Fran P. Mainella, 1947

Fran-P.-Mainella-WWP

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The first woman who served as the director of the National Park Service.



Born in Connecticut and loved visiting the national parks as a kid with her family. While in college, she worked as a summer playground counselor and later taught physical education. After several years she decided to focus on recreation and in 1977 Mainella started to work as an Assistant Center Director of the Tallahassee Parks and Recreation Department in Florida. A few years later she became the Director of Florida’s State Parks and served in this position for 12 years.

Mainella administrated and supervised on 155 state parks, museums, trials, etc., covering 500,000 acres, created new jobs and developed new programs. In 1999, Florida was awarded with the Gold Medal Award, recognized as the best state park system in America.

In 2001 Mainella was nominated as the 16th director of the National Park Service (NPS) and became the first woman to hold this position. She supervised on 84 million acres of national parks, museum, monuments, etc. After six years of service, she decided to retire from the NPS and develop other programs she was passionate about, one of them is co-founding and co-chairing the US Play Coalition.

March 23, 2016... Wine and Wildlife. 100 Years of National Parks. FIND YOUR PARK

Fran Mainella, the first woman National Park Service Director, leads Southwest Florida Park partners in celebration of the Centennial Year of National Parks.

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“Reach out and go beyond your boundaries... you also need the courage to fail - take that risk.”

“Reach out and go beyond your boundaries... you also need the courage to fail - take that risk.”

Fun Facts

  • Clemson University and the Hartzog Fund named an award after her for the "Outstanding Woman in Park Resources Award".

Awards

  • Honorary Doctorate in Public Service from Central Connecticut State University

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March 23, 2016... Wine and Wildlife. 100 Years of National Parks. FIND YOUR PARK

Fran Mainella, the first woman National Park Service Director, leads Southwest Florida Park partners in celebration of the Centennial Year of National Parks.
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Abigail-Smith-Adams-WWP
Activism & Feminism

Abigail Adams, 1744-1818

A Founding Mother of the United States, a Women’s Rights Advocate, and the Second First Lady.

Abigail Smith was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her father was a liberal minister, her mother was a member of the famous Quincy family mother, and she had two sisters. At a time when women were not allowed to receive a formal education, she was homeschooled and satisfied her appetite for knowledge at the family’s library, forming progressive views. After a two-year courtship, she married John Adams, a country lawyer, and became his closest advisor and partner. They settled in the house John had inherited from his father in Braintree, MA. When his practice expanded, John had to frequently travel while Abigail managed their finances, investments, household, and growing family. For a while, they even moved to Boston next to his practice. Between 1784 and 1788, Abigail joined John in his diplomatic missions in Paris and London. On March 4th, 1797, John became the second president of the United States, and she was the first lady. They lived in the Presidential Mansion in Philadelphia and later in the White House in Washington, DC. She was a politically active first lady, made frequent public appearances, and was involved in the decision-making process, paving the way for future first ladies to be proactive figures. When John lost presidential re-election, the family retired to Peacefield in Quincy in 1800. During his frequent travels before and during the presidency, the couple corresponded in more than 1100 letters, where Abigail demonstrated her talent for writing and opinionated spirit. In one of those letters, she urges her husband to consider women’s rights in the new legislation after independence, warning that if not given equal representation: “women will rebel.” He dismissed her suggestion by writing back that it makes him laugh, but her words “remember the ladies” became an iconic feminist slogan. Before her death, she wrote a will favoring her female relatives. It was an act of protest against the laws prohibiting married women from owning assets. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Adelaide-Johnson-WWP
Arts

Adelaide Johnson, 1859-1955

A feminist artist and sculptress, known as “The sculptor of the women’s suffrage movement.”

Born as Sarah Adeline Johnson in Plymouth, IL, to a family of farmers. She received her education attending rural schools, and after graduation, she began her art training, taking classes at the St. Louis School of Design. She was only 18 years old when she exhibited her artworks at the 1877 St. Louis Exposition, and thanks to the prizes she won, she was able to move to Chicago and make a living from her art. At 23, on her way to her studio, she fell 20 feet into an open elevator shaft. She was severely injured, but the compensation fee she was awarded enabled her the financial freedom to study sculpture and painting in Europe. As a feminist and women’s rights activist, she expressed her political views in her art. Among the many individual busts she sculptured, were busts of the Suffrage Movement’s leaders – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott, which she presented in the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 (The busts are currently located at the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument Museum). She wanted to put the busts as a group monument at the US Capitol Rotunda but did not get the support at that time. After the 19th Amendment was ratified, she got the funding from the philanthropist Alva Belmont and the commission from the National Woman’s Party. She went to Italy to bring an 8-ton piece of marble to her studio and created her most famous artwork – “Group Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.” The statue was dedicated in a special ceremony on Susan B. Anthony’s birthday, February 15th, 1921, in the US Capitol. This was the pick of Johnson’s career. During the 1930s, her career declined, and she had financial problems. In 1939, 80 years old Johnson invited the press to witness how she destroys her own artworks as a protest against her living conditions as well as against her shattered dream of opening a studio-museum honoring the suffragists and women’s rights organizations. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Alice-Paul-WWP
Law

