Women Academics From The United States

"... The conquest in 1895 of the grand old , and the unmerited notoriety attained thereby, spurred me on to the accomplishment of some deed which should render me worthy of the fame already acquired. The most feasible project seemed to be the ascent of in Mexico, its summit the highest point which had been reached in North America. This became, under the auspices of the ', in 1897, the easy goal of my ambition and gave me temporarily the world's record for women."

"Over the waiting congregation rolled the burdened tones of the great , and the sweet voices of the boy-choristers alternated with the monotonous chanting of the s. Three times through the s defiled the long procession, with the sacred images, and the , and the bags of money for the poor. The donned his wealthiest robes in acknowledgment of the presence of the ; the more stately s paraded their purple coats and their gold-studded canes, and quickened the circulation of the inquisitive crowd stopping to gaze at the crimson dais. Finally a great hush breathed into the room of the music and the chanting; a thousand eyes turned toward the pulpit that faced the oaken , and—as if evoked by the spell of their expectancy—the preacher arose in his place and announced his theme."

"The modern position of women was inaugurated by the . The overthrew the doctrine of the . The dissolved the doctrine of the necessary and lawful supremacy of es. The Revolution of 1848 asserted the of the individual."

"A predominantly masculine type to the external genitals, and even the presence of s, is compatible with a feminine habitus of body or with entirely feminine feelings and instincts, or with both. Thus was brought up as a girl until the age of 22, when she was pronounced a male by a court of law because possessed of a complete male genital apparatus—, though small and ; with a testicle in the right lobe, the left testicle resting in the and apparently in fatty degeneration; distended by sperm, which, however, contained no spermatozoids; rudimentary . The misinterpretation of sex had been due to presence of a central cleft in the scrotum, simulating a and terminating in a cul-de-sac six and a half centimetres deep. The rectification of this mistake filled the subject with such despair that he committed suicide."

"Dr. Jacobi died in 1906. In recognition of her manifold services to humanity, a memorial meeting was held shortly after, at which tributes were paid to her memory by Dr. , Dr. , , Mrs. , Dr. , Dr. , Dr. , and Sara King Wiley."

"P, Bush, 1905. Nine tubes of moderate size were found in 1898 and 1901, dredged in 30-40 feet in and other localities at Bermuda. They were taken usually from dead but occasionally attached to s, forming an irregularly twisted mass. The surface is sometimes ornamented with five conspicuous, longitudinal carinæ, the two outer ones usually the largest."

"The research has received a lot of media attention, and Vohs thinks she knows why: "I think it makes people feel vindicated," Vohs says. "There's a multibillion dollar industry to help people de-clutter their lives. Relationship partners, employers, everyone wants you to be neat … but there may be times being messy is good, too. I think messy people feel vindicated big time."

"Practically nothing was known of the s of the North Pacific coast before Johnson's valuable reports of 1897 and 1901 — the first entitled 'A Preliminary Account of the Marine Annelids of the Pacific Coast,' the other 'The Polychæta of the Puget Sound Region.' This is especially true of Alaska, a few species only having been recorded north of , British Columbia; therefore the collections made by , of the , and Dr. Wesley R. Coe, of Yale University, as members of the of 1899, are of great interest."

"Using your mind to make decisions is a very taxing enterprise. When people make decisions, it turns out that it takes energy away from their entire psychological system. That energy is needed specifically for controlling their behaviors, making other good decisions down the line...doing the right thing essentially. So you’ll see people from President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and going back to Einstein; all wearing the same one or two outfits every single day as a way to minimize the number of decisions that they have to make on what would be called trivial, or what President Obama calls ‘trivial or routinised decisions’."

"One of the most frustrating goals for people is weight loss or weight loss maintenance," Professor Vohs said. So if a person concentrates on that goal, she may have fewer internal resources to deal with other challenging situations in life, like a demanding boss or an angry spouse. The answer, Professor Vohs said, is perhaps "stepping back temporarily and saying, 'I'm going to try to live a healthy life and not try so hard to lose weight.'"

"Interviewer: Do you have any advice for individuals who wish to pursue a career in social psychology? Vohs: Sure! Work, work, work, and work. This career is one of persistence, and so the harder you work, the more successful you are likely to be. Keep positive! This job is mostly a series of “no, go away” messages so keeping positive and excited about the fact that you are helping to figure out how the world works is key."

