Fearless Women

I am not a fearless woman. I’m actually quite timid. I like order and predictability and rules. When I was a magazine editor, I started each editing task by making sure the fonts and margins and other formatting issues were right. Only then could I tackle the content.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because in the author bio of my most recent book, Roller Derby Rivals, my editor at Holiday House wrote, “Sue Macy loves to write about sports and fearless women.” And it’s true. Nellie Bly got herself committed to an insane asylum so she could write an expose. Cyclist Dora Rinehart rode more than 17,000 miles in 1896 through the muddy, rocky, mountain roads around Denver. Midge “Toughie” Brasuhn (right) regularly careened around Roller Derby rinks with no concern about injuries—and ended up with eight broken noses during her career. To me, these accomplishments are alternately inspiring and terrifying.

As someone who was trained as a journalist, I find it perfectly acceptable observing and writing about fearless women while remaining out of the fray myself. I am moved by women who have the drive and determination to overcome society’s taboos or their own fears in order to follow their dreams. I’ve listened to scores of women who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League talk about their motivation, and the common thread among all of them is the passion they had for the game. Over and over again, they’ve said, “They were paying me, but I would have played for free.”

When people are really passionate about what they’re doing, they grab my attention. At the start of my research on Roller Derby history, I went to a contemporary bout between the Garden State Rollergirls and a visiting team from Maryland. I barely knew the rules of the game at that point. What’s more, the announcer was muffled by an inadequate sound system and the action was so fast and furious that it was hard to follow. But one woman stood out. She was a New Jersey skater, covered with tattoos on just about every visible patch of skin, and she was magnificent. She wove in and out of the opposing skaters, lapping the field and then passing her opponents to score points. Her Derby name was Jenna Von Fury and her skill convinced me that Roller Derby was indeed a sport worth writing about.

Late last year, the computer search engine Bing produced an awesome TV commercial highlighting some of the female heroes of 2013. To the tune of Sara Bareilles’s song, “Brave,” Bing celebrated several fearless girls and women, among them the young Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai; marathon swimmer Diana Nyad; and Edie Windsor, who brought the Supreme Court case that that struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act. It was an impressive example of the never-ending parade of fearless women whose achievements have made an impact on the world, and a virtual shopping list of topics for a writer seeking to be inspired.

So as I finish my final post for I.N.K., I promise to continue producing books about women who made their mark as they challenged the status quo. I'll also occasionally blog on my Web site, suemacy.com. Check it out when you get the chance. Or follow me on Twitter @suemacy1. And thanks for reading.

Girl Geek Chic: --Let's Change What's Cool

Last month on National Astronomy Day, I was at the Clay Center Observatory signing copies of How Do You Burp in Space? And Other Tips Every Space Tourist Needs to Know.  After inscribing a copy for a young boy, I looked up at his older sister.  

“Do you want to go to space, too?” I asked.

“I did once,” she said.

“What happened?”

She gave me a small smile, a Mona Lisa smile—that is, if Mona L. were a just-budding adolescent proud of her newly acquired sense of condescension. 

“Oh…other things took over,” she said in a tone that implied I couldn’t possibly know what she meant.

Oh…but I do. Having been there and done that, I was actually thinking about something else.  Do these other things that "take over" really have to edge out wanting to go into space or a daily check on favorite animal cams?  Is this really an either/or situation? Do the hormones make us want to pack away those childish things?  Or, despite so many strides, do we still think there’s only one type of girl that does those hormones justice?

This last question still on my mind, I later googled “nerds becoming popular” and immediately clicked on the images page.  I already knew that Sheldon’s chic and Zuckerberg’s billions have brought those three words in close company.  What I wanted to know was how many pictures of girls I would see sprinkled in among the guys wearing pocket protectors and suspenders.

Discounting “popular” girls torturing geeks, here’s the first “nerd girl” picture I came upon.  I was hopeful.  What a fool I was.  Once I clicked through to its home site, here are the words I found:  Who would have thought that being a nerd would be cool?  Well the time has finally come. There is nothing more fashionable that an over-sized pair of geeky glasses.  PS-When I saved the picture to my computer to easily transfer to this post, I noticed it was labeled, "pretty nerd."

Little Mona Lisa Girl at the Clay Center, the deck has been stacked against you.  Come on, STEM books, cool geek girl role models, Neil Degrasse Tyson.  Help girls aspire to go to space and wear cool nail polish in orbit, if that’s what they want.  Help everybody feel as if science and smart is back in fashion and sexy.