Alice Paul, 1885-1977

A leader for women’s rights and famous for promoting a federal constitutional amendment for woman suffrage.

Alice Paul was born to a wealthy Quaker family on a small New Jersey farm. As Quakers, her parents supported gender equality, including education for women. From a young age, she developed a passion for reading and learning. After graduating high school, top of her class, she studied biology at Swarthmore College, where she was a member of the Executive Board of Student Government. It sparked her interest in political activism, and she moved to NYC to complete a fellowship at the College Settlement House social work. She went on to study and gain multiple degrees, including a Ph.D. in sociology and three law degrees. During a fellowship in England, Paul became involved with the militant Women’s Social and Political Union in London, first selling Suffragist magazines on street corners and then, alongside fellow American suffragette Lucy Burns, organized events, campaigns and established the Scottish branch of the organization. She learned militant protest tactics, such as picketing and hunger strikes, and became known as one who put herself in danger in public events to increase the visibility of the movement. Despite the violent experience of 7 arrests, 3 imprisonments, and 4-week force-feeding, campaigning for the cause of suffrage became her life mission. Upon her return home in 1910, Paul joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She became a central figure in organizing the 1913 Women March in Washington the day before President Wilson’s inauguration, in which about 8000 women marched through Pennsylvania Avenue, viewed by a half million people, many of them harassing and heckling the marchers. In 1916, Paul’s militant approach created tension between her and the NAWSA, and she left to found the National Woman’s Party (NWP). The following year, she stood wearing a white dress and holding purple and gold banners as part of the Silent Sentinels – the first political picket in front of the White House. She was arrested but did not receive the special treatment she was supposed to as a political prisoner, living in harsh conditions and poor sanitation. With her fellow suffragist prisoners, Paul embarked on a hunger strike, for which she was transferred to the prison’s psychiatric ward, being tied up and forced fed. Her methods led to the end of the long struggle of the US suffrage movement, with the ratification of the 19th amendment, granting the legal voting right for women. After women’s suffrage was achieved, Paul moved her efforts to the international arena: co-founding the World Woman’s Party and lobbing for gender equality. She then went back to national politics, drafting the Equal Rights Amendment, which is still in the process of ratification during the 21st century. In 1945, she lobbied for the inclusion of the equality for women clause in the United Nations proclamations, and at the age of 79, she ensured that the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had a ‘protection for women’ paragraph. Paul was considered professionally demanding and personally conservative, including being criticized for elitism and racism within the suffragist movement. Among the many biographies of her life, little is mentioned about her personal life. Paul passed away at 92 years old in New Jersey. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Amelia-Earhart-WWP
Science & Technology

Amelia Earhart, 1897-c.1939

A pioneering pilot who set many aviation records, including the first female pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean and the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.

Born and raised in Atchison, Kansas, in 1897. From a young age she broke gender conventions: climbing trees which was seen as boyish behavior and collecting articles about female pioneers in male-dominated fields. She left college to work as a nurse in a military hospital during World War I and later worked as a social worker. After a $10 ride in an airplane at the age of 23, she found her calling within aviation. Earhart took classes with a female instructor, and six months later bought her first plane, painted yellow and nicknamed “The Canary.” She was active in the movement for equal rights for women and was determined to use aviation to make a point that women can do anything they want. Her breakthrough was initiated by publicist George Putnam, whom she later married. He presented her with the opportunity to be the first female to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, which won her worldwide recognition, a New York parade, and a reception at the White House. Fond of “first” achievements and aware of their publicity value, Earhart set and broke several records of destination, speed, and altitude. She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world, and in her attempt, she vanished with her navigator in 1937. Despite a $4 Million search, the most extensive one in naval history, no clear trace of her was ever found. Amelia Earhart was around the age of 40 at the time of the accident, and in 1939, the pioneering pilot declared dead. This turned her into a mystery that occupies generations, with a wide range of theories and speculations as to her fate. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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