Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, 1843-1864

Wakeman in 1860. Photo credit - Wikipedia

A female soldier who served in the Union Army under the man's disguise.

Sarah Rosetta Wakeman was born on the family farm in Bainbridge, New York, the oldest of nine children. Growing up, she worked on the farm and later as a domestic servant. Her family’s financial problems posed difficulties in finding her a possible suitor. In addition, she realized that manual labor is more profitable than domestic work, so at 19 years old, Wakeman left her home looking for a job disguised as a man. Soon she began to work as a boatman on a coal barge traveling on the Chenango Canal.

While on a trip upriver, she met army recruiters who offered her a $13 monthly salary and a $152.00 signing bonus if she joined the Union Army. The offer was too good to refuse, and on August 30, 1862, she got enlisted to the 153rd New York Infantry Regiment as a 21 years old man named Lyons Wakeman.

In her first year on service, her regiment protected the food supplies in Virginia, and Washington, DC. In February 1864, the unit got transferred to Louisiana to participate in the Red River Campaign. They marched almost 700 miles through swampy terrain with limited food and water to reach the Pleasant Hill, Louisiana battle. After the Union army was forced to retreat, Wakeman and her fellow comrades fought at the Monett’s Bluff before arriving safely in Alexandria, Louisiana.

During the battle, Wakeman, like other thousands of Union soldiers, had to drink water from streams contaminated by rotting dead animals, which caused her chronic diarrhea. She was hospitalized in the Marine USA General Hospital in New Orleans, where she died at 21 years old. Her true identity was not revealed, and she was buried in a military service at Chalmette National Cemetery under her fake male name Lyons Wakeman.

Throughout the war, she corresponded with her family, sending them money and detailing her experiences, thoughts, and observations as a soldier. Her family preserved the letters and kept them hidden for centuries until 1976, when her sister’s great-grandson found them in the attic of the farmhouse where she grew up, discovering the heroic story of his relative and telling it to the world.

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Fun Facts

  • Wakeman was one of approximately 400 women who disguised as men and fought in the American Civil War. Only 135 of them are documented. The enlistment papers described her as five feet tall, fair-skinned, with blue eyes.
  • In her letters, she often wrote about being financially independent, a rare position for women at the time.
  • She used her birth name when signing her letters.
  • While serving as a guard at Washington's Carroll Prison, she guarded a woman who got arrested for the same crime she committed – impersonating a man to join the Union Army.
  • Her letters got published in 1994 under the title An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, alias Pvt. Lyons Wakeman, 153rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers, 1862-1864.
  • A photograph of her in uniform and a ring engraved with her name and regiment were found with her letters.

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Category: Army & Security Forces

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Arts

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, 1874-1948

A socialite and philanthropist. The co-founder of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and its biggest donor.

Abigail Aldrich Rockefeller was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Her father was a Republican senator, and she grew up traveling back and forth between Rhode Island and Washington, DC. She was educated by a Quaker governess till she was 17 years old, and then attended Miss Abbott’s School for Young Ladies in Providence. During her upbringing, she was introduced to socialite and political circles, and at 19 years old, she made her official social debut. The following year, she embarked on an extensive European tour, where she visited many museums and art galleries and began to sharpen her skills as an art collector. At 20 years old, she met John Davison Rockefeller Jr., the son of the businessman and philanthropist John Davison Rockefeller Sr. After five years of courtship, the couple married at a big society wedding. The young Rockefellers settled in NYC, first in 13 W. 54th Street in Manhattan and later in 10 W. 54th Street. Rockefeller was a philanthropist in the heart, and she devoted herself to various charities. She donated money to the girl scouts, chaired the Auxiliary 336 of the American Red Cross, was a member of the Young Women’s Christian Association National Board, and served as chairman of different committees of the organization. In 1918, Rockefeller was chosen to chair the Housing Committee of the War Work Council, in which she worked for the improvement of living conditions for working women. She later applied the concept to the employees of Standard Oil – her husband’s family firm, purchasing land and building homes for the workers as well as a Community Center that included a clinic, nursery school, gym, and even a bowling alley. In 1925, Rockefeller revived her love for art and began collecting paintings and drawings mainly of contemporary American artists as well as European modernists such as Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Within a few years, she converted part of the room in her 7th floor Manhattan apartment into a gallery, where visitors could view the art on display. In 1929, alongside Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan, she co-founded the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in NYC – the first museum in the US devoted entirely to the modern movement. Rockefeller held several positions in the museum management team, from treasurer to Vice-President and Vice-Chairman, as well as served in its committees. She pushed for establishing the museum’s film library and for the War Veterans’ Art Center – a rehabilitation program for WW2 veterans through art. Rockefeller’s dedication to art expanded outside of MoMA; she donated art pieces to other institutes, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Met Cloisters, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Ludwell-Paradise House at Colonial Williamsburg. She passed away after suffering a heart attack at the age of 73. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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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. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Arts