I spoke to astronaut Sunita Williams when writing Burp in Space, but never asked her if she felt she had to choose between lipstick and her dreams.  I wish I had. Maybe I would have been primed to say something to this young girl.  Even if she couldn’t hear me now, perhaps it would plant a seed. I know lots of girls get reacquainted with previous interests as women, but I hate to think of what has been lost in the meantime because their intellectual passions couldn’t coexist with the teenage definition of femininity.

On June 20, Liz Rusch is publishing I.N.K.’s last recommended booklist.  This time it focuses on STEM-related topics.  Let’s all take a second look.

 * * * * *

Thank you, Linda.  Thank you, I.N.K. Thanks to all of our readers. It’s been a pleasure.

Research and Discovery After Book is Published

On my mini book tour last week, I visited the lovely town of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. While writing and researching about Anna Keichline for Women of Steel and Stone, Anna's grandniece, Nancy Perkins, asked if I'd be willing to allow the Bellefonte Art Museum to host an author reception when the book was published. I responded immediately, "But, of course."
Fast forward two years later and scheduled considering good driving conditions, I headed toward the center of Pennsylvania. My trip was filled with many fun surprises and observations.
Here are just a few of them:
Stayed in a Anna-designed house!

Anna's grandniece, Nancy, owns a home designed by Anna and asked me if I wanted to stay with her during my visit. What a treat! Almost surreal. What surprised me was the realization that one really doesn't get the true feel of a piece of architecture until you see the work first hand.

Anna Keichline Designed Home

Anna's houses were designed with many unique details.
The house reminded me of the California Bungalow I owned in Long Beach California - built in 1930 - but Anna's house had a basement, a second floor, and stairs to an attic. Some details that stood out to me were a cozy breakfast nook, beautiful fireplace, hardware for drapes on french doors, arched windows and matching doorknobs. 

Breakfast Nook 

Fireplace

 Hardware for Drapes

Kitchen Patent #1,612,730 1924

First Floor Bathroom

Doorknobs

Harvey Apartments 1935

Decker House 1931

Bible Home 1916

Harvey House 1939

Model House 

Beautiful architecture can be torn down.

Sadly, the beautiful Garman Opera House was recently torn down. Anna's Cadillac Building is disrepair but the community is hoping that it will escape the wrecking ball.

Cadillac Building

Beautiful architecture can be transformed into other uses. 

In 2001, the Plaza Theatre was shut down and turned into the Plaza Centre Antique Gallery. Turning a art deco theatre to a two-story store changed the entire structure and feel of the building, but the beautiful ceiling details and unique wall coverings still remain. If you go to the very back of the second floor, you can still peek into the "crying room"--- a room for mothers to take their fussy babies and toddlers, a feature not found in theaters in the 1920s. 

   

Plaza Theatre 1925

Plaza Theatre Ceiling Detail

Crying Room in Back of Theatre

Anna's Life

Anna's Childhood Home

Anna's Cabin in Fishermen's Paradise

Grave Marker

Office Where Anna Worked w/ her Father

Historical Marker

Anna Featured on Bellefonte Monopoly

Book Signing in Anna K Exhibit

Nancy and I next to Anna

To get another perspective of Anna's life and the town of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, here's an entertaining and informative YouTube video, that I just found.

Inspiring Future Girl Engineers: Ruth Gordon Schnapp Memorial

The topics of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and Girls in Engineering have received a lot of press this past year. Yes, we need more girls participating in STEM industries. Yes, we need more girls studying STEM topics in high school and college. Yes, parents, schools, and society need to support all young people pursuing STEM fields. I continue to be amazed every time I hear the facts: “American students score 23rd in math and 31st in science when compared with 65 other top industrial countries. In math, we are beaten by countries from Lichtenstein and Slovakia to the Netherlands and Singapore. In science, we are beaten by countries from New Zealand and Estonia to Finland and Hungary.” (From a CNN 2012 article).

Tomorrow, February 22, 2014, a memorial service is being held at the Golden Gate Yacht club in San Francisco for Ruth Gordon Schnapp who died on January 1, 2014. My heart is filled with great loss - as well as pride, in the fact that Ruth's amazing life story will live on in my book for young readers. Also, today marks the last day of Engineering Week, with the exciting Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day this Thursday.
Discover E explains it best on their website:
Engineers Week—the only event of its kind—is a time to:

• Celebrate how engineers make a difference in our world
• Increase public dialogue about the need for engineers 
• Bring engineering to life for kids, educators, and parents 

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day:

• Girl Day is a movement that shows girls how creative and collaborative engineering is and how engineers are changing our world. With hundreds of events happening each year, together we are driving the conversation about girls and engineering.
• Host a Girl Day event and make a difference to the girls (and their moms) in your community.

