RubyWombat

I’m going out for a pack of smokes. Catch you between the double rainbow.

She was born in 1856 into the kind of wealth that insulates a person from almost everything. Fifth Avenue mansion. Railroad fortune. Servants, silk, invitations to every drawing room in Manhattan. The world Grace Hoadley Dodge entered at birth was one in which a woman of her position had a clearly defined purpose: marry well, entertain graciously, support a tasteful charity or two between seasons. She was 24 when she walked into a tenement basement on the Lower East Side and started teaching Sunday school to factory girls. She thought she'd teach Bible verses. What she found changed the rest of her life. The girls sitting in front of her, some barely 12 years old, were working 12-hour shifts in sweatshops, laundries, and shirtwaist factories. They earned $3 a week. A single room cost $2 to rent. That left $1 for food, clothing, medicine, and everything else. The math didn't work, and Grace quickly understood what happened when the math didn't work. Some girls went hungry. Some were cornered by foremen who offered lighter work in exchange for things that had nothing to do with work. Some simply vanished. She had come to teach them morality. Instead, she started asking a different question entirely. What if the problem isn't these girls? What if the problem is a system that gives them no survivable options? That question consumed the next 30 years of her life. She co-founded the Kitchen Garden Association in 1880, teaching domestic skills. Then she looked at what domestic skills actually got a woman and pivoted hard. What factory girls needed wasn't needlework. It was bookkeeping. Stenography. Business skills that opened doors instead of decorating the ones already closed. A girl who could type had options. A girl with options had leverage. A girl with leverage didn't have to tolerate what Grace had watched those foremen do. The pushback was immediate. Society said women should learn homemaking, not commerce. Factory owners had no interest in an educated workforce that might demand better conditions. Even some reformers worried that too much education would give working-class women ideas above their station. Grace Dodge didn't care. In 1887, she co-founded Teachers College at Columbia University, the first institution in America built on the principle that training teachers was a serious profession deserving serious pay, not a temporary occupation for women marking time before marriage. It became one of the most influential education institutions in the world. It still trains thousands of educators every year. She helped organise the national YWCA in 1906, but not as a prayer circle. As infrastructure. Boarding houses where women could live without landlords extracting sexual favours for rent. Evening classes in marketable skills. Job placement services. Networks where women warned each other which employers were safe, which neighbourhoods were dangerous, which job offers led somewhere no one should go. She helped establish the Travelers Aid Society, which stationed representatives at train stations and ports specifically because predators waited there for young women arriving alone from farms and small towns, girls who had come to the city looking for work and found men offering jobs and housing that led somewhere else entirely. Grace's representatives got there first. Safe lodging. Legitimate referrals. A hand extended before the wrong one was. They intercepted thousands of women from what we would now call trafficking, decades before anyone used the word. Through all of it, Grace operated on a principle that was quietly radical for her time: she refused to blame the women for the conditions crushing them. When other reformers talked about fallen women and moral improvement, Grace talked about wages and working conditions and predatory men with institutional power. © Women Stories #drthehistories

Life is a balance between holding on and letting go. Rumi With fox and little owl. What do you post the day after your most popular, supportive post ever? I'll go for a huge thank you to everyone. #womensart

"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation—and their ideas from suppression—at the hand of an intolerant society."

A swimming Feather Star, also known as a crinoid. These ancient creatures date back to the Ordovician period, around 480 million years ago