"“A clean setting leads people to do good things: Not engage in crime, not litter, and show more generosity,” Vohs explains for the Association for Psychological Science . “We found, however, that you can get really valuable outcomes from being in a messy setting.”"

"Whereas Adam Smith worried about the confining and stultifying effects of commercial society, his 21st-century acolytes, cheerfully devoid of skepticism, see nothing but empowerment all the way."

"As a faculty member, I feel a great intellectual advantage in being in continual conversation with students, who arrive new and clear-eyed, asking foundational questions. I’ve found that giving them the benefit of my perspective means also accepting from them the benefit of theirs."

"In Darwin’s version of Darwinism, natural selection played a key role, but so too did various living agencies, notably one that Darwin called “use and disuse” (using or failing to use a limb or organ, which, he assumed, would have heritable effects) and another that he named “sexual selection.”"

"What is the scientific method, and when, where, and how did it become, as the kids say, a thing? Authoritative definitions of “the scientific method” often state that it consists of a set of procedures including observation, experimentation, and the formation and testing of hypotheses by inductive and deductive reasoning. Such accounts, as a rule, ascribe science’s successes to the application of these procedures ever since the seventeenth century and the work of people such as Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. But neither Bacon nor Newton nor anyone else in the seventeenth century would have recognized the phrase; moreover, neither would have agreed with current standard definitions. Bacon, for instance, rejected deductive reasoning as the bad old Aristotelian approach, and Newton, author of one of the boldest hypotheses in the history of science—the universal aether—denied any role for hypotheses in his science, famously declaring “hypotheses non fingo” (I frame no hypotheses)."

"Once a sign of economic power, reading is now the province of those whose time lacks market value."

"A few words to the young women: When you combine a career with raising a family, the family responsibilities generally rest more heavily on you than on your husband, and you may need to proceed more slowly with your career than you would without a family. This may have its good side in that you can save up some interesting and important things to do after your children have left the nest. However, the responsibilities can often be so heavy as to frustrate a woman's career, and a lack of suitable child-care facilities is a major roadblock. To me it is no mystery why there are not more women in leadership positions in science. It has been mentioned that I am the first woman to receive the Howard Vollum Award, and of course I am very proud to be chosen. But when it is no longer considered unusual for a woman to be so honored or to achieve a position of leadership in public life, then we women will know that we have made it."

"In her new book, “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas,” Raff beautifully integrates new data from different sciences (archaeology, genetics, linguistics) and different ways of knowing, including Indigenous oral traditions, in a masterly retelling of the story of how, and when, people reached the Americas. While admittedly not an archaeologist herself, Raff skillfully reveals how well-dated archaeological sites, including recently announced 22,000-year-old human footprints from , are . She builds a persuasive case with both archaeological and genetic evidence that the path to the Americas was coastal (the ) rather than inland, and that was not a bridge but a homeland — twice the size of Texas — inhabited for millenniums by the ancestors of the . Throughout, Raff effectively models how science is done, how hypotheses are tested, and how new data are used to refute old ideas and generate new ones."

"... Getting the science wrong has very real consequences. For example, when a community doesn’t vaccinate children because they’re afraid of “toxins” and think that prayer (or diet, exercise, and “”) is enough to prevent infection, outbreaks happen."

"The maintain that their ancestors were a seafaring people who have lived in since the dawn of history. This discovery of this man, whom the Tlingit called , was consistent with that they descend from an ancient, coastally adapted people who engaged in long-distance trade."

"Anthropological geneticists should participate in because of the complexity of their work, its implications for human health and societies, and its tendency to be co-opted for particular political or social agendas. They are positioned to offer important contributions to public conversations on issues of race, genetic identity, history, and conflict. There are multiple avenues to public outreach for academics; among them, is a powerful, underused tool."

"I grew up in a village of 500 people in Delaware in the 1950s, and attended a segregated elementary school. At an early age I wondered why the black students who lived near my school did not attend it."

"Q. What do you value most about the history profession? A. It seems to me that the profession has avoided the bitter in-fighting over methodology that has wracked other disciplines over the last few decades. I think historians are welcoming of different kinds of methodologies and different topics of study. And I think we pretty much agree among ourselves that we know good history when we see it."