Ruth Gordon Schnapp is one of the 22 inspirational women that I wrote about in Women of Steel and Stone. As we talk about the lack of women in STEM fields, we should be supporting and promoting the achievements of the women who have paved the way. Beginning my research, I googled Top Architects. What surprised me was that on one particular list of Top 100 Architects there were only two women. Two women out of 100 architects? Those odds seemed shockingly way off. In my further research, I uncovered several amazing women in architecture, engineering, and landscape architecture whose stories needed to be told and were over looked. Young readers needed to hear about these inspiring stories. As Ruth’s health was failing, the family asked me to write an obituary for their mother. The press did not pick up on the news story of her passing. So, to celebrate Ruth Gordon Schnapp’s life and to promote Engineering Week, I thought I’d share the obituary that I wrote.

Ruth Gordon Schnapp 

First woman structural engineer in the state of California and women’s rights advocate

Ruth Gordon Schnapp, the first female structural engineer in the state California, played pioneering roles in increasing the number of women in engineering fields, as well as improving the safety of hundreds of hospitals, schools, and other buildings.

Mrs. Schnapp, 87, who had a passion for math that led her to a 41-year structural engineering career that included building safer schools and hospitals in California, died January 1, 2014, in Los Banos, Calif.

Her first job was with the San Francisco structural engineering office of Isadore Thompson, after being rejected by several companies who told her, “We don’t hire women engineers.”  Thompson told Schnapp that he didn’t care if she was green, just as long as she could do the job. Schnapp also worked for engineering firms Bechtel and Western Knapp before her 29-year career for the State of California.  Schnapp opened her own business, Pegasus Engineering, in 1984 and retired in 2001.
Schnapp’s parents, Solomon and Lea Gordon, were Lithuanian immigrants who first settled in Dallas where her sister, Clara, was born. After that, the family moved to Seattle where Schnapp was born on September 19, 1926. Excelling in school, Schnapp said she often saved her math homework for dessert because it was the most fun. She dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but her parents cautioned her against her following her dream, stating:  “You never can tell what’s going to happen. You have to study something for which you can make a living.” In 1942, most parents were encouraging their daughters to marry and have children.
Not knowing what an engineer did except that it involved math, Schnapp chose that path. After she was accepted to Stanford, she had to first find out where it was. During her summer breaks, she worked for Boeing in Seattle, one summer participating in structural engineering changes to the B-17 bomber. When World War II ended, she was forced to take a typing job with the company at a lower pay. According to Schnapp, just to spite Boeing and its sexism, she was the slowest typist they ever had.
Schnapp was the only woman to graduate from Stanford in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. With the support of her male professors, she went on to earn her master’s degree in structural engineering in 1950.
Starting in 1953, after receiving her civil engineer state license, Schnapp worked for the state of California for 29 years, designing and constructing school buildings to make them more earthquake resistant.
In 1959, Schnapp passed the test for her structural engineering license — 20 years before another woman would earn that license. Schnapp loved structural engineering, and she especially loved being out in the field. She traveled a seven-county area of Southern California, checking schools, hospitals and other construction projects. Some of Schnapp’s more high-profile projects were the San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, San Quentin Prison, Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco General Hospital, and the Marin General Hospital.
She married Michael Schnapp in 1950. The ceremony was performed in the old house of Lillian Gilbreth, the mother in Cheaper by the Dozen, another famous industrial engineer and role model for girls in those fields.  Michael died in ____.
With their mutual love of boats, the Schnapps bought a 26-foot-long sailboat and started racing. In 2001, she received the Yachtsman of the Year Award from the Pacific Inter-Club Yacht Association. For many years, the Golden Gate Yacht Club has held the Ruth Gordon Schnapp Regatta.
Schnapp’s daughter Madeline explained, “One of the reasons my mother was able to do the things she did was because she had a wonderful support system at home and didn't have to worry about how her children were faring while she was away at work. Nydia Rosa was part of the Schnapp family for over 50 years, first helping with the children, and then more administrative tasks as the children grew. About six years ago, Nydia returned to the family to take care of my mother during her declining years.”
Some of Schnapp’s many accolades include being named the first woman member of Structural Engineers Association of Northern California in 1953; the first woman president of the Bay Area Engineering Council in 1982-83; and the first woman to receive a Tau Beta Pi’s Eminent Engineer Award in 1995. A staunch advocate of women’s rights, in 1980, Schnapp took part in a public demonstration at the Pacific Stock Exchange, during which she chained herself to the building for five hours to protest gender discrimination.
After retiring in 2001, Schnapp traveled the U.S., lecturing students about at a long list of schools. She said, “I became very much interested in helping women and encouraging women to be sure to study math and science.”
 Fittingly, Schnapp’s story will continue to serve as a role model in a new book for young adults just released last week, Women of Steel and Stone by Anna M. Lewis. Schnapp is one of 22 inspirational women architects, engineers, and landscape architects profiled in the book, excepts from that book have been included here.
 Her sister, Clara Gordon Rubin, who died in 2002, was also a supporter of women’s rights and fought to improve gender equality among civil service workers in Seattle for four decades.
 She is survived by her three children, Madeline, Marcia and Michael, and several grandchildren.

