 Yoon Joung Lee A smart young girl, Margaret studied chemistry at Oxford University. There, she became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association and she was significantly influenced by various political works including Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944). In 1947 she finished her study at Oxford with Second Class Honours in the four-year Chemistry Bachelor of Science degree. After graduating college, she worked as a research chemist in Colchester. While she worked as a chemist, she met her husband, Denis Thatcher who was a successful businessman. They married in 1951. After her marriage, she took time off to study law and the couple had twins, Carol and Mark, the next year. In 1953, as she became a barrister, she went back to the political arena. In 1959 she won a seat in the House of Commons, representing Finchley. Two years later in 1961, she was appointed to joint parliamentary secretary for Pensions and National Insurance at the government of Harold Macmillan. In 1970, she was appointed Minister for Education and Science. Her new budget cutting campaign, eliminating free school milk for children over seven and increasing school meal charges created great controversy. When the Conservative party lost general elections in 1974, she defeated Edward Heath for the party’s leadership. In 1979, she was elected Prime Minister and served for eleven and a half years which was the longest term for any British Minister in the 20th Century. Her eleven and a half years tenure was eventful. She led England out of an economic recession, inter-city riots and miners’ strike, and brought Falkland war to a victory. In 1990 returning for a third term, she was forced to resign as Prime Mister because she lost a lot of support by her efforts to implement a fixed rate local tax called a poll tax and her refusal to endorse a common currency for Europe led the Conservative party. After her resignation, she travelled over the world lecturing and served as president of numerous organizations dedicated to her causes. For the last few years, she suffered from her health issue and no longer speaks in public She received people’s attention not only because she was the first female minister, but because her work and effort led England out of a long recession and led a war in defense of the British Falkland Islands. Add Comment  Yoon Joung Lee Amy Marcy Cheney, the first successful American female composer and pianist, was born in Henniker, New Hampshire in 1867. Her outstanding musical talents were discovered when she was very young. When she was four, she began playing piano and composing music. When she was 7, she publicly performed and she entered Boston’s musical community when was 8. In 1883 when she was sixteen, she made her first professional piano debut playing Moscheles Piano Concerto in G minor with an orchestra. Later, she became a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1885 when she was eighteen, she married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach who was a prominent Boston physician. Since her marriage, she shifted her focus from performance to composition by her husband’s request. She also changed her professional name to Mrs. H. H. A. Beach. She devoted lots of her time to writing musics and her works were performed in many places by many different artists. In 1986, she received the world’s attention for her Gaelic Symphony in E Minor at Boston Symphony performance and it helped confirm her as one of the country’s prominent composers. During her life, she created more than 150 works of chamber, orchestral works, and church songs. The beginning of her works were influenced by Wagner and Brahms. But she put in her own characteristic elements like intensity and passion. Her celebrated compositions include “Gaelic Symphony,” “Cabildo,” “Mass in E-flat,” “ The Song of Welcome,” “The Chambered Nautilus,” “Eilende Wolken,” “ The Hermit Thrush at Morn,” “Dreaming,” “Ah, Love, but a Day” and “ The Year’s at the Spring.” In 1910 after her husband died, she decided to tour Europe. She also revived her career and used her maiden name- Amy Cheney. When she came back to the U.S. she reused her married name. For the next thirty years, she kept composing and performing. Failing health hampered her activities during her final years. Her body condition often limited her concert. In 1944, she died by heart failure at the age of 77.  Yoon Joung Lee Hypatia of Alexandria was born into the mathematician and astronomer,Theon Alexsandricus, who was devoted to divination and astrology. During her childhood, her father tried to make her a perfect human and he raised her in an environment of thought. While her father taught his daughter his own knowledge and passion in the search for answers to the unknown, they formed a strong bond and he significantly influenced the way she looked at the world. As she grew older, her passion and enthusiasm for mathematics and the sciences also grew. She lead the Platonist School of Alexandria, teaching Philosophy and Astronomy. Her father, Theon, taught her how to make not only a highly functional mind but also a healthy body. He taught her the different religions of the world and helped her to distinguish their difference. He also mainly taught her the fundamentals of teaching and the power of words that influence