The Feedsack Dress

Saluting Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Today I’m wearing my old Elizabeth Cady Stanton t-shirt. The round, unsmiling face, white hair, and formal clothing pictured on it give no hint of her fire, brilliance, and courage.

Neither did the paragraph or so about her in my history textbooks. I didn’t see a biography of this founder of the women’s movement until years after I finished school. If you’ve never read her life story, please treat yourself to one. As Women’s History Month draws to an end, your library should have two or three at hand. And you can find the basic facts online.

She came to prominence when she organized a convention on women’s rights in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. Many of the 240 participants were also working to abolish slavery.  The busy young mother used the Declaration of Independence as a model for a Declaration of Sentiments to present to them. It contained 12 resolutions, the most controversial of which was the right to vote.

Those resolutions show how few rights women had. For example, a married woman yielded to her husband any wages, property, and child custody rights. A husband could beat or imprison his wife without fear of any legal consequences. Colleges did not accept women, and the few jobs open to them paid much less than what men received.

 She continued to work for women’s rights until her death in 1902. Women didn’t receive the right to vote throughout the United States until 18 years later. They have gradually gained the same legal rights as men—almost. Even now women earn much less than men. 

The movement Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her contemporaries started remains unfinished. 

—Carolyn Mulford

 

 

Glimpses of childhood in China today

Ever since I gave up digging my way to China, I’ve wanted to visit there. I finally made it this fall. 

One of the many things that fascinated me is how parents treasure their children, especially their sons. To be more exact, parents treasure the one child the government permits them to have. The party-ruled Chinese government began restricting the great majority of families to one child more than 20 years ago in order to curb the soaring population.

Often in the streets or parks you see a small child surrounded by four or five adults—the parents, the grandparents, aunts, or uncles. They shower attention and gifts on the household’s little emperor. Gradually officials became aware of the danger of a nation of spoiled brats, so they now encourage parents to send their single child to kindergarten, what we call pre-school, at age three so that they will learn to play with others. And get a head start on their education.

These kindergartens cost a lot, but parents and family members sacrifice to send their children there and give them the advantages that come from a good education. We visited a boarding kindergarten for three-, four-, and five-year-olds. The parents bring their children to school on Monday morning and pick them up on Friday afternoon. It’s hard to imagine how difficult this must be for parents and children, but many families regard it as their duty.

The kindergarten had the kinds of decorations you see in classrooms in the States. Each teacher (all young women) had an electronic keyboard and a blackboard. Each classroom had approximately 35 children. All wore coats in the unheated rooms. They sat at tiny desks, and they napped and slept in little beds in crowded dorm rooms. They greeted us with great enthusiasm, turning healthy, smiling faces to us or rushing to the open windows to peek over at us. Irresistibly cute.

Wherever they are, kids are kids. 

—Carolyn Mulford

 

Losing China

During World War II the United States fought with China against Japan. Americans felt great sympathy and friendship as they saw news reels of the terrible damage Japan’s army inflicted, read of General Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers courageous defense of the poorly equipped Chinese army, and listened to pleas for support from the American-educated wife of China’s leader, General Chiang Kai-shek. 

During the war and for years after, if American children complained about meals, parents reminded them of the children starving in China. Told the war-torn country sat on the other side of the world, many of us too little to understand tried to dig our way to China.

The end of WWII led not to peace and prosperity in China but to civil war. American attempts at mediation failed. So did the general we backed. Chiang Kai-shek and much of his army fled to the island of Taiwan in 1949. In October communist leader Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. He allied himself with the Soviet Union, our former ally and primary enemy. 

Everyone said we had lost China. Who was to blame? Were they traitors? Accusations flew. Some of the wildest came from Senator Joseph McCarthy. He claimed the loss and even greater threats to our liberty came from communists hidden among our political and intellectual leaders. With plenty of help, he plunged the country into some of the most disgraceful days in American history, a witch hunt for communist sympathizers and the portrayal of anyone who had ever attended a communist meeting or read a communist publication as a traitor.

For several years false accusations, fiction presented as fact, and hysterical fear destroyed reputations and lives.

When we lost China, we lost a piece of our democratic selves.

—Carolyn Mulford

 

Noticing women's history

Women’s History Month ends today, and I’m guessing most people missed it. About the only thing noted by the media was the passing of one of our political pioneers, Geraldine Ferraro.

She broke ground by going from teacher to prosecuting attorney to congresswoman, a small but growing trend in the 1970s. At that time the House and Senate lacked facilities for women, such as bathrooms near the chamber floors. She earned space in the history books by being the first woman selected by a major party to run for vice president. In 1984 and for many more years, that was remarkable.

She and Walter Mondale lost, but her knowledge of issues, wit, and poise proved women could play with the men. Many women entered politics because Gerry Ferraro showed success was possible. This must be hard to comprehend for young women and girls who watched Hillary Clinton almost capture the presidential nomination and Sarah Palin run for vice president in 2008. But we still haven’t had a woman elected president or vice president.

