20 Mar Celebrating Women’s History Month
To honor the trailblazers that have come before us we asked the Futurus team to tell us about women who inspire them for Women’s History Month.
Martha “Wylene” Sisson
Submitted by Jamie Lance
The first person that came to mind when we began to prepare for our Women’s Day blog was my grandmother, Wylene or “Lene” as we call her. She is a mother of 4, a grandmother to 8, and a great-grandmother to 8. She was a seamstress, a model and even winning the title as “Miss Smyrna” back in 1953 to name a few. She has always been loving, has always kept her family first, and is the epitome of southern beauty. She has lived through heartache and continued to stand strong. She is a woman of great love, and of great strength. She has inspired me to love everyone as they are, to always keep a good sense of humor, to sew, and has reminded me that “life is too short to keep on keepin’ on if you’re not happy”. She dances, she colors, she always looks beautiful and is the perfect example of living your life no matter your age. Her accomplishments are many, her strength is great. I have always looked up to her, and in her own way Lene is a Wonder Woman and one of my “SHeros”.
Lillian F. Schwartz
Submitted by Shelby Vecchio
Lillian F. Schwartz is a pioneer in combining computer programming and fine art practices to create the first noted computer-generated art or digital art. She is truly an experimental artist by creating in mediums ranging from mud, acrylics, plastic paintings, digital collaging, computer, and other image processing.
Schwartz was born during the great depression and began creating artwork with readily available mediums such as slate, mud, and chalk. As a young adult she studied to become a nurse during World War II where she began creating with plaster to create compositions. After the war, she was stationed near Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is where Schwartz contracted polio and was temporarily paralyzed. During her rehabilitation, she studied calligraphy. Through these challenges, she never ceased to stop creating and experimenting, which is a testament to her imagination and willpower not only as an artist but a human.
She began experimenting with digital art during her studies and collaborations with various engineers and programmers in Bell Labs and The New School around the 1960s. Schwartz began hand painting, digital collaging, computer image and optical post-processing. By 1975, collaborating with software engineers, she created the first digitally created computer-animated films to be exhibited as fine art. Her methods in creating with various programs are precursors to programs such as Photoshop and Final Cut Pro we use today.
Ada Lovelace
Submitted by Pierce McBride
Ada Lovelace, an English countess in the early 19th century, is widely considered to be the first computer programmer. She worked with a contemporary, Charles Babbage, to develop a way to perform mathematics using a machine Babbage built called the Difference Engine, and a theoretical machine called the Analytical Engine. Both machines are seen a pioneering work in the field of computer engineering, but Lovelace saw beyond the purely mathematical applications of Babbage’s machines. Despite lacking a concept of a programming language, she suggested that instructions to these machines could be used to encode anything. As she wrote, “We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
Jan Davis, Susan Kilrain, and Sandra Magnus
Submitted by Annie Eaton
I am so excited about this month’s blog post. A large part of our core values at Futurus is creating an equal workplace for all and sometimes I forget we work in a bubble of our own creation. I wanted to go back to my educational roots and choose a notable woman that graduated from The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) like me. When I visited the Wikipedia page of notable Georgia Tech alumni, I scrolled, and I scrolled, and then I scrolled some more. Of the 230 people on this list, only 15 are women. This is proof that progress is slow (and that a lot of incredible women who have done notable things aren’t always given the recognition they deserve). Despite my unsettled feelings about this list, I wanted to highlight 3 women who have made it and who are amazing pioneers in their field.
Jan Davis, Susan Kilrain, and Sandra Magnus are three Georgia Tech graduates who have blazed the trail as astronauts for NASA. Jan Davis, who is now retired, is a veteran of three space flights and logged over 673 hours in space. Susan Kilrain served in the United States Navy as well as NASA, where she completed two space flights. Sandra Magnus spent 134 days in orbit on the STS-119 Discovery and was also a part of the crew of STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle.
All three of these women are highly decorated, being recognized by organizations such as NASA, ASME, Presidential Rank Awards, and the United States Navy. They also have accomplished careers in engineering, which is a vital background for many astronauts. Their leadership and the example they set for women looking to break into a successful STEM career is a motivator that it can be done. Seeing women representation in space travel has historically been a rarity with women making up only 11% of all space travelers. The 2018 class of NASA astronauts has nearly 50% women which is “one giant leap” (you can either laugh or ignore my pun), for the space industry. This progress would not have been possible without the hard work and perseverance of Jan Davis, Susan Kilrain, and Sandra Magnus and the inspiration they give to women and girls everywhere.
Verity Lambert
Submitted by Peter Stolmeier
Verity Lambert entered the television scene in 1963 at a time when there were hardly any women in the industry. During that time, women weren’t viewed as capable or valued for their work. This meant she had a lot of extra scrutiny and challenges from all levels of the BBC when she was given the job of producer for a small children’s show no one expected to last very long. Anyway, she did really well and that little show, Doctor Who, is now in its 56th-year thanks in part to her leadership.
Josephine Baker
Submitted by Jane Nguyen
Singer. Dancer. Comedienne. Actress. Activist. Secret Agent. Overall badass, firecracker of a woman!
American-born Josephine Baker got bit by the entertainment bug early at age 15 in the early 1920s, when she was performing in chorus vaudeville shows and night clubs in Harlem in New York City. She was often touted as a hard-working, top entertainer for her high-energy and complex dance routines while standing out in provocative costumes, like the banana skirt. One of her famous acts, a showbusiness term called “The Pony,” involves her as the last dancer of the chorus line when she dances in a comedic manner as if she’s unable to remember the routine – until the encore when she would bust out all the right moves with extra complexity!