Thank you, Ruth, for all the girl engineers that have followed your lead and for the young girls you will inspire to build great things. 

How Did You Get the Idea of This Book and Other Burning Questions Revealed

This week, Debbie Glade at Smart Books for Smart Kids reviewed my new book Women of Steel and Stone.  The review can be found here.
Following the review, she asked if I would mind answering a few questions for the readers of her website. The questions got me thinking about why I wrote the book, the process, STEM, and girls in engineering fields. I thought INK readers would like to read a part of that interview. The full interview can be read on the Smart Books for Smart Kids website. I'll post the link as soon as it is live on the site. I also added a few extra questions and answers for the readers here. All the questions and answers can be read on my new website Anna M. Lewis.

How did you get the idea to write this book?

My editor and I were going back and forth with proposal ideas in two different series - Activities for Kids and Women of Action.  My degree is in Product/Industrial Design and I took several design history classes in college, so design was an area that interested me.  Then, I found one website that listed the top 100 architects. There were only 2 women on the list – 2 women out of 100 architects. That didn’t sound right to me. I started researching women architects and found some amazing women whose stories hadn’t been told. From there, I also discovered several women engineers and landscape architects, and the book grew from there.

How did you come up with the women you featured in the book, and was it difficult to find the detailed information you needed about some of them? 

Each book in the Women of Action series has about 16 to 26 profiles, so I knew I had to have about that many women. My daughter's favorite number is 22, so I felt that I had to appease her and the karma gods and write about 22 women. That number worked perfectly.

In forming the list, I basically had 7 women per category; which meant, 2 of the first in the field, 2 of the most current, and 3 in the middle. As it turned out, all the women I chose had interesting stories to tell. Every chapter had to have a compelling story to pull the reader in; otherwise the book would just be a rehash of wiki pages and facts. Some of the background stories had to be dug out, and I was digging for days. When I found an interesting story about a woman, it was almost like finding gold. Sometimes, after fact checking, a great story turned out to be not true. A popular book on Julia Morgan tells how she was dusting the family stairs and said that when she was older that she wouldn't design houses with spindly staircase rods that little girls would have to dust, and then she ran outside to play with her brothers. Many other sources also cited that story. It took some digging but I found a transcript of an interview with several family members and co-workers. I read through the entire entire interview and at one point the interviewer asked the family if that was true. They said, "No, Julia never said that." Great story but I couldn't use it… but I found other great pieces to use in that transcript. Julia was hard to research. After she was misquoted early in her career, she never gave another interview. She even instructed her staff to destroy all her papers after she retired.

In the beginning, I asked the leaders and archivists of several engineering and architecture groups to review my list. I wanted to make sure that I didn't leave anyone out. Their suggestions were perfect.

Did it strike you when researching and writing the biographies that the accomplishments of these women from long ago would be equally as impressive in today's world as they were back then?

Three things stood out to me while writing the book. First, it has been over 125 years since Louise Bethune became the first female member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and women are still struggling to get noticed in that field. Second, all the women in my book had very supportive parents. Third, all the women chose architecture, engineering, and landscape architecture because they were drawn to those fields.

To answer your question, yes. But also, it also surprised me that after 125 years, things haven’t changed much. Women are still having a difficult time in those fields. The recent petition that sought to highlight Denise Scott Brown’s accomplishments with the inclusion of her name on her husband's 1981 Pritzker Prize put this issue into the spotlight. While media took great note, the Pritzker Committee turned down the request.
In building our future, we need all our students involved in creating wonderful things.

Considering the limitations women in the 1800s and early 1900s had wearing such binding, layered clothing with long dresses and corsets, do you think just the change in the way we dress has made it more possible for women to work in male dominated fields?

I don’t think the change in clothing was a large factor. Julia Morgan used to hike up her long skirt and climb up scaffolding, sometimes three stories high. Actually, the invention of the bicycle was a huge factor in the changes of a woman’s role in society. She was able to go to so many more places – without a chaperone, and her clothing loosened to allow her to ride. Society accepted this change with a few protests. 
Honestly, the women in my book and their strong-willed desire to do something that they wanted to do broke down the barriers and showed that women could work in the same fields as men.

