Celebrating Black History Month: Crystal Bird Fauset, first African American woman elected to state legislator

Crystal Bird Fauset, born June 27, 1893 in Princess Anne, Maryland, was the first female African American to elected as state legislator in the US.  She was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1938, based in Philadelphia, receiving 7000 votes in an area 66% white at the time.

She received her BS in education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1931. She helped establish the Institute of Race Relations at Swarthmore College in 1933.  In 1935, she became assistant to the director of Philadelphia's Works Progress Administration, and ended a racial quota system for sewing jobs which helped increase black women's access to employment. 

Fauset resigned from the state legislature to begin a new position as the assistant director of the education and recreation of the WPA, as well as its race relations advisor in Pennsylvania.

She passed away in March 1965.

Celebrating Black History Month: Hattie McDaniel, first African-American to win an Oscar

Actress Hattie McDaniel, born June 10, 1893 in Wichita, Kansa, busted race barriers in Hollywood when she won an Oscar, becoming the first African-American to win an Academy Award.  She received the honor for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Mammy in Gone With The Wind.

She was not allowed to sit in the main room where the awards were being handed out because black people were not permitted.  She was also not allowed to attend the premiere in Atlanta, Georgia.  Clark Gable, a good friend of hers, threatened to boycott the premiere but Hattie convinced him to attend.

She passed away in October 1952 from breast cancer.  

Celebrating Native American Heritage Month: Joseph Clark, first Native American to graduate from US Naval Academy

Joseph "Jocko" Clark, born November 12, 1893 in the Cherokee Nation, in Indian Territory, is the first Native American to graduate from the US Naval Academy.  Jocko attended Willie Halsell College, Oklahoma Agriculture and Mechanical College (now OSU), before being appointed to the Naval Academy.  He graduated as ensign when he graduated in 1917. 

He served aboard the USS North Carolina during WWI.  After the war, he graduated as a naval aviator from NAS Pensacola in Florida in March 1925.  

He was stationed on the USS Yorktown when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  In 1944, Clark was promoted to Rear Admiral.  Subsequently, he was assigned to command the USS Hornet and commanded his task group in conjunction with Task Force in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. 

He served during the Korean War and was promoted to Vice Admiral commanding the 7th fleet before retiring from the Navy in December 1953, with the rank of Admiral.  He passed away in July 1971. 

Celebrating Black History Month: Frederick McKinley Jones, first African-American to receive the National Medal of Technology

Frederick McKinley Jones, born May 17, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio was an African-American inventor who was awarded 61 patents over his lifetime.  After serving in the US Army during WWI, he went back to Hallock, Minnesota where he had lived prior to the war.  He built a transmitter for the new radio station in town.  He invented a device to combine sound with motion pictures, since the local theater could not afford the speaker system for "talkies". 

About 1938, Jones designed a cooling system that made it possible to transport food over long distances without spoiling.  These portable cooling units were used during WWII to preserve blood, medicine and food which were so important to army hospitals.  His inventions helped save thousands of lives.

He passed away in Minneapolis in 1961.  In 1977, he was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame.  In 1991, then President George Bush awarded the National Medal of Technology to Joseph Numero, who hired Jones in 1930, and Fred Jones, making Jones the first African-American to win the award.

Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery writer, born 1893

Dorothy Leigh Sayers, born June 13, 1893, is probably best know for her mystery series featuring aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.  She began her professional career as a copywriter at S. H. Benson's advertising agency which was the largest in England at the time.  She collaborated with an artist, John Gilroy, on Guiness' Zoo campaign, for which she was quite successful.  It was at her advertising agency where she started getting the ideas for a mystery series.

Lord Peter Wimsey's first adventure Whose Body? was published in 1923 and became a successful serires with 11 novels 2 sets of short stories.

Sayers passed away December 17, 1957 from a coronary thrombosis.