November 30

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Women peacemakers born today

  • 1854 Mary Eliza McDowell born Cincinnati, OH (d. 1936). "Angel of the Stockyards." Associate of Jane Addams at Hull House; successful mediator in labor disputes and racial tensions; WILPF.

  • 1858 Rosa Obermayer Mayreder born Vienna, Austria (d. 1938). Feminist; musician and artist; opposed World War I; first chairperson of WILPF, 1919.

  • 1870 Gertrud Eysoldt born Pirna, Saxony, Germany (d. 1955). Theater and film actress, drama teacher, and radio announcer. Pacifist; socialist; feminist. Key figure of German Expressionist movement with Max Reinhardt. Led internationalist program Comrades in Humanity, 1926.

  • 1879 Laura Clifford Barney born Cincinnati, OH (d. 1974). Baha’i leader. Nurse with American Ambulance Corps, 1914-15, and American Red Cross in France, 1916-18. Representative of International Council of Women at League of Nations and UN.

  • 1883 Lucy Perkins Carner born York, PA (d. 1989). Quaker social worker and pacifist leader. Active in Fellowship of Reconciliation, WILPF, War Resisters League, and American Friends Service Committee. Refused taxes for Vietnam War. Demonstrated against germ warfare, Fort Detrick, 1968.

  • 1898 Marjorie M. Whiteman born Liberty Center, OH (d. 1986). American authority on international law; editor of classic Digest of International Law (1963-72); helped draft UN Charter 1945 and Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1949; legal counsel to Eleanor Roosevelt in UN Human Rights Commission; originated concept of consultation in inter-American affairs 1936; rescued documents of Charter of Organization of American States (OAS) in Bogotá revolution 1948; adviser on Law of the Sea 1958; first State Dept. Counselor for International Law 1965.

  • 1924 Shirley Chisholm born Brooklyn, NY. First African-American congresswoman, 1968; first African-American presidential candidate, 1972; maiden speech in House opposed the Vietnam War.

  • 1928 Karin Söder born Frykerud, Värmland, Sweden. Member of Parliament, 1971-91; first woman Foreign Minister, 1976-78; first woman to head major Swedish political party, 1985. Chair of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 1978-79; Chair of Save the Children Sweden, 1983-95; two-time President of Nordic Council, 1984-85, 1989-90.

Women's peacemaking on this day

  • 1913 Jane Addams & Anna Howard Shaw spoke at suffrage convention.

  • 1917 Socialist publisher Elizabeth Ford of Faribault, MI fined $500 and sentenced to one year in prison for editorial “discouraging enlistment.”

  • 1980 Dorothy Day died.

  • 2006 Gandhian Esther Ouwehand sworn into Dutch parliament for Party of the Animals.