Until well past the middle of the 20^th century, girls almost always ran for class secretary rather than class president and women almost always worked for a candidate rather than being the candidate. Women still have not reached parity in politics or in pay.

Right now women’s most dramatic march toward equality is taking place in the Middle East. Recently we’ve witnessed women participating in protests for freedom in Tunisia, Egypt, and Iran. These women risk their lives to improve their personal status and to create a more equal society.

We’ve made greater progress in this country, but the fight for equality lasts for generations. American women fought for decades to gain the rights to own property and to vote. Progress requires persistence.

—Carolyn Mulford

 

 

Remembering Sarge Shriver

R. Sargent Shriver, one of the great men of the 20^th century, died January 18 at age 95. Every major news publication and program gave highlights of his fruitful life. Much more unusual, many reporters who covered him during his years in Washington expressed their fondness and admiration for him.

I share those emotions. I didn’t know him well, but he made a strong impression on me when I first met him in 1962 and on a dozen or so occasions over the years.

Fifty years ago Sarge received the unenviable task of carrying out one of brother-in-law John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign promises: to create a Peace Corps that would send American volunteers to work in developing nations wanting their help. Many at home and abroad thought the idea would never work.

After watching for a year to see if this dream could become a reality, I signed up, received two months of exhausting training, and went to teach English in the only high school in Wollo Province, Ethiopia. The 275 Ethiopia I volunteers doubled the high school faculty in Ethiopia overnight.

Not long after my group of 17 or 18 had settled in, word came that the Peace Corps director was visiting volunteers. We were a harrowing day’s drive from the capital and oversight by staff, which was just the way we wanted it, and didn’t expect Sarge Shriver to show up there. One morning I received word that he had landed at a little airport down the mountain and would meet with us at the teahouse (a tiny booth from which the janitor sold tea) during our break.

I can’t remember whether we sat on the ground or someone managed to find some chairs, but we sat in a circle. He peppered us with questions about our needs at our houses, at the school, in the community.

Here’s what struck me most: He listened. He gave every person his complete attention. He cared what we said.

He didn’t stay at the school long. The headmaster came running down to the teahouse too late to meet the President’s brother-in-law. He left town before the governor learned he was there. Sarge came to see what he could do to make our experience better and our work in Ethiopia more effective, not to be a diplomat or politician.

I saw those same personal and professional qualities as he carried out the war on poverty and went on to other service.

He was an idealist and an optimist. He was a leader and a pragmatist. He was intelligent and joyful. He cared deeply about individuals and about people. He devoted much of his life to improving the chances of the least advantaged in this country and many others. He gave hundreds of thousands of Americans the opportunity to serve their country.

Sarge Shriver was a rare man.

—Carolyn Mulford

 

Campaigning for the Peace Corps

Fifty years ago this month presidential candidate John F. Kennedy proposed a volunteer peace corps during a campaign speech at the University of Michigan.

The idea of young Americans volunteering to go to developing countries to help meet basic needs wasn’t new, but in October 1960 it captured the imagination of college students, including me, and many others. In 1961 the President assigned a brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, the difficult task of turning the idea into a reality.

Since then some 200,000 Americans have served.

This feedsack kid was one of them. I’d never been farther away from the cows than Chicago, but when I finished my master’s degree in journalism, nothing looked more exciting or more rewarding than serving two years in Africa, South America, or Asia. At that time few Americans were wealthy enough to travel abroad, and most who did went to Europe. How could I pass up this opportunity?

For two life-changing years I taught eleventh grade English in Dessie, Ethiopia, the capital of a mountainous province with 1 million people and one high school. A beautiful country with a long, fascinating history, Ethiopia invited the Peace Corps to come help educate a population that spoke (and speaks) many languages. Many farmers and villagers lived as they had for hundreds of years, but they and their children saw education as the way to a better life. Numerous students walked for days to reach the school and lived in group houses little more than huts for the entire school year. Their sacrifices and determination to learn inspired us.

My group of 275 volunteers, Ethiopia I, made up half of the high school faculty in Ethiopia. We all came home saying we learned more than we taught.

—Carolyn Mulford 

 

Remembering and wondering

For many students, Memorial Day means little more than the opening of swimming pools, sales on patriotic t-shirts, and the end of the school year. 

For anyone who lived in the 1940s, Memorial Day is a time to remember loved ones who’ve passed on and to honor those who sacrificed their lives fighting for our country. Some of those people are the same.

During World War II, almost every family lost a son, husband, uncle, cousin, neighbor, or close friend. WW II was everyone’s war. Two of my mother’s and two of my father’s brothers served. One never came home. 

Today most of us turn the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on or off with the remote control. Now that we have all-volunteer armed services, relatively few families experience the terrible fear or grief that war inevitably brings. 

Like many others, I ache for those who deal with the insanity of war and those who pray for them to come home alive and unscathed. I also wonder whether our leaders would not find a way to end wars sooner if the entire citizenry rather than a small percentage knew and loved a soldier. 

—Carolyn Mulford