That film failed to
inspire my daughter, but it did inspire me—to dig into jazz history and write Born
to Swing: Lil Hardin Armstrong’s Life in Jazz (illustrated by Michele
Wood, Calkins Creek, 2018).
Lil
was an amazing pioneer. At a time when jazz bands only hired women as
“canaries” (singers), she pounded the piano for the hottest jazz band in
Chicago. She was a composer, too, who wrote and arranged hit songs like “Brown
Gal” and “Just for a Thrill.” And it was Lil’s sophistication, influence, and
drive that turned her husband, Louis Armstrong, from an unknown trumpet player
into a legend of jazz.
The
musicians who played with Lil (and for her—she was a bandleader, too!) spoke of
her with admiration and respect. But when the history of jazz was written, Lil
became a footnote to her famous husband. No one seemed to care about her own
remarkable career.
Our
kids need Lil Hardin Armstrong. Girls
learning to play an instrument need to know that they belong, that they’ve
always belonged, that before there was a Miles or a Charlie or a Dizzy, there
was Lil. And boys need to know, too, so they don’t grow into men who make a
movie that erases girls.
Speaking
of making movies, our children also need to know the story of Alice Guy Blaché,
star of Lights! Camera! Alice! The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman
Filmmaker (illustrated by Simona Ciraolo, Chronicle, 2018).
Alice was not only the first woman
filmmaker, but one of the very first filmmakers, period. Decades before the
first Hollywood talkies and Technicolor, she made movies that had sound and
color, as well as special effects.
To make her movies more exciting, Alice
would blow up a pirate ship or crawl into a cage with a tiger. She convinced
her actresses to jump from bridges onto moving trains. She tied up an actor,
smeared the ropes with food, and sent in live rats to gnaw him free.
Alice
Guy Blaché was a celebrity. But once again, when the first film histories were
written, Alice’s name disappeared. Credit for her films went to her male
assistants, or even to men she’d never met, men who had never directed a film. Our
kids need Alice Guy Blaché because,
for every woman directing a major feature film in Hollywood, there are TWENTY-TWO men.
Along the same lines, why do we remember Harry Houdini, but not Adelaide
Herrmann, who was the Queen of Magic long before Houdini was the Handcuff King?
I felt compelled to write Anything but Ordinary Addie: The True Story
of Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic (illustrated by Iacopo Bruno,
Candlewick, 2016) because Addie was a superstar who needed recognition.
Like
Lil and Alice, she was strong, hardworking, capable, adventurous, fun-loving, and
full of personality. (Unlike them, she could make candies rain down from the
sky and catch a fired bullet on a china plate.) Addie made it to the top, even
though she had to do it, as they say, “backward and in high heels.” Our kids need Addie Herrmann because women stage
magicians are still a tiny minority, even though learning to do magic tricks is
something girls love just as much as boys.
We can tell our kids, “Girls can do
anything!” but we also need to show them how much women have already done. Children
who love movies, music, and magic need heroines like Alice, Lil, and Addie,
because when women are written out of history, we’re written out of the present
and future too. That’s why I’m passionate about writing them back in.
Mara Rockliff is the author of many lively historical picture books
(even some about men!), including Cook Prize winner Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of
France (illustrated by Iacopo Bruno, Candlewick, 2015). Here she is baking
gingerbread for her book Gingerbread for
Liberty! How a German Baker Helped Win the American Revolution (illustrated
by Vincent X. Kirsch, Houghton Mifflin, 2015). She lives in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, and online at mararockliff.com.
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