Ballot & Beyond

Ballot & Beyond: Lola Carson Trax & Edna Story Latimer | Hiking for Suffrage

Lola Carson Trax and Edna Story Latimer led a hike of a dozen suffragists across Western Maryland in 1914. The noteworthy nature of a dozen women walking for two-weeks through hills and towns was a noteworthy occurrence and fed suffragists' goal to keep the fight in the public eye. Along their way, Trax and Latimer spoke to the press and the public and gathered signatures and new members for the Just Government League. Their suffrage hikes have gone down in history.

Ballot & Beyond: The Honorable Barbara Mikulski | Dean of Women

Senator Barbara Mikulski served longer in Congress than any other woman in U.S. history. During her tenure, she became known as Dean of Women. Not only did she gain this title for blazing a trail in government, including wearing slacks on the Senate Floor, but also for mentoring her colleagues. 

Ballot & Beyond: Jean Baker | Researching Women's History

Historian and professor Jean Baker played an important role in making a place for women in the historical record. She rightly observed that women are too often excluded from historical and academic accounts and her work in the larger women's movement helped many see that the crux of history doesn't have to be primarily male political leaders; that a traditional women's role is also incredibly important to the understanding of past and current societies.

Ballot & Beyond: Francis Watkins Harper | Fighting for the Rights of All

Francis Ellen Watkins Harper is a legendary civil rights activist who saw the intersection of the fight for abolition and suffrage. Harper was a published poet and author who had been born free in Baltimore in 1825 and campaigned around the country for temperance, abolition, and women’s rights. In an attempt to create social unity after the American Civil War, American Equal Rights Association members like Harper believed it was the right time to integrate gender, race, and class-based advocacy in a broad push for equality. Harpers integrated goals and ideal was largely unheaded and the suffrage movement was highly segregated.

Ballot & Beyond: Augusta Chissell | Civic Leader

In the years leading up to what is known as the Women's Suffrage movement, strong female voices were coming together and laying the groundwork for women's political engagement. Augusta Chissell was a civic leader in West Baltimore, Maryland that leadership positions in the Women’s Cooperative Civic League, a club that addressed issues of housing and public health, including food and dairy purity, clean air, and refuse disposal. This position gave her close neighborhood ties and valuable connections that she could later draw upon as an officer in the Colored Women’s Suffrage Club.

Ballot & Beyond: Dr. Nancy Grace Roman | Mother of the Hubble

Nancy Grace Roman had a lifelong quest to become an astronomer. However, she had to overcome misconceptions about the intelligence, capabilities and proper role of women in society and academia. Despite this, she went on to become an executive at NASA. It was here that she became known as the “Mother of the Hubble” Space Telescope. Listen to this week’s episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Roman paved the way for women at NASA.

Ballot & Beyond: Willa Bickham | Over 1 Million Served

In the last 50 years there, Willa Bickham, her volunteers and supporters have fed more than one million people from Viva House in Southwest Baltimore, Maryland. Yet, she feels like she’s the one who benefitted, the one who received beneficence.

Ballot & Beyond: Estelle Hall Young | Leading African American Suffragist

Estelle Hall Young was a leader of civic and suffrage organizations in Baltimore, Maryland that supported African American visibility and racial equality. In a racially segregated movement, Young organized an African American Women’s Suffrage Club in 1915 to organize and activate Black women in support of the vote. Even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, African American women stayed highly-engaged in civil rights work because unlike white women, Black women still faced legal voting restrictions until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which barred racially discriminatory voting practices.

Ballot & Beyond: Juanita Jackson Mitchell | Early African American Women in Law

Juanita Jackson Mitchell was the first African American woman to practice law in Maryland. She fought for justice wherever she found injustice. Juanita Jackson Mitchell was also the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Maryland School of Law. Significantly, her example paved the way for African American women in law. Juanita Jackson Mitchell drew from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy, intellect, and determination. Join us on this episode of Ballot & Beyond to learn how Juanita Jackson Mitchell became a leader among women in law.

Ballot & Beyond: Sally Michel | Connecting Parks & People

Sally J. Michel was a great champion of protecting the environment and providing access to Baltimore’s outdoors to the city’s youth.Over the course of her impactful life, Michel was on the board over 57 local and state organizations, including being a founding force for the Parks & People Foundation and Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound School.  She lived by the motto: Help us to remember that what we keep, we lose, and only what we give remains our own.

