The number of female-owned businesses grew by 83 percent in North Carolina since 1997, ranking the state's growth at 3rd in the nation, according to a study by American Express that uses U.S. Census data.
This boosts Nort Carolina to 8th place in the number of firms that are owned by women, up from 12th place in 1997.
Increases in revenue, however, have failed to keep up with the rise in the number of firms. Revenue from these companies has grown by 44 percent, 11th-worst in the country.
I write about freebies all the time on this blog, but here's one that's special.
Several Triangle cleaning businesses are involved in a national effort to provide free maid services to women battling cancer.
If you're battling cancer or know of a Triangle woman who is, please be sure to share this information with her.
Click here to find out more information about the national Cleaning for a Reason Foundation. Click on the locations tab, put in your Zip Code and a list of maid service companies in your area will be displayed.
She was 94 years old and the only Confederate widow living in the home dedicated to widows and daughters of Confederate soldiers, but she had once been one of the young girls who found themselves marrying "widowers or older bachelors, then referred to as 'Southern gentlemen.'"
One characteristic of the early 1900s was the development of women's organizations focusing on self-improvement. It was during this time that book clubs began to flourish, and many continue today. One, the Twentieth Century Book Club, has marked its centennial year with a year-long celebration.
The At the Speed of a Girl exhibit will include items like Girl Scout badges from 1912 to 1928, uniforms, canteens and the Knife and Axe Skills Book from 1953. There is also an official Girl Scout box-type camera from the 1950s and a bugle that was advertised as a “must” for every troop in the 1920s and 1930s.
When the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution gave women the right to vote in 1920, it was without the help of North Carolina legislators.
The women's suffrage amendment, also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, had been ratified by 35 of the necessary 36 states when 63 of the 120 North Carolina House members signed a telegram sent to the Tennessee legislature urging them to vote NO.
We, the undersigned members of the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of North Carolina, constituting a majority of said body, send greetings to the General Assembly of Tennessee, and assure you that we will not ratify the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, interfering with the sovereignty of Tennessee and other States of the Union. We most respectfully request that this measure be not forced upon the people of North Carolina.
Two days later, Tennessee did ratify the amendment, and women's right to vote became law. The North Carolina House went on to reject the amendment, but the Senate tabled their vote. And there it sat for the next fifty years.
Goldsboro's Gertrude Weil had been in the forefront of the suffragette movement and was undeterred by the struggle.
Her father had arrived in Goldsboro from Germany shortly after the Civil War. She was born in 1879 in the West Chestnut Street house her father had built and where she would live her entire life.
Her parents infused her with a sense of social responsibility that was strengthened by her education at Horace Mann, an exclusive prep school in New York City, and Smith College in Northampton, Mass. In 1901, Miss Weil became the first North Carolina graduate of Smith.
In college, Miss Weil read John Stewart Mill, Henry George, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels.
Her philosophy blended a critique of capitalism with the Progressivism of muckraking journalists and labor leaders.
[...]
In 1914, she played a vital role in establishing the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League and was president of the organization from 1919 to 1920. She later founded the North Carolina League of Women Voters and went on to fight for a study of the harsh labor conditions in North Carolina factories. Her efforts continued through bloody strikes at factories in Marion and Gastonia in 1928.
[...]
"I have never understood," she said, "why we have to work so hard for things that seem so obvious. Why should you have to get up and make speeches to treat people right?"
She believed that racism and poverty had deep roots. It was the job of an activist not only to help solve individual injustices, but to attack the roots of social ills. -- The News & Observer 3/16/1984
In 1965, N&O writer Betsy Marsh interviewed Miss Weil about the many awards and honors she had received and found her characteristically modest.
Back in the early years of the 1900s Miss Weil became active in efforts to get the vote for women. She has been credited with initiating the suffrage movement in North Carolina, but she insists she was only a small part of it.
"Please make it clear that I didn't start all the organizations I've been credited with," she said.
"The North Carolina Suffrage League was organized in 1916 or thereabout by Mrs. Archibald Henderson in Chapel Hill," she recalls.
Miss Gertrude worked at it with such enthusiasm that she was elected president of the state organization -- serving in 1920, the year that the North Carolina General Assembly considered -- and failed to ratify -- the woman suffrage amendment to the Constitution.
When the legislature met in special session that year, Miss Weil and her suffragettes went to Raleigh to plead their cause. "I guess I never was a politician," she confides. "I never could tell after I talked with a lawmaker whether he was for us or against us." Apparently they were against them.
The legislature failed to ratify the amendment, and the opportunity for North Carolina to make suffrage for women the law of the land slipped by. "Only one more state was needed to make it law," said Miss Weil. "The honor went to Tennessee." -- The News & Observer 3/14/1965
North Carolina finally did ratify the amendment on May 6, 1971, just 24 days before Miss Weil's death at age 91.
See more photos and writings of Gertrude Weil at the Jewish Women's Archive.
Durham's female football team, the Carolina Phoenix, will host the Philadelphia Firebirds at 7 p.m. Saturday in Durham County Stadium.
Tickets are $10, with children under 12 admitted free.
For more information, see www.carolinaphoenixfootball.com.
"Chick Night" is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 24, at Cleveland Community Church, 8246 Cleveland Road in the Cleveland community. The night out is for women and for girls in sixth grade and higher. Those attending are asked to bring toilet paper, tissues, napkins and paper towels. The items will go to local women's ministries.
