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Carve Her Name

@carvehername.bsky.social

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Every day women have, and are, making history. Follow us to get daily posts on what women have done #OnThisDay. 🗃️ We check replies on weekdays, but not always at weekends. https://carvehername.org.uk/ and https://linktr.ee/CarveHerName

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · Oct 12

Hello!

Every day women have, and are, making history. We tell their stories a day at a time. Follow us for posts about the history women made and are making.

Here's a few notes on what we do.

a woman in a dark room with the word women written on the bottom

Alt: Saoirse Ronan as Jo in Little Women. She's exclaiming "women!!!"

media.tenor.com

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 3m

Today we published a new blog article, looking at Abbie Sweetwine. Florida-born Sweetwine was one of the USAF team who responded to the Harrow and Wealdstone crash in London. She saved lives that day, and helped change emergency response practise in the UK.

carvehername.org.uk/abbie-sweetw...

Abbie Sweetwine was born on 28 May 1921 in Brevard County, Florida, to William and Lena Sweetwine. Abbie was the youngest of three sisters. Her eldest sister, Ruth, was an educator.
The middle sister, Dorothy, was a community activist and the editor of the first black-owned newspaper in Brevard County.

But Abbie wanted to be a nurse, and she wanted to serve in the air force. She must have joined the Women's Army Corp (WAC) before 1945, as her service record identifies her as a WW2 veteran. According to one historian, few black nurses worked at US bases in the 1940s and 1950s, and even fewer were sent overseas.

In 1949, Sweetwine transterred from the WAC to the Women's Air Force, part of the US Air Force (USAF). By 1952, she was one of the USAF nurses stationed at RAF Northolt, close to the newly built and equipped USAF Hospital Station at South Ruislip in north London.

The Angel of Platform Six

Abbie Sweetwine was not the only woman to help that day. Newspaper reports of the time recount how local housewives arrived with armfuls of bedsheets to rip into bandages. They brought their teapots and cigarettes as well, to help the shocked survivors. It was only a decade after the Blitz, when Harrow had been hit by hundreds of high explosive bombs. Many of these housewives would have served in the military, or in civilian emergency services, so would have known what to do in a crisis. (The widespread belief in the UK that a cup of strong sweet tea will help in any situation clearly played a part.)

What Sweetwine did was something more.

Colonel Weideman had his team set up a military triage station on the platform. They started treating the wounded before they were taken to hospital. The doctors - a mix of the USAF team, local doctors and some from the RAF - needed to focus on the most severely injured who could survive if treated there and then. Sweetwine, the only nurse with experience of the system, took over managing the triage. She identified who the doctors should treat, set up plasma transfusions and dosed people with morphine.

The people she was treating, and the people working alongside her, dubbed her 'The Angel of Platform Six'. She picked up a Woman of the Year award, did interviews and was invited to attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in
1953. And she was promoted to Captain shortly after the disaster. She continued her career as a military nurse, eventually serving in both Korea and Vietnam.

Photo of Lt Sweetwine, a black woman, in the months after the accident, with General Vandenberg, a white man and the Second Chief of Staff of the USAF.

Reposted by Carve Her Name

Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 9h

🚨 NEW BLOG KLAXON!

This month we take a look at Abbie Sweetwine, the woman the British press dubbed “the angel of platform 6”.

carvehername.org.uk/abbie-sweetw...

Abbie Sweetwine and the Harrow and Wealdstone crash - Carve Her Name

When Abbie Sweetwine ran triage at the Harrow and Wealdstone train crash in 1952, she paved the way for the creation of paramedics.

carvehername.org.uk

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 6h

Yep. Our approach was to write about the crash as part of her career. She herself talked about it as just doing her job. Yet it had such an impact on the day and in the years after.

Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 6h

Likewise! We saw the @garius.bsky.social thread a few years ago and added her to our date files. Finally got around to writing it as a blog this year. All the hat tips to John for first telling the story though.

Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 7h

Read more about Abbie Sweetwine and the Harrow and Wealdstone crash on our blog: carvehername.org.uk/...
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Abbie Sweetwine, a black woman in USAF uniform, holding a plasma bag as white male military doctors treats a patient lying on the platform. Text reads British Train Wreck Heroine. Nurse Lt Abbie Sweetwine of Florida was acclaimed a heroine in the British press for her help to injured in Harrow train wreck in which 110 died. Here she administers blood plasma. One British doctor noted of Lt Sweetwine: "she was an angel."

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 7h

#OnThisDay, 8 Oct 1952, USAF 2nd Lt Nurse Abbie Sweetwine uses military triage at the Harrow and Wealdstone train crash in London. She saves lives and paves the way for the UK’s use of paramedics.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BlackHistory #BritishHistory #LondonHistory 🗃️
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Abbie Sweetwine preparing a plasma infusion at the site of the crash. She is a black woman, surrounded by white men.

A photo of the Harrow and Wealdstone crash, showing three passenger trains that had run into each other. There is debris two storeys high, and people searching the wreckage.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 8h

#OnThisDay, 8 Oct 1643, Jeanne Mance opens the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal - the first hospital in Canada.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #CanadianHistory 🗃️

drawing of Jeanne Mance. She is a white woman with brown or dark blond hair.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 9h

🚨 NEW BLOG KLAXON!

