percent of our entire nation. One of the really troubling facts that I learned a couple of weeks ago is that, of all of the statues and monuments across the nation, only 8 percent are dedicated to telling the stories of American women. And that's a really troubling fact that, you know, in most places, if you walk around and look at public art, you're not going to see the face of a woman in that. And so having an organization like the National Women's Hall of Fame is truly important for not just little kids, who will grow up never knowing a time when a woman couldn't be vice president or governor of the state of New York, but also to inspire all generations, and all people, that we have made significant contributions. We are a viable part of this country, and our ideas and our stories matter. And so that is what we seek to inspire people to understand when they walk through our doors and to leave with a better appreciation. Maybe learning about a woman that they never knew about before, or just feeling the inspiration that, ‘Yes, there's a community here that does believe and support in women and women's history, and you know, the enduring value of the accomplishments that women make.' As Gabriel said, the National Women's Hall of Fame occupies just the first floor of the Seneca Knitting Mill, with the upper three floors still largely unfinished. Walking through the front door, you're greeted by a number of exhibits on its inductees, the women's rights movement, and even the Seneca Knitting Mill itself. Learning and Engagement Manager Natalie Rudd says the plan is to eventually expand those exhibits into the upper floors, and possibly even offer event space down the line.  We'll go upstairs in a minute, but first, we ought to check out the Hall itself. In the past, Rudd says each inductee would have their own plaque and portrait along the museum's walls - but with so many inductees, they don't currently have the wall space to do that. Instead, inductees' names are listed on long scrolls, hung in a circle at the center of the floor. Alongside the scrolls are iPads connected to the website, where Rudd says anyone can access detailed bios for each of the inductees.  "So what I always do with my guests, when we have guests come and visit, I always tell them, 'You're gonna see a lot of names that you recognize. You're gonna see Gloria Steinem, Lucille Ball, Maya Angelou, people who you've definitely heard of. But you're gonna see a lot of names that you probably don't recognize,'" says Rudd. "And I tell everybody to find one name that sticks out, or maybe that worked in a field that you work in - so if you worked in STEM, go and find Ruth Patrick, a 2009 inductee. [The scroll says] 'Ruth Patrick, STEM & Health, Education & Activism.' You can go and then read her bio, and then learn a little bit about her, because I can guarantee not many people have heard of her." Ruth Patrick, as we learned through her bio, was a limnologist, meaning she focused on "the scientific study of the life and phenomena of freshwater bodies." "Some of our inductees, when you Google them, if you were to just Google them, sometimes we are one of the only [organizations] that pops up as having information on them," says Rudd. "Which is sad - we want everybody to know about them - but it also really shows us that we're doing our job, because otherwise a lot of these stories might get lost in history, and we would have never heard about them, or their successes might be attributed to somebody else." After we look at a few more names, Rudd leads me to the upper floors. The first floor is technically the only one currently open to the public, but Rudd says she still loves taking the occasional visitor up the spiral staircase - because while the upper floors are still unfinished, they demonstrate just how far the building has come over the past 10-plus years. Rudd says the old roof was caving in, and as a result, the exterior walls began to buckle and bend outward. For years, she says the building was known by locals for the big blue tarp wrapped around its top floor, because the roof couldn't actually be replaced until the exterior walls were pulled straight, millimeter by millimeter, day by day.  The interior still features most of the original flooring and exposed beams. There's graffiti from the building's vacant years, but Rudd says a lot of the signatures along the walls are those of former employees of the wool mill. Rudd says the museum is working on installing an elevator to make the building more accessible, but for the most part, they want to preserve the memory of those workers. "So that's one of the reasons why we actually chose this building to be our new home. The history not only aligned with the region so well - the Seneca Knitting Mill had a lot of different names as a company throughout its years, but it really stood as a place of industry, it employed generations of Seneca Falls-area folks, and the history really aligns with the women's rights movement, with those original trustees having signed the Declaration of Sentiments," says Rudd. "They were also abolitionists. So, one of the reasons this was a wool knitting mill, as opposed to a cotton knitting mill, was because, not only did we have a lot of sheep farmers in the area, but the owners were abolitionists, and they didn't want to support the cotton industry because of its links to enslavement and the slave trade." On the main floor, visitors can find the names of some of the mill's employees side-by-side with inductees. Rudd says, when the mill closed in 1999, many employees signed what she calls the "Goodbye Pillar" on their last day. As the museum worked to renovate the building, Rudd says they found the pillar in the basement, and were ecstatic to include it next to their exhibits. The National Women's Hall of Fame is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day except Wednesday, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, visitors are strongly encouraged to get timed tickets ahead of time (the museum may be able to take walk-ins, but capacity limits are in effect). The next class will be inducted on September 23-25, 2022. For more information, you can check out the Hall's website here.

On this week's 51%, we take a tour of the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. Executive Director Jennifer Gabriel previews the hall's latest class, and shares her goals for the museum's expansion. (more…)