people. She later became a popular teacher and orator; and people from various far away areas came all the way to listen to her teaching. She was respected by many officials in the city including the Prefect of Alexandria, Orestes. He often asked for her counsel on administrative affairs. Orestes had a tension with the Partriarch Cyril, the Bishop of St. Mark, who had a mission to bring Christianity to Alexandria and to get rid of pagans and Jews from the city. One day, Orestes tortured one of the loyal supporters of Cyril, Hierax, in public because Hierax caused an uproar where many Jews and Christians congregated and presented. Cyril got very angry after he heard of this and the tension between Orestes and Cyril rose. Cyril made efforts to reconcile his differences with Orestes, but failed. Then Cyril begun to blame Hypatia for the failure of reconcile and started to spread a rumor that she was the cause of strained relations between the bishop and the prefect. In 415 during Lent, on her way home, a Christian mob attacked her. They stripped her naked and dragged her through the streets in front of the Christianised Caesareum church where they killed her. After her death, the bishop covered up her murder by his Christian followers and told people that she had moved to Athens. Hypatia’s life ended with this brutal murder, but many of her outstanding works remained. Her extraordinary impact on women in her time was an amazing accomplishment. Many considered her a woman with great knowledge, a most famous female scientist and excellent teacher.  By Yoon Joung Lee Chairman and CEO of Delta Private Equity Partners, Patricia Cloherty, is a manager at two venture capital funds: Apax Partners, the U.S. Russia Investment Fund and Delta Russia Fund, L.P. She started her first career in venture capital at Patricof & Co. Ventures, a $10 billion private equity company and now known as Apax Partners, in 1969. She worked there as a partner and later became president and co-chair of the company. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed her as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Two years later in 1979, her husband and she founded a small business firm, Tessler & Cloherty. In 1981, she founded and served as president for the Committee of 200, a prestigious organization of the country’s leading women entrepreneur and corporate executives. In 1991, she was appointed Chairman of an Investment Advisory Council by President George H.W. Bush. She contributed to improve the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Investment Company. In 1995, she was selected to the Board of the U.S. Russia Investment Fund by President Clinton with $440 million investment capital. There, she served as the Chairman from 1998 to 2004; and from 2003 to 2006, she served as the Chief Executive Officer of its management company. In 2007, she received an award from the Moscow Government for her efforts on the development of entrepreneurship in Russia and her contribution to establishment and support small business in the country. In the same year, she also received the Woodrow Institute award by the Kennan Center for International Scholars who have shown their efforts on common good in their business practices. She is currently a Trustee of Columbia University, a Trustee Emeritus of Columbia University’s Teachers College and a Trustee for Life of International House. Also, she is a member of the Rockefeller University Council. She graduated from the San Francisco College for Women in 1964 for her Bachelor’s degree, and earned two other Master’s degrees from Columbia University.  A pioneering British primatologist, Jane Goodall, was born in 1934 in London, England. Her father, Mortimer Herber Morris-Goodall was a businessman and her mother, Vanna Morris-Goodall was a successful novelist. When she was two years old, her father gave her a stuffed toy chimpanzee and she became interested in animals and dreamt of living with animals in Africa. The name of the toy chimpanzee is Jubilee and she still keeps it as her treasure. She often spent her time outdoors; observing hens laying eggs in a hen-house or playing with her dog named Rusty. Her mother was always a big supporter and encouraged her dream. Her parents divorced when she was a child. She lived with her mother and grandmother in Bournemouth, England. When she was nineteen, she moved back to London to work as a secretary as her mom suggested her that with secretarial skills she will be able to travel all over the world because these skills are needed anywhere in the world. She was in London for a while and went back to the little town, Bournemouth to work as a waitress to save money for her first trip. At age twenty three, she saved enough money to visit her friend in Kenya. This trip left her with lessons and inspirations. There, she met Louis Leaky, a Kenyan archaeologist and paleontologist, and he was looking for a secretary while at the National Museum. But after finding out how serious and methodical Goodall was, he sent Goodall to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania to do a study of chimps while he was raising the funding for the project. In 1960, it was decided that it was not proper for her to go into the wilds without a chaperone, her mother who was very close with Goodall went with her to Tanzania. They