[Skinwalker]

Originally Posted by Jamroll

What a great and inspiring thread.

Kudos, Skinwalker!

Thanks Jamroll.

[Deel]

one remarkable woman i know: my mother.
and yours too.

say alhamdulilah!

[curiousgirl]

Originally Posted by Deel

one remarkable woman i know: my mother.
and yours too.

say alhamdulilah!

Alhamdulilah!!!

[Bluestar]

Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

The sudden death of her mother in 1895, when Virginia was 13, and that of her half sister Stella two years later, led to the first of Virginia's several nervous breakdowns. The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse and she was briefly institutionalized.

Her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods, modern scholars have claimed,[1]. were also induced by the sexual abuse she and Vanessa were subject to by their half-brothers George and Gerald (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays A Sketch of the Past and 22 Hyde Park Gate).

Throughout her life, Woolf was plagued by drastic mood swings. Though these recurring mental breakdowns greatly affected her social functioning, her literary abilities remained intact. Modern diagnostic techniques have led to a posthumous diagnosis of bipolar disorder, an illness which coloured her work, relationships, and life, and eventually led to her suicide. Following the death of her father in 1904 and her second serious nervous breakdown, Virginia, Vanessa, and Adrian sold 22 Hyde Park Gate, and bought a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury.

Following studies at King's College London, Woolf came to know Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Saxon Sydney-Turner, Duncan Grant, and Leonard Woolf, who together formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle known as the Bloomsbury Group which came to notorious fame in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax Virginia Woolf participated in, dressed as a male Abyssinian royalty.

After completing the manuscript of her last (posthumously published) novel Between the Acts, Woolf fell victim to a depression similar to that which she had earlier experienced. The war, the Luftwaffe's destruction of her London homes, as well as the cool reception of her biography on her late friend Roger Fry, worsened her condition until she was unable to work.[5]

On 28 March 1941, rather than having another nervous breakdown, Woolf drowned herself by weighing her pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until April 18. Her husband buried her remains under a tree in the garden of their house in Rodmell, Sussex.

In what is believed by most to be her last note to her husband she wrote:
“ I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."


Her acheivements:

Virginia Woolf's works are often closely linked to the development of feminist criticism, but she was also an important writer in the modernist movement. She revolutionized the novel with stream of consciousness, which allowed her to depict the inner lives of her characters in all too intimate detail. In "A Room of One's Own," Woolf writes, "we think back through our mothers if we are women. It is useless to go to the great men writers for help, however much one may go to them for pleasure."

Her words:

"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."

"One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them."
- "Hours in a Library"

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
- "Mrs. Dalloway"

"It was an uncertain spring. The weather, perpetually changing, sent clouds of blue and purple flying over the land."
- "The Years"
Virginia Wool Lines from "To the Lighthouse":

"What is the meaning of life?... a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark."

"The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women’s minds enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered and shivered; and now, she flew in the face of facts..."
Virginia Woolf Lines from "A Room of One's Own":

"Imaginative work... is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.... But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in midair by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering, human beings, and are attached to the grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in."

[GOTFIVEONIT]

i suppose were gonna add benazir to this list too? LOL

[Bluestar]

if you think, she's a remarkable woman, then write or include information about her. If you don't, then open a seperate thread

[Skinwalker]

Originally Posted by Deel

one remarkable woman i know: my mother.
and yours too.

say alhamdulilah!

Thankyou and I agree wholeheartedly!

[Skinwalker]

Originally Posted by Bluestar

Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

Thanks for all that info on Virginia Woolf, Bluestar. Have you seen the Hours? I haven't seen it yet, but I'm planning to. I love this quote by Wolfe;
"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."

I'm sure she's right.

[Bluestar]

i don't think we'll ever know, but i hope she is right I have seen The Hours, it's good, films like that, you can't really summarise fairly, it's just about the hidden emotions that are caused in a world of emotional dominoes, we can't (or i can't) put it into words.

one of my favourite books which i have read of hers so far is The Lighthouse, it's known as her best works and i remember not wanting that to influence what i thought of the book and how she wrote it. But i always find she blows me away when i read her work, she was an amazing woman

[Skinwalker]

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)



Best known today as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which helped galvanize the abolitionist cause and contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War. Uncle Tom's Cabin sold over 10,000 copies in the first week and was a best seller of its day. After the publication of Uncle Tom's
Cabin, Stowe became an internationally acclaimed celebrity and an extremely popular author. In addition to novels, poetry and essays, she wrote non-fiction books on a wide range of subjects including homemaking and the raising of children, and religion. She wrote in an informal conversational style, and presented herself as an average wife and mother.