"I have seen first-hand the corrosive effects of the notion that the study of the humanities in general and history in particular is less valuable to undergraduates than the study of science, math, and engineering. In fact, an understanding of history is a critical component of citizenship—for citizens of the United States, and citizens of the world."

"I worry that the impulses driven by anti-intellectualism and anti-science play such a major part in shaping our political landscape today."

"I am distressed that some people believe that enforced ignorance about our country’s past is a virtue. As historians, we aim to provide an accurate view of the past, even if that includes topics that are uncomfortable or upsetting to us now. Any effort to eliminate or ignore certain aspects of history does our students a disservice. The profits wrung from the labor of enslaved peoples helped to make the United States a prosperous nation — or rather, a prosperous nation for a few."

"Q. Who are some of the most overlooked individuals or groups in U.S. history? A. People of modest means. Many of these families were resourceful and resilient. For a variety of reasons, no matter how hard they worked, they found it difficult to own their own land or homes. Their stories are inspiring, and also illuminating, as we are reminded of the vulnerability of certain groups of people, especially people of color, in accumulating assets over the generations. Discrimination in employment, housing, bank loans, education and health care are some of the factors that have affected these families. Many privileged Americans seem oblivious to these facts, and want to believe that merit alone is the deciding factor in whether or not individuals prosper. To a great extent today, we are our zip codes; in other words, where we live helps to determine access to quality public education, health care, and police and fire protection. Impoverished communities and families do not enjoy a “level playing field” in their striving for a better life."

"...Even white abolitionists and other reformers were indifferent to the plight of Black workers who could not find decent jobs. That disconnect — between a rhetoric of equality and a reality of prejudice — characterized not only mid-19th century Boston, but to some extent certainly the history of the United States in general."

"Who can blame Betty Fussell for wanting to get even? After reading My Kitchen Wars, I wonder only how she managed, for the more than 30 years that they were married, to direct her kitchen cleaver anywhere other than at ’s skull."

"... I found that Oklahoma was the only place in the country where you could go to the and the on the same day. Of course this is the only place in the country that even has a Cowboy or Indian Hall of Fame. It is also the only place in the country that has a town named ."

"In the past four years, I've branded on a ranch in , stalked in Texas, watched cows butchered by hand in a in Colorado, and toured a plant near that kills 6,000 cows per hour. I've attended conventions of the in and of a breakaway group in Denver, applauded lectures at the American Grass-Fed Society in Indiana and whooped it up at rodeos at the . I've talked with a New Jersey housewife investigating , with an ex-bull rider turned political activist, with an animal scientist who transformed . I went to Florida to see in the s, to to "Eeeeehaaaawwww" with the Cowgirls of the West in the Pioneer Days Parade. I even enrolled in Beef 101 at , in order to get some hands-on experience in how we turn cows into meat."

"Treating corn as a commodity is a part of our ingrained history — but it’s only two hundred years old. To people who aren't accustomed to thinking of history at all, that’s a long time. But to us here, it’s an eyeblink."

"I'd hit 40 by the time I began to write real words. By then I'd married a professional writer/teacher, typed and edited his manuscripts, raised two children, entertained like crazy, finished a doctorate in English Lit, taught Shakespeare, performed in community theaters, traveled as family all over Europe, lived in , London, and Provence. And along the way I found Julia Child and the pleasures of making at home in Princeton what we were eating in . Like Julia, I wanted to tell other people about it. Not through how-to technique but how food checks time. The way travel does. The way play-acting does."

"... it's not an accident that the creative imagination is the first thing that's punished when tyrannies take over …"

"... food is life ... You don't have to cook. You do have to eat. Everybody has to eat. ... The basis of food is other people. ... You cannot raise everything you're going to eat. ... everything is culturally relevant to food."

"Why do people need to have control over the lives of others? Why this fear of the other? This fear of difference — the fear of change — why this fear of our own bodies? Why this inability to accept our own death? What are the connections between those things?"

".. the way I work ... I'm really seized by the scruff of the neck each time. ... Something pounces. It's absolutely irresistible and often will pounce at three in the morning ... or at six in the morning ... And I will get up and start writing. ... I really count on novelty and synchronicity and dreams to direct me and to kind of release the energy."

