Jean Margaret (Peggy) Wemyss was born in Neepewa, Manitoba on July 18, 1926 to Robert Harrison Wemyss, a lawyer, and Verna Jean, nee Simpson. Margaret’s mother died when she was only four and her father later married her sister, Margaret Cambell Simpson, a teacher and later a librarian. She was throughout the years one of Margaret’s "greatest encouragers." After her father’s death, when she was nine and her brother still a baby, the family went to live with Grandfather Simpson in his big brick house on first avenue.
	After graduating from high school in 1944, Margaret attended United College (now the University of Winnipeg), and was an assistant editor of the college paper, Vox. She graduated from United College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1946, and married John Fergus Laurence on September on September 13, 1947, in the Neepewa United Church. She then worked for a time as a reporter for the Winnipeg Citizen.
	In 1950, after living for a year in England, Margaret and her husband moved to British Somaliland. While there, she wrote a translation of Somali prose and poetry, "A Tree for Poetry." A travel book, "The Prophet’s Camel Bell," written some years later, describes the Laurences’ experience in Somaliland. They moved to Accra, Ghana in 1952, with their 2-month-old daughter Jocelyn. During their five years in Africa, Margaret produced her first novel, "This Side Jordan," which won the 1961 Beta Sigma Phi Award for the best first novel by a Canadian. A collection of short stories, "The Tomorrow Tamer," Written a few years later, is also set in West Africa. Out of her African years came an interest in contemporary literature by Africans, which resulted in her study of Nigerian fiction and drama, Long Drums and Cannons. The Laurences’ son, David, was born in Ghana in 1955.
	After having Africa, they moved to Vancouver for five years. During this time Margaret wrote "The Christmas as Birthday Story." They then moved to England for seven years. In the ten-year period, 1964-1974, the Manawaka books were published: "The Stone Angel" (1964), "A Jest of God" (1969), "The Fire Dweller’s" (1969), "A Bird in the House" (1970), and "The Diviner’s" (1974).
John Eaton died in 1856, leaving Margaret a small fortune. She lived in Washington DC with her two daughters, both of whom married into high society. It seemed as though Margaret finally had the societal life and respect she had always wanted. She changed all of that when, at the age of 59, she married her granddaughter’s 19 year old dance tutor, Antonio Buchignani. A mere five years later, he ran off to Italy with her money and her granddaughter.
Louise Bernice Halfe was born in 1953 in Two Hills, Alberta. Her Cree name is SkyDancer. She grew up a member of the Saddle Lake Reserve and at the age of 7 was sent to the Blue Quills Residential School in St. Paul, Alberta. . After leaving the school at the age of 16, she attended St. Paul’s Regional High School where she began to journal about her life experiences. (McNally Robinson)
All types of music require musicians. In the H.R (Harlem Renaissance), there were many who contributed to this new style of music known as jazz. These musicians all have their own style and form. Each of these styles has in some way influenced the evolution of jazz. Louis “Sachmo” Armstrong is recognized as the most famous trumpet player of this time. His “hot bop” style was heard in places like the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theatre. Everyone from all over the country would come to see him. Armstrong recorded such works as I’m in the Mood for Love, and You Rascal you (http://library.thinkquest.org/26656/english/music.html). Another famous person during this era was Coleman Hawkins, a saxophone player. Hawkins is recognized as the first great saxophonists of Jazz. His most famous work was a piece named Body and Soul (http://library.thinkquest.org…). Hawkins has also recorded with artists such as Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. Other people such as Bessie Smith, Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington, and “Dizzie” Gillespie have also made many contributions to the development of Jazz.
For the purpose of this chapter, these words by Stephen Vincent Benet in his foreword to Margaret Walker’s first volume of poetry, For My People (1942) are really important. They give an idea about the richness of the literary heritage from which Walker started to write and to which she later added. This chapter is up to explore those “anonymous voices” in Walker’s poetry, the cultural and literary heritages that influenced her writings. Margaret Walker’s cultural heritage, like her biological inheritance, extends back to her ancestors in Africa and the Caribbean. It is quite genetic, something she got by birth; which is quite there just by being African American. Echoes of ancient myths, lost history, mixed bloods, and complex identities are brought about along with the skin colour and the racial origins.