Ada Louise Huxtable, 1921-2013

An architecture critic and a writer. Received the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Born Ada Louise Landman in NYC, an only child in a middle-class Jewish family. Growing up in Manhattan, Huxtable loved strolling along the streets, fascinated by its building, such as the Grand Central Terminal, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Natural History. She studied art at Hunter College, graduating magna cum laude, and then architectural history at NYU Institute of Fine Arts. At the time, she worked in Bloomingdale’s furnishings department, where she met her soon-to-be husband, Garth Huxtable. In 1946, at 25, Huxtable landed a job as an assistant curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. After five years, she left her job to study Italian architecture in Italy for a year. Upon her return, she began writing as a contributing editor for various art and architectural journals. At the age of 37, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship, in which she examined the structural and design advances of American architecture. In 1963, 42 years old Huxtable was hired as the first architecture critic at The New York Times, a position she held for almost 20 years. In her column, she wrote about new and old buildings, threatened buildings, and bad-designed buildings. She also mentioned emerging architects, architectural trends, movements, and exhibitions. Huxtable encouraged the everyday readers to look at buildings from a new perspective, not as an assembly of bricks and pilasters but as a public statement with history and meaning. Raising awareness of the city’s heritage, the urban environment, and civic engagement, she set the tone for modern architecture criticism, for which, at the age of 49, she was the first-ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In 1981, at the age of 60, Huxtable received a MacArthur grant that allowed her in-depth research on subjects she was interested in, such as the development of the skyscraper, the negative impact of postmodernism building, and preservation vs. modernity. At 76, she returned to writing for the public as an architecture critic for The Wall Street Journal, publishing columns for the next 15 years. Throughout her career, Huxtable was involved in various committees, serving as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Architectural Selection and Building Design Committees for the Getty Center, Getty Villa, and as a Jury member for The Pritzker Architecture Prize. She published more than 10 books on architecture, including “Kicked a Building Lately?,” “Goodbye History,” “Hello Hamburger,” and a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. Huxtable died in NYC at 91. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Science & Technology

Ada Lovelace, 1815-1852

A mathematician, recognized as the first computer programmer.

Augusta Ada King was born in London, England, the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron with his wife, the Baroness Anne Isabella Noel Byron. Five weeks after she was born, her parents separated, and she moved with her mother to her maternal grandparents in Kirkby Mallory. Lovelace did not connect with her father until he died when she was eight years old. Growing up, her mother insisted that she studied mathematics and science, believing it would prevent her from developing a moody and unpredictable temperament like her father’s. So, from an early age, she was educated by renowned figures, such as the social reformer William Frend, the physician William King, and the astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville. Lovelace became fascinated with numbers and engineering, designing boats and flying machines. At 17, she got introduced to Charles Babbage, a mathematician that later became known as “the father of computers.” Soon he became her mentor, and she studied advanced mathematics and helped him with his research. In the same year, she was presented at Court and became a regular and popular at aristocrat events. Two years later, she married Willia King, and when he was nominated the Earl of Lovelace, she became the Countess of Lovelace. The couple had three children. After her wedding, she continued to develop with Babbage the Analytical Engine device, an early prototype of the modern computer. In 1842, 27 years old Lovelace was asked to translate an article by the Italian Engineer Luigi Menabrea about the Analytical Engine. Her translation included an appendix note, in which she elaborated on the machine’s potential, explaining that in addition to calculating numbers, it can also create art such as music and pictures. The appendix also included a theorized engine process of instruction’s reputation, a method that is known today as Looping. Back then, her work did not get much attention, but centuries after the publication, it became recognized as the first computer algorithm, and she received the long-lost acknowledgment as the first computer programmer. Throughout her life, Lovelace developed and theorized different potential uses of the Analytical Engine. Like the mathematical model of how the brain creates thoughts and the nerves create feelings, which she called “a calculus of the nervous system.” She died at the age of 36 from uterine cancer.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Ada Lovelace with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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