stayed in a tent for about four months to watch the chimpanzees. It took long hours to gain the trust of the chimpanzees. She patiently waited and watched them and they also watched her. She tracked them through the forests and gradually moved closer to the chimps until she was able to sit next to them. There, she discovered the behaviors and social relations of chimpanzees. They use nonverbal behaviors to show their emotions. They organize themselves in groups with complex social structures. They show affections toward parents and their peers. They also use simple tools to get termites out of mounds. In 1962, Leakey arranged to work on a doctorate degree at Cambridge University for Goodall. In 1965, she received a doctoral degree from Cambridge University without having earned an undergraduate degree. Her work caught the world’s attention was when National Geographic aired a television documentary about her research. Goodall later turned her attention to animal rights regarding laboratory animals or captive animals. She used her expertise and fame to work to set limits on the number of those animals and worked to improve conditions where animals were kept. With her efforts and works, she received many awards and honors including the Gold Medal of Conservation from the San Deigo Zoological Society, the National Geographic Society Centennial Award, the J.Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize and the third Gandi/King Award for Non Violence at the United Nation. She does not spend her time Africa anymore. Now she travels all over the world giving speeches and lectures three hundred days a year.  By Yoon Joung Lee The famous author of, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Julia Ward Howe, was born in New York City in 1819. Her father was a successful Wall Street banker, Samuel Ward and her mother was a published poet, Julia Rush Cutler, who was a granddaughter of William Greene, Governor of Rhode. Howe was the third of seven children. When she was five, her mother died shortly after giving birth to her seventh child and her father’s influence dominated the childrens’ lives. From an early age, Julia Ward was educated by tutors and private schools. She learned French from early childhood and began to learn Italian at 14. She was also able to speak German and read Latin and Greek. She was an intelligent child who utilized her family’s library to culturally expand herself, when women were very limited in their educational endeavors. Her family home had an extensive library and art gallery. At her library she became acquainted with writers such as Balzac and Sand without her father’s knowledge. The writer’s liberal and modern views contrasted with her father’s Calvinistic vision. In 1843, Julia met and married Samuel Gridley Howe who was famous for his work on behalf of the Greek Revolution, reform work for prisoners, and support of education for the blind. However, their marriage did not go well. They were separated after 9 years of marriage in 1852. Her husband wanted her to attend to “wifely duties” like rearing children and reading philosophy. She brought her two youngest kids to her sister’s place in Rome. Not too long after her return in 1954, she anonymously published her work “Passion Flowers,” a collection of poems. The poems were sensational by talking about the intimate affairs of a ‘real’ man and woman and the author’s identity quickly became an open secret. Around that time, she found a new resolution for her depression from her husband. She became involved in the reform movement and supported various issues like abolition, womens’ rights, prison reform and education. From her activities, she also met the Boston intellectual elite such as William Ellery Channing, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Theodore Parker. While her husband strongly objected to her outside works, he also depended heavily on his wife as editor and writer for his newspaper, The Commonwealth. Although Julia was prevented from some of the work she liked to be involved in, she tried her best to free herself from her husband’s demands and developed her own interests. When her poem, Battle Hymn of the Republic, was published in 1861 after she and her husband visited Washington D.C. and there met Abraham Lincoln at The White House, she became an instant celebrity and the poem became a national anthem of sorts. In 1870, she first proclaimed Mother’s Day, which she envisioned as a day of solemn council where women from all over the world discuss about the means to achieve world peace. From 1872 to 1879, she helped Lucy Stone and Henry Brown Blackwell in editing Woman’s Journal. In 1874 after her husband died, she focused more on her interests in reform. She founded the Association of American Women which advocated for womens’ education. She also worked for various organizations like the New England Womens’ Club, the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, the New England Suffrage Association, and the American Woman suffrage Association. In 1908, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters as the first woman. Julia Ward Howe died in 1910 at her home, Oak Glen in Rhode Island, at the age of 91. Her funeral services were held at Church of the Disciples and at Symphony Hall by overflowing crowds. In 1916, her children collaborated and published her biography and it won the Pulitzer Prize.  