Jeannette Rankin was born in Missoula, Montana, 9 years before it became a state, on June 11, 1880. She was born to a school teacher, Olive Rankin, and a carpenter, John Rankin. Rankin was the oldest of six siblings, seven before her sister died as a child. As a child she did her part on the farm and at home. Her duties included cleaning, sewing, and caring for her younger siblings. Maintaining
In the book Margaret Sanger: A life of passion by Jean H. Baker. Margaret Sanger, the subject depicted in Baker’s novel Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion is one of the leading women in the fight for birth control. Born in 1879 to Irish immigrant parents in Corning, New York she is the 6th of 11 children. Her mother was a devout Catholic and had a total of 18 pregnancies in her 22 year marriage 11 of which were births and 7 were miscarriages. “My mother died at 48”, says Sanger “My father died at 80”. Her mother was a victim of tuberculosis not long after her last child was born. Sanger grew up in poverty and soon realized that bigger families were associated with lower means. Sanger was not one for domesticated duties and soon defied social norms and went to nursing school her aspirations included becoming a doctor. She did not complete nursing school she instead married William Sanger, an architect and artist. They settled into domestic life for a short time in the suburbs. Together they had three children, two sons and a daughter. Soon a fire consumed their home and this was the turning point for Sanger. The family then moved back to the city and Sanger became a nurse. Their daughter would later die of pneumonia at a very young age due to horrible conditions at her boarding school. The two older sons would eventually grow to blame Sanger for her death and she would divorce her husband and maintain the company of several men after. Despite the number of suitors she acquires she will be single when she dies.
Born and raised in a family of storytellers, it’s no wonder that this author, Louise Erdrich became a prolific writer. Louise was born in Little Falls, Minnesota. She grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, near the Chippewa Reservation with her mom, who had Native American roots and her dad who was of German descent. Her parents encouraged and challenged her at an early age to read, also to write stories and even paid her a nickel for each one that she wrote. Lorena Stookey states that Louise Erdrich’s style of writing is “like William Faulkner, she creates a fictional world and peoples it with multiple narrators whose voices commingle to shape her readers’ experience of that world” (Stookey 14). Louise writes this moving story “The Shawl” as she is haunted by the sorrows of the generations of her people, the Anishinaabeg. I initially saw this tale as a very complex reading, but after careful reading and consideration, saw it as a sad and compelling story.
Edward Kennedy Ellington, American jazz composer, orchestrator, bandleader, and pianist, is considered to be the greatest composer in the history of jazz music and one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. He composed over 2000 works and performed numerous concerts during his musical career. A compilation of some of his most popular music is collected on a CD called "The Popular Duke Ellington."
Narratives such as Rowlandson’s gave a voice to women in the realm of written words, but at the cost of the Native voice. According to the website www.maryrowlandson.com,
In the 1920s a new kind of music rose in New Orleans. Different from the ballroom songs popular in that day, former slaves and their families created this new music called jazz, which spread like wildfire. Many artists influenced the growth of this great type of music including Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Louis Armstrong played as one of these great men. Growing up in a poor section of the “Birthplace of Jazz”, Armstrong taught himself to play the trumpet, also known as the cornet. Louis Armstrong was the most influential jazz trumpet player to walk this earth due to his own created style of jazz including many songs that are still used today.
Margaret Sanger, born September 14, 1879, was a women’s rights activist who led the birth control movement and dedicated her life to fighting for access to sexual health information for women. The impact of her work can still be felt today as reproductive health is no longer a forbidden topic and access to birth control or other contraceptives is mainstream. Sanger fought for women to have access to sexual health information so they could properly educated themselves about the control they have over their own bodies. In order to understand where the world is now with sexual health, it is important to understand the world in which Sanger started her work.
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.
Created and defined by Dr. Robert Butler in 1968, ageism is the “systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against older people because they are old, just a racism and sexism accomplishes this with skin color and/or gender” (Butler, 1975). Ageism is persistent and evident in the medical field, media, academia and advertising/marketing. Most social platforms displays hero’s in light of being younger. The workplace as a microcosm of society reflects the stereotypes and biases that are part of our culture and social environment. The most significant formal acknowledgement of ageism in the workplace was the adoption of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in 1967 by means of President Lyndon B. Johnson (Dennis & Thomas,
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 is an act that was passed that clearly states that employers can’t be discriminate against someone based on their age 40 and older. The older adults are trying so hard to hold onto their jobs with dear life, because if not they will be nudged out and pushed aside. Not because of anything but rather because of their age. Age discrimination is on the rise as young as 50 years old. Age discrimination can happen to anyone regardless of your race, ethnic backgrounds or sexual orientation. A study was published in the Journal of Age Ageing and in the report it said that British People 50 years old and older faces discrimination about one third of them. In a resent survey older adults says job insecurity
Lindberg, Laurie. "Wordsmith and Woman: Morag Gunn's Triumph Through Language." New Perspectives on Margaret Laurence: Poetic Narrative, Multiculturalism, and Feminism. Ed. Greta M. K. McCormick Coger. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. 187-201.