March 26

1885

Eastman Film Co. manufactures the first commercial motion picture film.

		1969 Writer John Kennedy Toole commits suicide at the age of 32. His mother helps get his first and only novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, published. It goes on to win the 1981 Pulitzer Prize. 1989 The first free elections take place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin is elected.
Born on March 26
1874		Robert Frost, poet, multiple Pulitzer Prize-winner. http://blogs.dickinson.edu/anglesofliteraryapproach/2011/10/21/robert-frosts-feminist-poem/ Robert Frost’s Feminist Poem? Posted on October 21, 2011 by akbarn Christian traditions argue that Eve is the reason for the damnation of human soul and their exile from heaven because she tempted Adam in committing the “original sin.” In this tale, Eve is blamed for the misery of humankind. “Never Again Would Birds’ Song be the Same” is a poem about the influences of Eve on nature and on the world. In this poem, Frost indirectly questions this story by focusing on the positive legacies of Eve on earth. By criticizing the discriminatory and unjust perceptions about Eve, who exemplifies women in this poem, Frost makes one feminist claim, but whether or not this text a feminist one is debate worthy because Frost does not question the story of the “original sin” directly; in fact it is not even mentioned in the poem.
1911		Tennessee Williams, American dramatist (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire). Alternative critical perspective: Feminist criticism A Streetcar Named Desire lends itself quite naturally to feminist criticism. Feminism, a movement whose roots can be traced back to the middle ages, had come into its own in the twentieth century, though it was not a major force in the American South. Feminist critics, who accept the idea that gender differences are culturally determined, not inborn, interpret literature as a record of male dominance - particularly the repression by white, heterosexual, European men. The attitudes of men who impose their will on women and try to convince then of their inferiority are evident throughout this play: the way they interact with women, discuss them, look at them, talk to them, use and abuse them.      http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/streetcar/feminist.htm
1930		Sandra Day O’Connor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
1942		Erica Jong, poet, novelist (Fear of Flying, How to Save Your Own Life).