By Yoon Joung Lee Writer and African American activist, Maya Angelou was born in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. She spent her difficult formative years moving back and forth between her mother’s and grandmother’s. During her early years in Stamps, she experienced brutality from racial discrimination. But, she also learned the unshakable faith of African-American society and their values.When she was 8, her mother’s boyfriend raped her. The mother’s boyfriend got killed by her uncles later, but the event caused her to go mute for almost 6 years. During her teens and early twenties, her love for the arts made it possible to win a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. The arts for this little girl filled with her with isolation and experimentation. At 14, she dropped out of school and became San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor. She later finished high school and gave birth to a son, Guy, at age 16, a few weeks after graduation. To support her son, as a young single mother, she worked as a waitress and cook. But nothing could stop her passion for music, dance, performance and poetry; which would soon take her center stage. From 1954 to 1955, she toured Europe and Africa as part of the musical, Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham who was a prominent American modern dancer, often compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts. She was also on a variety of TV shows with Alvin Ailey, who is a founder of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in NY and is credited with popularizing modern dance. In 1957, she recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1960s, she returned to New York City to join the Harlem Writers Guild. There, she began her life as an actress in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom. She became involved in black activism. In 1957, she recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1960s, she returned to New York City to join the Harlem Writers Guild. There, she began her life as an actress in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom. She became involved in black activism. In 1960, she went to Egypt to serve as editor of the English language weekly, The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana to teach at the University of Ghana’s School of Music and Drama. She also worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times. During her time abroad, she mastered various languages; French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and the West African language Fanti, and she began to take her life, her activism and her writing more seriously. In 1964, she came back to America with Malcolm X, who she met in Ghana, to help him establish his new Organization of African American Unity. However, not too long after their arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated. The organization dissolved and Dr. Angelou was asked to serve as Northern Coordinator for Southern Christian Leadership Conference by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1968, around her birthday, King was assassinated. With the help of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she published her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1970. The novel tells of her first seventeen years. It earned enormous popular success internationally and was nominated for a National Book Award. Without her intention of writing a series, she wrote five additional volumes. Drawing from her own life experience in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she became the first African American woman who publicly shared her personal life and she is highly respected as a voice for African Americans. She has served on two presidential committees, received the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, and the Lincoln Medal in 2008. She also has received 2 Grammy Awards. In 1993, President Clinton requested her to compose a poem and read at his inauguration. Her poem, On the Pulse of the Morning, was broadcast live all over the world. Dr. Angelou will not stop energizing our spirits and bodies as well as healing our hearts by her words and actions.  Yoon Joung Lee Elouise Cobell, called Yellow Bird Woman in Blackfeet, was born in 1945 in Montana. Her great grandfather was the tribe’s famous leader, Mountain Chief. She received education from Great Falls Business College before she went to Seattle to work as an accountant. She married there and returned to Montana with her husband to work the land on her family’s ranch. While growing up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Northwest Montana, she often heard her family and neighbors question why they were not being paid for letting others use their land. The Indians received little or no payment, though the land was placed in trust with the promise that owners would be paid royalties for oil and gas, grazing or recreational leases. When she became treasurer of the tribe in 1976 with her background and experience in accounting, she became outraged as she dug more into how much money the government had misused. What made her even more upset was that the people the money belonged to were living in dire poverty on the Blackfeet reservation in Northwestern Montana. She