Hello readers! As I wrote yesterday, this week I’ll be posting every night so I can reach my 100th post on Saturday to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of something I like. See yesterday’s post for a clue as to what that is. Tonight’s post will be short and sweet because I’ve spent the majority of the evening defrosting my freezer in hopes that it and the refrigerator will work better after discovering everything a little too warm this morning. Many thanks to my workplace for letting me stuff food into the lunchroom fridge and freezer this morning!
I’ve written a little before about one of my favorite heroes, Harriet Tubman. Her journeys changed history as well as saved lives. Tonight’s post celebrates another traveling Harriet, the renowned explorer Harriet Chalmers Adams. She was born in Stockton, California in 1875 and died in France in 1937.
Adams travelled over an estimated 100,000 miles or more over the course of her life, exploring nearly every continent. She stayed and studied many of the cultures in these places, as well as the linguistic branches of Native American tribes in the USA. National Geographic first published articles and photos of hers in 1907, and she became the first lecturer to use color slides of her trips. During World War I, she was the only female war correspondent allowed to visit the front lines in France. She became the first woman president of the Society of Woman Geographers while recovering from an injury that would presumably keep her from ever walking again. Two years later, she travelled to North Africa. (Information in this paragraph from Wikipedia and from “Women Explorer Knowledge Cards”, copyright Sharon M. Hannon, Published by Pomegranate Communications, Inc.).
She once wrote, “I’ve wondered why men have so absolutely monopolized the field of exploration. Why did women never go to the Arctic, try for one pole or the other, or invade Africa, Thibet, or unknown wildernesses? I’ve never found my sex a hinderment; never faced a difficulty which a woman, as well as a man, could not surmount; never felt a fear of danger; never lacked courage to protect myself. I’ve been in tight places and have seen harrowing things.” (“Woman Explorer’s Hazardous Trip in South America”, The New York Times, August 18, 2012).
Adams seems to me an amazing force to be reckoned with. A person who does not let anything keep her from going where she wants to go. She did these things in an era when women weren’t allowed to do much because society didn’t think they could do much. Wow, did she ever prove them wrong! I need to remember her the next time I doubt if I can do what I need or want to do. And now I need to find out how to be in the Society of Woman Geographers, if it still exists. Thank you for your inspiration, Harriet Chalmers Adams.
And I’m finally off to bed, just in time for this post to count for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which is TBD.
The Compass Rose Queen 