Answers to Questions 21 - 30

21. Q. What Congresswoman helped draft the G.I. Bill, a piece of legislation that historians frequently say was one of the most influential and beneficial of the twentieth century?

A. Edith Nourse Rogers (1881-1960)
After filling in the vacancy caused by the death of her husband, U.S. Representative John Jacob Rogers, Edith Nourse Rogers was re-elected seventeen times to office.  In 1944, she helped draft the G.I. Bill of Rights for veterans, which gave returning World War II veterans the opportunity to go to college, obtain job training, and receive low-interest loans to buy houses.  Prior to this time, primarily only the wealthy could attend college and own a home, so allowing returning veterans of all social classes to do so changed the nation’s economy and landscape and increased the size of the middle class.

22. Q. Who co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that watches for and fights against discrimination based on characteristics like race, gender, class, disabilities, and sexual orientation?

A. Crystal Eastman (1881-1928)

23. Q. What scientists’ discovery led to the creation of laws mandating milk pasteurization to prevent disease?

A. Alice Evans (1881-1975)
Evans worked researching the bacteriology of milk and cheese for the dairy division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  From her studies, she identified a bacterial infection that could cause undulating fevers in humans and published her findings in 1918.  Researchers, veterinarians, and physicians were skeptical of her claim and dairy workers laughed at her warning that raw milk should be pasteurized to prevent people from developing a disease.  However, other scientists came to the same conclusion and by the 1930s, the government enacted milk pasteurization laws.  Evans’ discovery was one of the most medically important of the 20th century for this reason.  Later she became the first woman president of the American Society of Bacteriologists and promoted female scientific careers.

24. Q. The first “seeing eye” dog school in America was opened by whom?

A. Dorothy Eustis (1886-1946)
An American dog trainer working in Switzerland, Eustis learned about the guide dog methods practiced there and wrote an article about it for the Saturday Evening Post in America in 1927.  A blind American man heard about the article and wrote to Eustis, asking her to help him introduce guide dogs in the United States.  She trained a dog for him and opened a Nashville school in 1929 to teach sightless people and dogs to work together.  Eustis’s work led to the launching of an international guide dog movement, helping thousands of seeing-impaired people live more normal lives.

25. Q. What pioneering anthropologist coined the word “racism” and promoted the theory of cultural relativism?

A. Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)
Throughout her career, Benedict made major contributions to the world’s understanding of cultural diversity.  While studying various cultures, Benedict realized that aspects of a culture which seem odd can only be understood by studying the culture as a whole.  She advised that it was wrong to persecute others for their customs and values because they mean something to the people in that culture.  Other cultures must be evaluate by their standards; cultures and morality are relative.  She wrote her conclusions in six books, including Patterns of Culture (1934), and Race: Science and Politics (1940), both of which were considered major works of intellectual history of the twentieth century

26. Q. What actress dubbed “America’s Sweetheart” was the first woman to own her own production company?

A. Mary Pickford (1892-1979).
Not only was Pickford Hollywood's first international superstar but she significantly helped shape the film business.  A professional actress since age six, by age twenty-four she founded her own production company due to her frustration with how little actors made compared to the films’ producers.  In 1919, after realizing the real money was earned in film distribution, Pickford co-founded United Artists with people like Charlie Chaplin to distribute the films they produced.  This organization gave actors more artistic control and a share in the enormous profits.  Additionally, Pickford spearheaded the founding of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Oscar awards in 1927.

27. Q. What civil rights activists co-founded and served as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization usually connected with Martin Luther King, Jr.?

A. Ella Baker (1903-1986)
Starting her career in 1935 with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), by 1954 Baker was elected president of the New York City branch of NAACP.  In the late 1950s, she helped create SCLC to fight racism, working behind the scenes while King acted as the public figure.  Baker helped organize more than 65 affiliates across the country.  Baker also supported the idea of a student-run organization and helped students found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  SNCC organized many successful voter registration drives and worked to desegregate public facilities in the South.

28. Q.  Which women’s reform group worked for over 30 years to the abolish child labor so that all children could have mandatory, free education?

A.  The National Child Labor Committee
In 1904, social reformers Lillian D. Wald (1867-1940) and Florence Kelly (1859-1932) founded the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC).  Although children were required to attend elementary school in most states by 1900, hundreds of poor children still worked long hours in factories instead of attending school.  The NCLC lobbied for a federal ban of child labor, and in 1938, their work led to the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  The Act prohibits people under the age of 16 from working, so since then, all children, both rich and poor, have been able to attend school. 

29. Q. What woman broke the record for swimming the English Channel and increased the public’s acceptance of female athletes through her great swimming talent?

A. Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle (1906-2003)
Ederle learned to swim as a young child and started competing in swimming meets as a teenager.  At age eighteen, she won three Olympic gold medals in swimming, an event that only opened to women twelve years earlier.  Two years later, Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, a thirty-five mile distance, and finished in fourteen hours, thirty-one minutes, nearly two hours better than the previous male record-holder.  She was proud to prove all the people wrong who believed women were not physically and emotionally capable of such great athleticism.  Her accomplishments helped open the doors for other female athletes.  She went on to achieve twenty-nine U.S. and world swimming records

30. Q. Whose book Silent Spring (1962) helped shape America’s environmental consciousness? 

A. Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

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