Anna Howard Shaw
In the 13th episode of season 4 of the show, we find Liz without a date and worse with an appointment with the dentist, Toofer set up on a date with an urban woman, Frank doing his usual stuff, and Lutz discussing his girlfriend with the group, who no one believes is real. In the episode, Liz Lemon says that she favors celebrating 14th February as “Anna Howard Shaw Day” rather than Valentine’s Day.
Born on February 14, 1847, in New-Castle-on-Tyne, Anna Howard Shaw was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and the first ordained female Methodist minister in the United States.
Anna was raised in a poor family and she was one of the eight children’s of her parents. Her family initially lived in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but soon moved to the Michigan where they lived in the wilderness. She was inspired by the sermons of a Unitarian minister, Marianna Thompson and decided to pursue a religious life and delivered her first sermon in 1870.
During her travels and preaching, Anna became more and more aware of the lack of women’s rights. She became an active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Later, she remained the president of the National American Women’s Suffrage association for ten years.
Anna and Susan B. Anthony became co-workers in the effort to give women their rights as any other citizen of the state. Anna died on July 2, 1919 at the age of 72, just a few months before Congress approved the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, thereby allowing women the right to vote.
In 2000 Anna was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Feminists celebrate ‘Anna Howard Shaw Day’ on February 14th as an alternative to Valentine’s Day.
Anna Howard Shaw