  

What's your next writing project?

I’ve been going back and forth with my editor. I’ve been trying to decide if I want to write another Women of Action book or an Activities for Kids book. I’m also working with two other publishers on some fun ideas.

What do you most like to do when you are not working?

When I’m working, it doesn’t really feel like work. I love to read, which in a way is working. Actually, I have a pile of books that I can’t wait to get my hands on.
Besides writing, I’ve been doing some illustration work, which is like playing to me. I’ve been having fun learning how to use the Wacom tablet to create digital images.

Questions I added:

Did you have a special process while writing the book?
While doing the research, I had a box of grey folders and I made a folder for every woman. I also made a folder for my intro and chapter intros. I made copies of every quote for easy access when I compiled the Notes section. I also bought quite a few of my research books, a little while after I started racking up some library fines. (It's amazing how those due dates can slip by you when you are deep in work.) The actual books came in handy during the year-long editing process, when I had to check sources multiple times.
Towards the end, I made a spiffy excel spread sheet to keep track of all of my 22 women, images, permissions, word count, etc. 

Did you have a personal connection to this book?

Yes, my father passed away suddenly the day after I got the go ahead to work on the proposal. My father ran a medium-sized engineering practice in Cincinnati for over 50 years. His firm oversaw the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) on many major construction projects. The last few years of his life he taught engineering at the University of Cincinnati. I think that he would have approved of this book. 

What's in a Name?

In case you missed it, I'm rerunning this offering from last October as my "Best of" summer post. When it originally ran, I was excited to hear from a number of people with their own examples of landmarks named after women. To see those, click here. Feel free to add your own in the comments section. And have a great summer!

In downtown Rochester, New York, a triple steel arch bridge carries Interstate 490 over the Genesee River. Originally called the Troup-Howell Bridge, this structure was renamed the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge in 2007, after two historic heavyweights with ties to the city. Locals affectionately call it the “Freddie-Sue Bridge,” as I learned on a visit there last week. It’s just one of several local monuments to Ms. Anthony. (There’s also a local Roller Derby skater with the truly inspired Derby name Susan B. Agony, but that’s a topic for another post.)

As someone who grew up in a world where almost all schools, bridges, and other public memorials were named after men, I rejoiced at the very visible presence of Ms. Anthony in her adopted hometown. Nothing pleases me more than to see women’s names carved in stone or displayed on highway signs. When I wrote Bull’s-Eye, my biography of Annie Oakley, I shared in the pride that members of the Annie Oakley Foundation felt when they successfully lobbied the Ohio legislature to rename a portion of US127 the Annie Oakley Memorial Pike. When I was working on Bylines, my biography of Nellie Bly, I even was thrilled upon driving past the dilapidated Nellie Bly Amusement Park in Brooklyn, New York. Alas, this tribute to Nellie’s round the world voyage was renamed the Adventurers Family Entertainment Center when it was refurbished in 2007.

It’s important for women to stamp their names on things, at least as important as it is for men. It helps us remind people of our achievements and our presence in the world. I know I’m not the only one who thinks so. A few years ago, I attended a weekend celebration of women who graduated from Princeton, and President Shirley Tilghman told the story behind the naming of the university’s newest residential college. The college, home to some 500 undergraduates, was built with donations from 30 donors, but primarily from then eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Class of 1977, and her family and colleagues. President Tilghman implored Whitman to lend her name to the college, but she relented only after the president pointed out that every other residential college, including Rockefeller, Wilson, and Forbes, was named for a man.

In 2003, I had the satisfaction of taking part in the dedication ceremony for another institution named for a woman. Madeline “Maddy” English was a veteran teacher and guidance counselor with the Everett, Massachusetts, Public Schools. She was also a standout third basewoman on the Racine Belles of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. After the town voted to name its newest school for her, Maddy asked me to represent the league at the event, since I was then on the board of the Players’ Association and lived only a few hundred miles away. I got to say a few words about her as an athlete and see her pride as the entire community celebrated her achievements. Sadly, Maddy passed away less than a year later, but her school and its “Madeline English Bulldogs” are still going strong.

Some time back, journalists Lynn Sherr and Jurate Kazickas put together a book titled Susan B. Anthony Slept Here: A Guide to American Women’s Landmarks. It’s full of parks, museums, libraries, and other sites that are significant to women’s history. I’d love to see a companion volume of buildings, bridges, and other structures named for women. Are there any in your neck of the woods? Let me know by commenting below.