This month we take a look at Abbie Sweetwine, the woman the British press dubbed “the angel of platform 6”.

carvehername.org.uk/abbie-sweetw...

Abbie Sweetwine and the Harrow and Wealdstone crash - Carve Her Name

When Abbie Sweetwine ran triage at the Harrow and Wealdstone train crash in 1952, she paved the way for the creation of paramedics.

carvehername.org.uk

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 1d

If you're in the UK, this weekend might be a great time to try buying a book from our bookshop on the UK bookshop dot org.

Buying through bookshop dot org supports indie bookshops and our affiliate links also may pay us a little sometimes. Win/win.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 1d

#OnThisDay, 7 Oct 2006, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskava is assassinated in her Moscow apartment block.

She had been doggedly reporting on human rights abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya.

photo of Anna Politkovskava at an event. She is a white woman with grey hair.

photo of the floral tributes and signs outside Anna's apartment after her murder.

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Reposted by Carve Her Name

Kas van Kasbergen. @kustbewoner.bsky.social · 2d

Eerste Nederlandse vrouwelijke piloot Beatrix de Rijk.
Met een foto replica Deperdussin 1910, de vliegmachine van de Rijk.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 2d

#OnThisDay, 6 Oct 2009, Hilary Mantel wins the Booker prize for the first time with her historical novel 'Wolf Hall'. She was one of five people to have won the award twice.

#LiteraryWomen

Hilary Mantel after winning the prize, and holding a copy of the book. She is a white woman with blond hair.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 2d

At the outbreak of WW1, de Rijk offered her pilot services to both the French and Dutch governments. They both turned her down.
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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 2d

#OnThisDay, 6 Oct 1911, Beatrix de Rijk becomes the first Dutch woman to hold a pilot's license.

Her demonstration flights across Europe led to a form of sponsorship from French fashion houses and perfumes named after her.

#WomenInHistory #WomenInAviation #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

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Beatrix de Rijk's flying license with a photo of her and her signature.

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Reposted by Carve Her Name

sianushka.bsky.social @sianushka.bsky.social · 4d

I don't know where this revisionism has come from about the suffragettes - people saying "if the suffragettes were around today, they'd be considered terrorists."

The suffragettes were arrested and tortured, sexually assaulted and beaten by the state. They *were* considered terrorists!

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 3d

The march is considered to have an impact on a par with the fall of the Bastille in terms of the French Revolution.
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later painting on the march, with a woman in the foreground drumming and children in the crowd.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 3d

#OnThisDay, 5 Oct 1789, thousands of women instigate and lead the March on Versailles.

They - along with revolutionaries who join them - besiege the Palace to demand cheap bread.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #FrenchHistory #RevolutionaryWomen 🗃️
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contemporary illustration of the march, with women pulling a cannon and carrying pikes.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 4d

Here's a reminder of what we do and how we do it.

Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · Oct 12

Hello!

Every day women have, and are, making history. We tell their stories a day at a time. Follow us for posts about the history women made and are making.

Here's a few notes on what we do.

a woman in a dark room with the word women written on the bottom

Alt: Saoirse Ronan as Jo in Little Women. She's exclaiming "women!!!"

media.tenor.com

3 12

Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 4d

Hat tip to the East End Women's Museum for this one! eastendwomensmuseum....
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Women at the Battle of Cable Street — East End Women's Museum

Today is the 80th anniversary of the 'Battle of Cable Street', one of the East End's proudest moments. The Battle of Cable Street On 4 October 1936, Oswald Mosley's fascist Blackshirts attempted to march from Tower Hill, through Aldgate and Shadwell, a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood at that ti

eastendwomensmuseum.org

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 4d

#OnThisDay, 4 Oct 1936, women join the Battle of Cable Street, in London's East End, protesting against a fascist march through the area. Of the 79 protestors arrested, eight are women, including Blanche Edwards (pictured).

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory 🗃️
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A woman is being frogmarched along cobbles by two policemen, with another apparently gesturing to her to calm down.

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Reposted by Carve Her Name

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 5d

Sarah Mullally has been named the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman chosen to lead the world's 85 million Anglicans.

Sarah Mullally named the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in history of Church of England

Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, has been named Archbishop of Canterbury, the first time a woman has been chosen as the spiritual leader of the Church of England.

bit.ly

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 6d

Thank you! We probably need to see which of our faves are now available there as ebooks and make a new list.

Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 6d

#OnThisDay, 2 Oct 2021, Sister Pietra Luana (Etra) Modica is appointed as the new chancellor of the pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome. She is the first woman to ever hold the position since the organisation was founded in 1627.

Photo of Sister Modica with the Pope. She is a white woman with grey hair.

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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 7d

She goes on to be the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts of Sciences and Professor of Astronomy at the newly-founded Vassar College.
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Carve Her Name @carvehername.bsky.social · 7d

“We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.”

#OnThisDay, 1 Oct 1847, American Maria Mitchell spots comet C/1847 T1.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM 🗃️
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painting of Maria Mitchell looking through a telescope. She is a white woman with dark hair.

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