🌟 The Quiet Fire of Old Hollywood: Maureen O’Hara 🌟 Take a look at that radiant smile! This stunning shot captures the legendary Maureen O’Hara during her early days at RKO. While this photo is in classic black and white, we all know that in person, she was the undisputed "Queen of Technicolor." With her fiery red hair and piercing green eyes, Maureen didn't just appear on screen—she commanded it. But she was so much more than a pretty face. Maureen was known for her incredible "moxie." She did her own stunts, stood toe-to-toe with giants like John Wayne (they made five iconic films together!), and never backed down from a tough studio boss. 🎬 Hollywood Cinema Fast Facts: The Big Break: She was "discovered" by Charles Laughton, who was so captivated by her screen test that he cast her in Jamaica Inn (1939) and brought her to Hollywood for The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Duke & The Duchess: Her chemistry with John Wayne in The Quiet Man (1952) remains one of the most authentic and beloved partnerships in cinema history. They were best friends in real life until the day he passed. A Pioneer: Maureen was one of the first actresses to prove that a leading lady could be physically strong, fiercely independent, and still deeply romantic. Whether she was playing a pirate, a pioneer woman, or the mother who just wanted her daughter to believe in Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street, Maureen O’Hara brought a dignity to the screen that is rare to find today. What is your favorite Maureen O’Hara performance? Is it the feisty Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man, or maybe her role in the original The Parent Trap? Let’s talk shop in the comments! 👇📽️ #OldHollywood #MaureenOHara #ClassicCinema #GoldenAge #TheQuietMan #TechnicolorQueen #HollywoodCinemaExpert 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁 𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝘁 picturesofcelebrities.com

@chunkymark Do you stand for women's liberation??

A beautiful rare glimpse of Bogie and Bacall in 1949 on their yacht "Santana", hair blowing in the wind, and touches of vintage Southern California....

NATO members are obliged to support one another if attacked, not to join wars of choice. That stipulation was made at the demand of the US, which also insisted that the commitment be territorially limited. “The treaty does not cover the entire world,” said Dean Acheson. “It applies only to the North Atlantic area.” He made clear that this had been the key American condition. “We deliberately avoided any implication that we were undertaking a global military commitment.” The Senate, worried about being dragged into European colonial wars, had threatened to refuse ratification unless the limitations were explicit. As John Foster Dulles put it: “If it were made global in scope, it would not be acceptable to the United States.” Despite all this, the only time that NATO has gone to war was indeed out of area, at the request of the US after 9/11.

This baby bat, taken in by the Austrian Bat Station, is receiving the gentle attention it needs to grow strong. The caretaker softly brushes its face, mimicking the tender grooming of a mother bat

@StateDept The "Sending Billions" myth is completely false. The US does not "send billions of dollars" to NATO or to Europe to protect them. That is not how NATO funding works. The US never did anything out of charity for NATO members.

Steve Bannon exchanged 1,500 emails with Epstein. In one video, Bannon tells Epstein: 'I do think of you as God.' Bannon was in the White House at the time. He has not been called to testify.

It might not seem like much, but inside one acorn is a tree that will provide food and shelter for thousands of species for 1,000+ years. Oak trees are biodiversity hot spots.

It is precisely his peasant vulgarity that commends him so strongly to his MAGA supporters For them, any kind of coarseness is a sign of authenticity

There’s neuroscientific evidence that looking at beautiful things, esp. plants & pausing to take in the details can alleviate stress & lift mood. Found these in the garden just now-they’re in a pale blue Victorian ink bottle. Pause to give your brain a small rest 🧠🌿

I miss old X. I miss being able to write a post and my friends saw it. I miss talking to them. I miss them talking to me. I miss having backup for pile ons. I miss being backup for pile ons. I miss all of you who won’t even hear me say this. I really miss you guys.

@Nick_Delehanty @Colieg133742 @JDVance Just had to banjax the whole thing, didn’t ya? No more wars, right? And you with the brass neck criticising the EU. Clown.

Last 24hrs: >Russia bans fuel exports >Houthis enters the war >Red Sea shipping threatened >Strait of Hormuz closed shut > USS Gerald Ford struck >Energy infrastructure struck >Escalation of bombing >Reports of American casualties

There’s no such thing as ‘too small to matter.’ A single oak tree can support over 500 species of insects, birds, and mammals. Your backyard is an entire ecosystem waiting to happen.