Working Women All Through History: Blacksmiths, Silversmiths, Nail Makers

If you thought that "Kate the Blacksmith" was an anachronism in A Knight's Tale... she wasn't. (Well except for her dialect... and maybe her attitude...)  Despite the feminist mythology, women have engaged, openly and profitably, in almost every occupation in every era in the western, Christian world.

In the 14th Century Holkham Bible, this illustration shows a woman blacksmith forging a nail. Note the assumption in the caption, written by a modern author, that she is "the Blacksmith's wife".  Maybe she was and maybe she wasn't... what the factual record shows is a woman working at a forge with hammer and tongs.

In the brief article "Blacksmithing of the 18th Century", the author notes that the demand for nails was huge, and making them was a common sideline for people, including women - even those women who were not full-fledged master smiths.

The Bodleian Library blog has an interesting article about "Lizzie Bennett, Blacksmith":

" An account of blacksmithing work done in December 1708 by Eliz[abeth] Bennett at Blenheim ‘Castle’, her job included making 32 dozen holdfasts for the joiners (at 2 shillings a dozen), making new handles for three saws, mending a pump in the meadows, and making wedges and clouts (patches or plates) used in the stairs. But in addition to making items for a fixed price, she also charged for work by the pound weight. Twenty five pounds of iron works for a grindstone at 4 pence a pound earned her 8s 4d (100 pence total) and 31 pounds of wedges and clouts, also at 4 pence a pound, made her 10s 4d.The total for what would have been several days or weeks of highly skilled work? 4 pounds, 17 shillings, 2 pence. Not bad at all if you compare it to a female servant’s income at about that time – maidservant Sarah Sherin made £4 a year in 1717, while in the farming world, a female labourer called Goody Currell was paid 4 pence a day at an Oxfordshire farm in 1759, fifty years later."

An article from the Colonial Williamsburg journal:

"The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths in London lists sixty-five "brethren" and two "sistren" in its 1434 charter."

"A 1770 publication called The Tradesman's True Guide or a Universal Directory for the Towns of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsal, Dudley and the manufacturing village in the neighborhood of Birmingham carries exhaustive lists of tradesmen and -women alphabetically by name and by trade. There are women listed in every trade from butcher to wire drawer."

"Only recently did a Colonial Williamsburg interpreter look closely at a nineteenth-century print that had been hanging on the wall at the Geddy House for years: a portion of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard Illustrated features a country blacksmith shop where four men are working, and in the right-hand corner, a woman hammers at an anvil rather inconspicuously. A 1505 Polish print is centered on a lovely woman at a spindle, but a careful inspection of the background shows a woman making a shoe on her knee."

The article notes the big error in modern & postmodern Feminist History: the idea that women "weren't allowed to work" doesn't hold up to scrutiny:

"What is more compelling is the lack of documentation that women were not allowed to work. Although religious practices and social norms might have restricted certain activities in some parts of the world, there were no laws prohibiting women from working a trade.

"Yet sometimes scholars and guests have a hard time accepting the notion that women did just that. Schumann says that "the greatest obstacle for the visitor is in accepting Rind as an eighteenth-century woman, and not a 'born-before-her-time' women's libber."

As I point out when demonstrating Letterpress Printing, an ordinary occupation of women since Gutenberg's time, women have always worked for pay - they had to make a living, then as now. This author agrees:
".... no matter what century it is, women have always done what is necessary to provide for themselves and their families."

Sign of the Times: Voice Of The Deplorables

This billboard was paid for by a businessman in Boerne, Texas! It reads "ABC News: I grew up with you. We are through. The Russians didn't elect Donald Trump. I did. Kyle Courtney "

At Accuracy In Media, Don Irvine reports:

 "[Kyle] Courtney released the following statement to News4 in San Antonio:
“ABC News was the only channel I watched as a child growing up in Texas but I think they have lost touch with America and forgotten the working man. They don’t represent our voice anymore. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was funded by the Clinton Foundation in close coordination with the media, and now we’re seeing them try to fix what they couldn’t fix during the election. They are doing everything they can, night after night, to create narratives and sway people’s direction to impeach Donald Trump. Our democracy is at stake when a major political party and the media are in bed together. I’m not asking anyone to boycott the Democratic party. I’m not in the brainwashing business, but the liberal media is.” "

Thank you, and God bless you, Mr. Courtney. Many millions of us share your thinking -and also proudly voted FOR Donald John Trump without apology or equivocation.




*Photo Credit: Wellstar Groundwater Technologies, Mr Courtney's company

UNICEF/WHO-Sponsored "Botched Vaccine Campaign For Measles Killed 15 Children"

Were the lives of fifteen little boys and girls who died unnecessarily "worth it" for the UN to push its goals of counting vaccines by the numbers, instead of by the person?