found out that the money was misused and mismanaged since 1880, with amounts owed to the Blackfeet tribe being worth up to hundreds of billions of dollars. After over 14 years of tenacious efforts; 3,600 court filings; 220 days of trial; 80 published court decisions and 10 appeals, Elouise Cobell’s campaign ended in victory in 2009 with the 3.4-billion settlement. Although the sum awarded did not match her own estimation-as high as $27.5billion- of the stolen money from Indians by the American government, this is the largest government class-action settlement in American history. She was declared a warrior of the Blackfeet Nation and presented with an eagle feather during a tribal ritual in 2000. Without her tenacity and endless effort, it’s for sure there would have been no recognition of misdeeds in the world and compensation to soothe down the anger of mistreated Indians. Hopefully, the standard she set will continue. A hero of Native Americans, Elouise Cobell, died at a hospital in Great Falls, Montana by complications from cancer on Oct 17, 2011. She was 65.  by Yoon Joung Lee Magazine Vogue editor, Anna Wintour, was born in November 3, 1949 in London, England to a family with considerable wealth. She was the oldest child. Her father, Charles Wintour was an editor for the London Evening Standard and her mother, Elinor Wintour, was a philanthropist. From her early age, she demonstrated her interest in fashion and she did everything her own way. During North London Collegiate School, she wore skirts taken up at the hemlines to rebel against the school’s dress code. The is also when she first bobbed her hair, a style she still maintains. In 1970, she began her first career in fashion journalism. She was hired as an editorial assistant for Harper’s & Queen. In 1975, she moved to New York City to take over as a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Soon after she left Harper’s to work for Viva, a women’s adult magazine started by Kathy Keeton who managed Penthouse. At Viva, she started to reveal her own sense of fashion and direction and became a high-end managing editor. In 1980, for a short period of time, she worked for Savvy, a new womens’ magazine appealing to career-conscious professional women who spend their own money. The next year, she became a fashion editor of New York. There, her work finally started attracting attention. In 1986, she married David Shaffer, South African psychiatrist and returned back to London to serve British Vogue as a chief editor. In 1987, she returned to New York to work for House & Garden. Due to its rival Architectural Digest, the company wanted to give her a chance to improve it. She made radical changes on HG, but the changes didn’t make the magazine’s financial situation any better. She didn’t stay at HG too long. About a year later in 1988, she became an editor for Vogue. As an editor, she made innovative changes, such as adding articles about women in politics and street culture. She also called an end to the supermodel era. She picked celebrities for covers with mix low-end fashion items. She introduced not only well-known designers but also newer designers and their styles. In recent years, she has become a powerful broker between designers and retailers. She is very competitive like all people who represent the best of what they do. Although she developed a reputation for being cold and aloof, she is a sweet mother of two kids at home and seeks perfection in her profession.  By Yoon Joung Lee One of Japan’s greatest novelists during the Heian period and the author of The Tale of Gengi, Murasaki Shikibu was born c. 973 in Kyoto, Japan into the Fukiwara family, whose men dominated the highest positions in the imperial government. During her childhood, she was very smart and intelligent. She always learned things more quickly than her brother. Therefore, her father allowed her to study with her brother, although it was inappropriate to educate women as much as men at that time. In 966 in her early 20s, she married her father’s friend Fujiwara no Nobutake who was a much older distant cousin. In 999, her only daughter was born. Two years later in 1001, her husband died. In 1006 not too long after her husband’s death, she was brought to court for her outstanding talent on writing stories and her brilliant mind. While she was in court, she wrote a diary showing a vivid account of court life and her thoughts. It is not clear whether she started The Tale of the Genji before or after she came to court. However, much of her work was written in court. This long novel relveals the complications of a fictitious prince, Genji, his life and his amorous adventures. The story pictures Japanese court life during the Heian period. There are also the portraits of the women in Prince Genji’s life in the novel and they are described individually with their different talents such as music, drawing, and poetry. The conclusion reveals a Buddhist point of view to enjoy life and earthly existence. The Tale of Gengi was copied and transferred to many different languages worldwide. It is speculated to be the world's first novel. Although it is not certain about the date of her death, she likely passed away shortly after she completed the famous novel, The Tale of Genji, at the age of forty or so. |
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