Welcome to Week 3 of the Focus Features special initiative, “19 Days of Suffrage," to celebrate the powerful film Suffragette, as it releases in theaters nationwide through Thanksgiving. These 19 Days are in honor of the 19th Amendment, which granted women in the United States the right to vote in 1919.
Did you know that the U.S. Department of the Treasury is currently in the process of deciding which inspiring American woman will appear on the $10 bill in 2020? This week we would love for you to think about women through history who have inspired you. Who do you think would be a worthy candidate for #TheNew10? Perhaps you might consider women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony, civil rights activists Rosa Parks & Harriet Tubman, mental health rights activist Dorothea Dix, or disability rights activist Helen Keller. Who else would get your vote? It’s amazing to think that, despite their accomplishments, they #CouldntVote in their lifetimes!
Enjoy these new clips on themes related to the movie:
“Maud" Featurette Clip
“Rebellion" Featurette Clip
WOMEN’S FIRSTS IN THE SCIENCES
* 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States. She went on to open the first UK medical school for women in 1874.
* 1903 – Marie Curie is the first women to win a Nobel Prize, in 1903, and was the first person to win a second Nobel, in 1911.
* 1925 – Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin demonstrates for the first time from existing evidence on the spectra of stars that stars were made up almost exclusively of hydrogen and helium, one of the most fundamental theories in stellar astrophysics.
* 1932 – Amelia Earhart is the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
* 1944 – Maud Menten conducts the first electrophoretic separation of proteins.
* 1947 – Gerti Cori is the first American woman, third woman overall, to win the Nobel Prize in science for her discovery of the mechanism by which glycogen is transformed in the muscles to form lactic acid, and is later reformed as a way to store energy.
* 1983 – Sally Ride is the first American woman in space. It was later revealed she was also the first known LGBT astronaut.
* 1991 – Ellen Ochoa is the first Hispanic female astronaut.
* 1992 – Mae C. Jemison flew into space aboard the Endeavour, becoming the first African-American woman in space.
* 2008 – Penny Sackett is the first female Chief Scientist of Australia.
* 2009 – Ada Yonath is the first Middle Eastern woman to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome.
Academy Award nominees Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, lead the cast of a powerful drama about the women who were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality in early 20th-century Britain. The stirring story centers on Maud (played by Carey Mulligan), a working wife and mother whose life is forever changed when she is secretly recruited to join the U.K.’s growing Suffragette movement. Galvanized by the outlaw fugitive Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), Maud becomes an activist for the cause alongside women from all walks of life. When increasingly aggressive police action forces Maud and her dedicated fellow Suffragettes underground, they engage in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with the authorities, who are shocked as the women’s civil disobedience escalates and sparks debate across the nation. Inspired by true events, Suffragette is a moving drama exploring the passion and heartbreak of those who risked all they had for women’s right to vote -- their jobs, their homes, their children, and even their lives.
Produced by Academy Award nominee Alison Owen and Golden Globe Award nominee Faye Ward, Suffragette is directed by BAFTA Award winner Sarah Gavron from an original screenplay by Emmy Award winner Abi Morgan.
Follow the film on social media:
Official Twitter
Official Facebook
Official Film Site
#Suffragette #FightsNotOver
Disclosure: I received Suffragette promotional items as a thank-you for joining this blog tour.