The UN/Feminists' continual push to vaccinate against low-fatality diseases without using proper facilities, personnel, and supplies in undeveloped or unstable areas that lack basic services or education, is misguided at best. And as NPR reports, has potentially deadly consequences.

In this case, a WHO/UNICEF program failed horribly, resulting in a Measles vaccine campaign where errors killed 5% of all who received the shots, and sickened 10% of recipients.

Malaka Gharib writes on June 2nd at NPR, in an article titled "A Botched Vaccine Campaign For Measles Killed 15 Children in South Sudan" :
"[Fifteen] children, all under age 5, died of severe sepsis and toxicity due to a botched vaccination campaign, according to a joint statement issued Thursday by UNICEF and the World Health Organization. ... In addition to the deaths, 32 children were sickened from the 300-person vaccination campaign in South Sudan. "
"...The vaccine had been left unrefrigerated. One syringe was reused over the course of four days.
"The campaign, which took place in early May in the rural town of Kapoeta, was part of an effort by the South Sudanese government to vaccinate 2 million children against measles. The vaccines were provided by UNICEF. The World Health Organization provided some training in how to administer the vaccines." .... "
"...Some reports are saying children as young as 12 years old were administering the vaccine.... "
 According to the CDC in 2015, "Worldwide, an estimated 20 million people get measles and 146,000 people, mostly children, die from the disease each year." That is less than 1/10th of 1%. Most sources cite a higher number of 3/10th of 1%: from 1 to 3 deaths per thousand of all those who fall ill. To give this some context, the mortality rate for measles is far below the Infant Mortality Rate for the United States of 6.9 deaths within 7 days of birth of each 1,000 babies born alive. The Infant Mortality Rate for South Sudan, from all causes, is more than 66 deaths per thousand.

Natural News reports:
"Measles continues to be a huge public health burden in South Sudan. In fact, United Nations (U.N.) data showed that nearly 3,000 people contracted the disease and 28 people died of the infection in 2016 alone. The data also found that 665 people have already been infected and at least one person died of measles so far this year."

With the Nachodokopele village tragedy, half as many people have been killed by UNICEF/WHO's bad planning for the vaccine in South Sudan as died of the disease itself last year.

But fear not! UNICEF/WHO will overcome, and will keep on treating poor children and their families as test subjects for their high "ideals".

From the statement issued by WHO/UNICEF on the deaths caused by their faulty anti-measles program:
"“Ministry of Health, WHO and UNICEF express our deep regret and sadness at the passing of the children. This tragic event could have been prevented by adhering to WHO immunization safety standards…Vaccination is one of the most basic and critical health needs in emergencies to protect populations from the risk of contracting deadly but preventable diseases. The risk of measles and other Vaccine Preventable Diseases in South Sudan remains extremely high because of the challenges being faced by the health system. The country has experienced significant measles outbreaks among unprotected population caused by a backlog of unvaccinated children in areas of insecurity,” a joint statement by the WHO and UNICEF read.

"The Ministry of Health has tapped a multi-agency administrative committee to assess the AEFI report and provide appropriate recommendations for further actions to improve immunization service delivery."

NPR interviewed William Moss, professor of epidemiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the head of epidemiology at the International Vaccine Access Center, and asked him "What went wrong?" Moss replied:
"South Sudan has been plagued by a civil war, conflict, famine and other outbreaks for three years. Measles vaccination campaigns are complex operations with logistical challenges — and this is a place with poor health infrastructure. That's not an excuse, but it provides some context in understanding how such a thing could have happened."

What did UNICEF hope to achieve by moving so aggressively, without strong ground support, in such a poor nation?

Infogalactic notes: "Measles vaccination programs are often used to deliver other child health interventions, as well, such as bed nets to protect against malaria, antiparasite medicine and vitamin A supplements, and so contribute to the reduction of child deaths from other causes. "

Obviously, in this case, these other interventions were not the objective.

Was this a pilot project to get indigenous people to administer the shots to their own communities? That is what it begins to sound like to me.

Why do the UN, WHO, and all sorts of NGOs think it is ok for them to experiment with people's lives in undeveloped countries of the world? Hmmmm?

Why do they think just handing an offhand apology makes it ok for them to continue on, with no added accountability, with their agendas even after they are responsible for such tragedy?

Remember these questions, the next time UNICEF sends those cute Christmas cards begging for our donations, and throw away their exploitive mailings.

Remember those fifteen little children from Nachodokopele village, and remember their parents, who deserve more than official "statements" or "expressions of deep regret" from elites who are living high while monetizing suffering as a fund-raising mechanism.

Those parents deserve to have their children treated with the same concern and care that would be used for children in the hometowns of UN officials and WHO doctors.