Harriet Beecher Stowe's writing career spanned 51 years, during which time she published 30 books and countless shorter pieces. Harriet made time for writing in her life while she was busy raising seven children and managing a household. She was fortunate in having the support of her husband Calvin Stowe who always encouraged his wife in her career. This kind of support from a husband was unusual at the time when women were not expected to have a career outside the home.

Childhood and education

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut, where her father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), was a prominent and influential Congregational minister. Her mother, Roxanna Foote Beecher(1775-1816), who died when Harriet was only five, was always interested in improving herself educationally. Harriet pursued this same goal throughout her life.

In 1820 Lyman preached anti-slavery sermons in response to the issue of whether Missouri should be admitted to the union as a slave or a free state. Lyman's dynamic preaching, religious energy and commitment had a profound impact on all of his children.


Harriet's birthplace

He encouraged an intellectual environment.at home and would often lead family debates on important issues of the day. Lyman Beecher dedicated his life to the saving of individual souls. He believed that unless an individual made a personal commitment to the Christian religion that he/she was doomed. All of Lyman's children carried out Lyman's commitment to their religion, but in a new way. They thought of God as much more loving and forgiving, and believed that the best way of serving God was to take action in society to make a better world. Harriet's career as a writer shows how she acted out this vision.



Harriet was one of eleven brothers and sisters, many of whom became famous reformers. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), a noted minister in Brooklyn, New York, was active in the abolitionist movement. Catharine Beecher (1800-1878) founded many schools for young women throughout the country and was a prolific author while her youngest sister, Isabella (1822-1907), became active in the women's suffrage movement.

Harriet was first a student and then a teacher at Hartford Female Seminary, a school founded by her sister Catharine. At that time, Hartford Female Seminary was one of only a handful of schools that took the education of girls seriously. Catharine introduced many innovations at the school including teaching physical education and domestic science (home economics), and the practice of student government. At that time girls were expected to remain at home and needed very little education. Catharine helped to change these ideas. She argued that running a home was as complicated as running an office and that young women should be instructed in these duties the same way boys should be instructed in careers outside the home. Catharine also stressed the importance of written expression. Her students spent many hours composing essays. As a result of Catharine's teaching methods, Harriet received an unusually fine education, and, under her sister's guidance, began to develop her talent as a writer.




Marriage and children


In 1832 Harriet moved with her family to Cincinnati, Ohio, where Lyman Beecher became President of Lane Theological Seminary. At that time, Cincinnati was considered the western frontier of the United States. In Cincinnati, Harriet met and married Calvin E. Stowe, a professor at Lane. Six of the Stowes' seven children were born in Cincinnati.



Cincinnati was just across the river from Kentucky, a slave state. It was in Cincinnati that Harriet first became aware of the horrors of slavery. Cincinnati was one of the largest cities in the country, twice the size of Hartford at that time. When Harriet and Calvin learned that their servant, Zillah, was actually a runaway slave, Calvin and Henry Ward drove her to the next station on the Underground Railroad. One night, Harriet's friend, Mr. Rankin, saw a young woman run across the river over the ice with a baby in her arms. This story moved Harriet deeply and would later become one of the most famous scenes in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

In Cincinnati, Harriet became a member of the Semi-Colon Club, a local literary society in which members wrote articles which were read and discussed by other participants. Her experiences in this club sharpened her writing style. During her early married years, Harriet began to publish stories and magazine articles to supplement the family income. While she lived in Cincinnati, Harriet co-authored a book, Primary Geography for Children. After the publication of this book Harriet received a special commendation from the bishop of Cincinnati because it conveyed a positive image of the Catholic religion. Harriet's religious tolerance was unusual for Protestants at the time.

In 1850 Professor Stowe joined the faculty of his alma mater, Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. The Stowe family moved to Maine and lived in Brunswick until 1853.

The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin, which appeared first in serial form in an abolitionist newspaper, The National Era, in 1851-52, was written largely in Brunswick. In 1852 the story was published in book form in two volumes. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a best seller in the United States, England, Europe, Asia, and translated into over 60 languages. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, which deeply distressed Harriet, was a factor in inspiring her to write Uncle Tom's Cabin. This Act made it a crime for citizens of free states to give aid to runaway enslaved people.

Uncle Tom's Cabin humanized slavery by telling the story of individuals and families. Harriet portrayed the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse endured by enslaved people. When she created the character of Eliza, the slave mother, Harriet drew upon her own experiences. In 1849 Harriet's own son Charley died of cholera when he was only eighteen months old. While remembering Charley's death, Harriet thought about how terrible it would be for a slave mother to lose a child because the child was sold. She wondered how a slave mother would feel, never knowing what happened to her own child. In chapter seven, aptly titled "A Mother's Struggle", she hoped to convey to others the terror the fugitive slave mother would feel:

"If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,--if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape,--how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom,--the little sleepy head on your shoulder,--the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?"