Ballot & Beyond: Bea Gaddy | Bringing Everyone to the Table

Bea Gaddy was a great champion and protector of the hungry and homeless in Baltimore, Maryland. While she also sat on the Baltimore City Council for one term, she is perhaps best remembered today for hosting free Thanksgiving dinners for all.

Ballot & Beyond: Mary Bartlett Dixon | Suffragist Arrested for Protesting

Mary Bartlett Dixon was a skilled nurse and active suffragist who was one of many arrested while silently protesting and demanding the vote for women in front of the White House in Washington, DC in 1917. As a nurse, Dixon was well-aware of the terrible conditions that imprisoned activists endured during the years of the Women's Suffrage movement. Nevertheless, she persisted. Dixon’s persistent activism and engagement with the public through her writing helped shape the course of Maryland’s suffrage movement. After ratification, Dixon founded the Talbot County League of Women Voters and continued to engage with medical and charitable causes throughout her life.

Ballot & Beyond: Virginia Hall | Allied Spy of WWII

Virginia Hall served the United States and the Allied forces during WWII as an incredibly vital asset. The Nazis called her “the most dangerous of all Allied spies” in Occupied France and called for her elimination. But Virginia Hall, who had a false leg from a childhood incidence, outran the Gestapo and helped secure victory for the Allies. Listen to this episode of Ballot & Beyond for more about the most valuable female Allied spy of World War II.

Ballot & Beyond: The Honorable Gladys Noon Spellman | Teacher Turned Legislator

U.S. Representative Gladys Noon Spellman was a civic-minded Maryland school teacher and PTA advocate when she signed onto a reform slate running for the Prince George's County commission in 1962. She became the first woman on the commission and by 1966. In her legislative tenure, Spellman fought for cost-of-living raises against making the civil-service more vulnerable to political swings. Today, the memory of Gladys Noon Spellman is kept alive by the Maryland stretch of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway named in her honor.

Ballot & Beyond: Sarah Hemminger | Social Fabric for Students

Sarah Hemminger is the co-founder of Thread, an organization that supports cohorts of struggling students in the Baltimore City's public school system and builds volunteer families around them. This method aims to create a new social fabric for students who are confronting significant challenges outside of their control. Listen to this episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Hemminger came to understand the effects of isolation and the benefits of strong social supports.

Ballot & Beyond: Emma Maddox Funck | Leading Maryland Suffragist

Emma Maddox Funck was a Baltimore woman committed to the cause of women's suffrage. One of her major achievements as President of the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association President was successfully lobbying the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to bring their 1906 annual national convention to Maryland. Funck’s legacy lies in her stewardship of the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association through the critical years of the early 20th century, which brought thousands of Maryland women into political and civic life for the first time. 

Ballot & Beyond: Rachel Carson | Science Writer

Rachel Carson changed our world for the better, quite literally, with her 1962 book “Silent Spring,” bringing attention to the contamination of our environment by the use of pesticides. Consequently, Carson gained the title of "the mother of the modern environmental movement." Prior to her groundbreaking book, Carson, was a researcher and biologist at the U.S. Department of Interior. Her self-designed home in Silver Spring, Maryland, still stands and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Join us on this episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Rachel Carson spread environmental awareness through her narrative approach to writing about science. 

Ballot & Beyond: Sara A. Whitehurst | Jury Service for Women

When women finally secured the right to vote in 1920 after a generations-long fight known as the Women's Suffrage movement, women did not receive the responsibility and opportunity for service via jury duty. Sara A. Whitehurst of Baltimore led the Maryland Committee for Jury Service, an umbrella group of 30 women's groups and advocated for the final passage of the law that allowed women on a federal jury in 1947. Join us for this episode of Ballot & Beyond to learn more about the post-Suffrage fight that allowed women to be considered the peers of men in the eyes of the law.

Ballot & Beyond: Dr. Liebe Sokol Diamond | Renowned Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon

Dr. Liebe Sokol Diamond was a pioneer in many ways, and one of the nation's leading pediatric orthopedic surgeons. Liebe was born with congenital ring constriction syndrome which caused the loss of several fingers and toes while in the womb. By the time she was a teenager, she had undergone 25 surgical procedures. As a surgeon, Dr. Sokol Diamond focused on hand and limb deformities, particularly orthopedic aspects of genetic diseases in children similar to her own and a medically underserved group at that time. 

Ballot & Beyond: The Honorable Rita C. Davidson | Serving Maryland's Highest Court

The Honorable Rita C. Davidson accomplished a number of firsts in her civil service career; as the first woman to serve Maryland’s cabinet, the first to serve on the intermediate appellate court, and the first to serve on Maryland's highest court.