Eventually, she grew frustrated with this time in America when segregation was prominent and refused to perform for segregated audiences. She decided to pursue an opportunity to tour in Paris, a place that embraced her and became her new home. She rose to stardom instantly, performing in France and around Europe with more freedom and acceptance of her extravagance. She continued her success to become the first African-American to star in a major motion picture in 1927, along with 3 others, earning her the title as the most successful American entertainer in France.
France declared war on Germany in September 1939 when Poland was invaded. Baker was recruited by French military intelligence as an honorable correspondent, using her superstar status to attend parties and embassy gatherings to collect intel on German troop locations from high-ranking officials whom she would meet and [easily] charm, all without raising suspicion. When Germany invaded France, she housed people of the Free France effort and gave them visas. As an entertainer, she had an excuse to move around Europe and neutral countries. Baker carried with her vital information about German airfields, harbors and troop concentrations in France that were written in invisible ink on her sheet music to transmit to England. She continued aid with the Resistance on several more missions, earning her France’s highest Medals of Honor, the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance, after World War II ended. She was also made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, the highest French order of military and civil merits.
Although based in France, she continued support of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. In 1963, she spoke, as the only official female, at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr. when he gave his “I Have A Dream” speech. Some were not accepting of her status as a true Civil Rights leader as many saw her as a [controversial] woman of France, disconnected from the issues in America. Later in 1968, Coretta Scott King offered Baker to take over leadership of the Civil Rights Movement following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, but she refused to protect her family’s welfare.
Lauren Faust
Submitted by Chan Grant
When I was young, I was told that I would stop watching cartoons by the time I was an adult. Yet here I am as an adult and I watch more children cartoons than my little sisters do (who are 5 and 7, Hi Haley and Hannah!). Personally, I feel cartoons today are smarter, more subtle, and, more often than not, provide more emotional impact than many of the procedural, paint by the number shlop that I am expected to watch to interact with my fellow adults.
If I could, I would write an article on the history of children cartoons, but I want to focus on one particular animator today. This woman was animator on several successful works such as The Iron Giant, Powerpuff Girls, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Super Best Friends Forever (a criminally underrated show!). She is most famous for and remembered by is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Of course, I am talking about Lauren Faust.
Lauren Faust, born in Annapolis, Maryland, attend the California Institute of Arts in the ‘90s. It was during that time she began a long career that touched many lives including my own. One of the first movies I ever saw as a child was the Iron Giant. To many, it is a sad but sweet film that encourages friendship with others no matter who or what they are. For me, however, it engendered a lifelong apathy/fear towards giant robots. I was four or five when I watched it and it scared the crap out of me. Admittedly, not the best way to start a description of how someone’s work impacted your life but hey, it’s the truth.
Her work on Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home are more favorable to me. In these two shows, she and her husband Craig McCracken really captured my attention as a child and preteen respectively. Powerpuff Girls was the first series that I ever watch that girls could go on adventures and fight crime and all the other stuff that boys and guys usually do. This show, among other things, helped me understand things as a child that some adults have trouble understanding.
Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends came out during a rather tumultuous point in my life, when my brother and I, moved between my mom in South Carolina and my aunt and uncle in Atlanta. A house full of wonderful creatures who all wanted to be your friend was something I was really into when I was in a place where I had no friends and was made fun of for having a country accent. Mac, like me, was in a single parent household with a mom who often was at work. So I could really picture myself in the adventures of Mac, Blu, Cheese, and Frankie and the entire Foster’s Home. I remember watching the last episode and crying as I felt a part of my life was ending with that show.
Finally, the big one: My Little Pony. In 2012, I thought of My Little Pony the same way I thought of shows like Care Bears: a sugary sweet show that was pandering to girls so that it can sell merchandise. No heart, no soul, no story worth acknowledging nor characters worth following. A friend of my mine introduced me to the show and we watched one episode after another until I was hooked. I could see why people were raving about it. It was because Lauren Faust did for this show what she did for a lot of shows: she made interesting cohesive characters.
In every work that Lauren Faust was involved in portrays characters in an interesting way. They featured women and men who were not only strong and competent but also varied. One of the issues with television, even television that are trying to give a positive message about women, is that they suggest that a woman is only strong when they are a certain way or by making everyone else incompetent. Strong female characters are often portrayed as tomboyish and physically strong or sexy and cunning, but variety is often lacking. Men are portrayed as moronic children who have to be watched in case they hurt themselves. Aspects that are considered “girly” such as dresses, dolls, or the like are often synonymous with weak and are either demonized in a clumsy manner or are hidden away like an old shame. Faust’s characters and work shows that men and women can have a variety of personalities and they are all strong. This is the reason why people worship her work on My Little Pony. Characters are all strong in their own way and their personality traits are only portrayed as flaws when in excess. A character can like dressing up and looking nice or be soft-spoken and love animals and still be a force to reckon with. Women are book smart or book dumb, tomboyish or girly, lazy or hyper, nice or cruel, good or evil, all without stating that one is how a girl should act. Men are chaotic or orderly, helpful or hurtful, prideful or humble, dangerous or friendly, without making them all incompetent and ineffective. My Little Pony is designed as a show for girls, but it appeals to everyone by treating everyone equally. In this Faust has created a show that both boys and girls, old and young, can watch and enjoy.