Harriet's feelings about both the Fugitive Slave Act and the death of Charley are conveyed in Uncle Tom's Cabin in her description of the desperate flight of Eliza, a slave mother. Eliza runs across a frozen river with her son Harry in her arms to save him from being sold. Thus, the book grew out of a combination of personal and political concerns.



Many readers criticized Harriet because she had never visited the South. However, she had heard, from people she knew personally, first hand stories of conditions among the enslaved people. For example, Harriet employed an African-American woman in Cincinnati who told her what is was like to be a woman under slavery.



According to legend, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862 he said, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War!"

[Rain]

Originally Posted by Skinwalker

Thanks for all that info on Virginia Woolf, Bluestar. Have you seen the Hours? I haven't seen it yet, but I'm planning to. I love this quote by Wolfe;
"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."

I'm sure she's right.

The Hours was really brilliant.

[Skinwalker]

The Civil War grew out of a mixture of causes including regional conflicts between North and South, economic trends, and humanitarian concerns for the welfare of enslaved people. This war, which pitted one section of the country against another, almost destroyed the United States. Uncle Tom's Cabin contributed to the outbreak of war because it brought the evils of slavery to the attention of Americans more vividly than any other book had done before. The book had a strong emotional appeal that moved and inspired people in a way that political speeches, tracts and newspapers accounts could not duplicate.

Her concluding words, especially played a part as they appealed to mothers in a special way, about the evils of slavery...

... And you, mothers of America, -- you who have learned, by the cradles of your own children, to love and feel for all mankind, -- by the sacred love you bear your child; by your joy in his beautiful, spotless in- fancy; by the motherly pity and tenderness with which you guide his growing years; by the anxieties of his education; by the prayers you breathe for his soul's eternal good; -- I beseech you, pity the mother who has all your affections, and not one legal right to protect, guide, or educate, the child of her bosom! By the sick hour of your child; by those dying eyes, which you can never forget; by those last cries, that wrung your heart when you could neither help nor save; by the desolation of that empty cradle, that silent nursery, -- I beseech you, pity those mothers that are constantly made childless by the American slave-trade! And say, mothers of America, is this a thing to be defended, sympathized with, passed over in silence?

... If the mothers of the free states had all felt as they should, in times past, the sons of the free states would not have been the holders, and, proverbially, the hardest masters of slaves; the sons of the free states would not have connived at the extension of slavery, in our national body; the sons of the free states would not, as they do, trade the souls and bodies of men as an equivalent to money, in their mercantile dealings. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned, and sold again, by merchants in northern cities; and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South?


Immediately after its publication Uncle Tom's Cabin was both lauded as a tremendous achievement and attacked as one sided and inaccurate. Abolitionists and reformers praised the book for its compassionate portrayal of people held in slavery. At the same time, others, who claimed that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, attacked Harriet and accused her of fabricating unrealistic images of slavery.

During the Civil War, Harriet often disagreed with President Lincoln. Lincoln's concern with preserving the unity of the nation and his willingness to postpone freeing the slaves made her impatient.

The Influence and Popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom's Cabin

After the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet was invited to the British Isles in 1853, where she was greeted enthusiastically. She returned to Britain and Europe in 1856 and 1859.

Through a column in a large New York newspaper, The Independent, she urged the women of the United States to use their influence against slavery by obtaining signatures on petitions, spreading information, and inviting lecturers to speak to community groups on the subject.

Uncle Tom's Cabin - online text

[shadha]

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=19096&rendTypeId=4

When LAURA INGALLS WILDER started writing her classic "Little House" book series in 1932, she had no idea of creating fame for herself or the places where she had lived. She wrote simply to preserve tales of a lost era in American history, the pioneer period she vividly recalled from her growing-up years on the midwestern frontier in the 1870's and 1880's. When Laura completed her eight-volume series in 1943, she had achieved a lasting and substantial literary picture of pioneer life as she had experienced it in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

"I had no idea I was writing history," Laura remarked when her books were well known both in America and in foreign countries where they were translated. (The books are now printed in over 40 languages.) But readers of all ages accepted the Ingalls and Wilder families as chosen friends. Thousands wrote to Laura at her home on Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri. Fans sought out the sites of her books and stopped to visit her in her Ozark Mountain home, right up to her death in 1957 at the age of 90.

The visiting still goes on. Immediately after Laura's death, the home she and her husband Almanzo built was preserved and opened for readers. In De Smet, South Dakota, a Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society was founded to offer history and hospitality to increasing numbers of summer tourists. Through the years, each of the book sites has joined the ranks of literary-historical spots dedicated to the pioneering spirit and writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder.


shadha-