Ballot & Beyond: Lucy Diggs Slowe | First Lady of Tennis

In 1917, Baltimore-native Lucy Diggs Slowe won the first-ever championship match held by the newly established American Tennis Association and thus became the first African American woman to win a national championship in any sport. After her tennis career, Diggs Slowe went on to be appointed as the first Dean of Women at Howard University in Washington, DC. Join us for this episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Lucy Diggs Slowe paved the way for African American women in academics. 

Ballot & Beyond: Lucille Clifton | Maryland State Poet Laureate

In her work, poet Lucille Clifton explored the African American experience and exalted the human capacity to persevere. As a result of her aptitude for compelling and relevant writing, Clifton won major awards and widespread appreciation. This included in Clifton's distinguished role as Maryland State Poet Laureate from for over 10 years.  Join us on this episode of Ballot & Beyond to learn more about poet Lucille Clifton.

Ballot & Beyond: Judge Diana G. Motz | Protecting Women's Rights

Judge Diana G. Motz was the first Maryland woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She believes that her experiences as the rare woman in the classroom and in the courtroom later benefitted her as a judge. As a member of The Federal Bench, one of Judge Motz's signature opinions arose in a case that dealt with the outright prohibition of women to the Virginia Military Institute. Listen now to this episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Judge Motz works on protecting women's rights.

Ballot & Beyond: Maxwell, Kelly, Howard | First Female Voters of Maryland

On Maryland's Eastern Shore, the farming village of Still Pond wrote in its charter a guarantee that women taxpayers had the right to vote in all municipal elections. In 1908, 14 women registered to vote including two African American women. On election day, three of the women along with 72 men showed up to vote. Those three women who went down in history as Maryland's first women to vote are: Anna Baker Maxwell, Eliza Lily Deringer Kelly & Mary Jane Clark Howard.

Ballot & Beyond: Sandi Timmins | Reducing Domestic Violence Against Women

To Sandi Timmins, equality for women includes the right to be free from domestic violence. While defending that right is everyone’s duty, as executive director of House of Ruth Maryland, Timmins has increased outreach and built innovative training programs for communities, professions, employers, and past abusers. Join us on this episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Timmins and House of Ruth Maryland lead help prevent domestic violence.

Ballot & Beyond: Eunice Kennedy Shriver | Special Olympics Founder

After years of planning, Eunice Kennedy Shriver opened the first Special Olympics game in 1968.  Her brother, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated just seven weeks before. Today, by one estimate, more than three million Special Olympic athletes from all 50 states and 181 countries around the world take part in year-round training for the games. Shriver believed in justice for those with different abilities. Join us on this episode of Ballot & Beyond to learn more about the founder of the Special Olympics.

Ballot & Beyond: Lavinia Margaret Engle | Protecting Women's Voting Rights

For all women, the ratification of suffrage did not mark the end of the fight for women’s voting rights. Women needed to stay organized to overcome any obstacles they might face in exercising their new voting rights, so Lavinia Margaret Engle, helped to establish the Maryland League of Women Voters. Engle led the organization for more than a decade, helping defend Maryland women's voting rights. Listen to this episode of Ballot & Beyond to learn more about this dedicated suffragist, state legislative delegate, and civil servant.

Ballot & Beyond: Victorine Q. Adams | Energizing African American Voters

To improve the representation of African American women and energize women to take advance of their right to vote, Victorine Q. Adams registered Baltimore's African American voters by the thousands in the 1940s. Adams would also serve on the Baltimore City Council as the first African American woman to serve as a city councilwoman in Baltimore.

Ballot & Beyond: Dr. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn | African American Suffrage History

Through her historical scholarship and teaching career, Dr. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn chronicled the work of African American suffragists, whose contributions had largely been ignored or erased in the official histories of the movement. Dr. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn work excavated these hidden stories from the historical canon, rescuing many heroic women from obscurity and adding the true diversity and challenges of the movement to the public record. 

Henrietta Lacks | The Immortal

This episode of Ballot and Beyond, contributed by the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center, was written by Dr. Adele Newson-Horst, Professor of English at Morgan State University. The reader is Dr. Newson-Horst. 

Henrietta Lacks is best recognized for her immortal HeLa cell line (named for the first two letters of her first and last names). 

Since her death in 1951, her cells divide again and again and rebuild after each division. It is because HeLa cells can be grown continuously in labs, researchers started to rely heavily on them for their experiments.