"I've spent most of my life doing kitchen battle, feeding others and myself, torn between the desire to escape and the impulse to entrench myself further. When social revolutions hustled women out of the kitchen and into the boardroom, I seemed to be caught in flagrante, with a pot holder in my hand. I knew that the position of women like myself was of strategic importance in the war between the sexes. But if you could stand the heat, did you have to get out of the kitchen? For even as I chafed at kitchen confinement, cooking had begun its long conquest of me. Food had infiltrated my heart, seduced my brain, and ravished my senses. Peeling the layers of an onion, spooning out the marrow of a beef bone, laying bare the skeleton of a salmon were acts very like the act of sex, ecstatically fusing body and mind."

"A child is a child, but a black child is something special, it is special because it is I, it is you; it is personal."

"And if she would have owned up to it, it would have been like, ‘OK.’ But let’s not cower under the guise and say, ‘Oh, I’m concerned.’ It wasn’t rooted in concern."

"When your friendship unit is really strong and you genuinely care for someone, everything else, you do it as a team."

"We always talk about everything. When I told him what was said, he was like, ‘I’m sorry that someone who you thought was a friend did this to you."

"A front-row seat to history!! Thank you to the DNC for inviting me to be a part of this historic moment."

"Beckwith herself ... has compared the and the , but this was a comparison of poetic splendor and artistic worth. The two differ basically in theme, she pointed out, with the Kumulipo more reminiscent of Greek than of Hebrew origins."

"The ', in its ancient and classical form, is analogous to the Japanese and to other like institutions throughout the South Sea Islands. It was conventionalized into a real school of dramatic art. ... A hula performance consisted in a series of dramatic dances accompanied by song, sometimes by rhythmical instruments. It was given under the patronage of a chief, often to celebrate some event, like the birthday of a son. It was dedicated to some god, generally to , the goddess of co-ordinated movement, and was bound under a strict decorum to rigid ceremonial conventions. ... The hula company might consist of several hundred persons, men and women, boys and girls, with a retinue of followers to secure and prepare the food-supply."

"Much in the psychology of the Polynesian has been shown to resemble closely that of the prehistoric civilizations which grouped around the Mediterranean. The taste for riddling is a minor but no less interesting example of this parallelism in mental habit and training, and the part played by the riddling contest in Hawaiian story is directly comparable with that which it plays in old European literary sources like the Scandinavian or the Greek tale of and the . ... In some Hawaiian stories of the ancient past, the contest of wit is represented as one of the accomplishments of th chiefs, taking its place with games of skill like arrow-throwing or checkers, with tests of strength like boxing or wrestling, and the arts of war such as sling-stone and spear-throwing as a means of rivalry. It is played as a betting contest, upon the results of which contestants even stake their lives."

"During two trips to Jamaica in the winter of 1922 and the spring of 1924 I secured the names of 136 plants used for medicinal purposes among the colored peasantry, with the method of preparation and the use to which each was put. ... Brief as the list is, I believe it to be representative of present practice in Jamaica. I had it from three parishes and from such diverse informants a - and -men, accredited government midwives, house-maids and small settlers; from the isolated settlement of and from a flourishing town of white residents like . All were ready and even pleased to contribute information. Most of the plants were picked from the door-plot or beside the road as we walked ..."

"... Suppose a large number of values, subject to variations on either side of a , and suppose these variations bound by no common law. Then, if a sufficiently large number of such values are taken into consideration, it will be found that the variations on either side of the mean value will counterbalance one another. If, then, we regard the absolute motions of the stars as subject to no common law, i.e., if we suppose the stars to be pursuing their courses independent of any common , and if a very large number of s are taken together, if would follow from this principle, that in the aggregate the peculiar proper motions would cancel one another, and the mean result would be unaffected by them and would give only the . This method of treatment, based upon the , is called the method of "," and is of wide application ..."

"Although banquets at professional meetings (like the chemists' "misogynists' dinner" of 1880) had long excluded women, the ban began to seem a little less intimidating around 1900, when several women scientists began in their own quiet way to challenge some of these age-old restrictions. Thus, for example, Mary Whitney of Vassar College, who had attended the founding meeting of the American Astronomical Society at in Wisconsin in 1899 with her protégée and successor, , was still not sure whether they would be welcome at the society's banquet in Washington, D.C., in 1902. President noticed her unease and wrote to assure her that they were indeed expected to attend ... Newcomb's encouragement induced these women to go, and thereby set a precedent for later meetings."