Edith

Edith Bunker played by Jean Stapleton in the sitcom All In the Family.

Edith Tiempo (1919 – 2011) was a Filipino poet, fiction writer, teacher and literary critic in the English language. She was conferred the National Artist Award for Literature in 1999.

Edith is the name of one of the three girls Gru adopts in Despicable Me. She is the blonde one with the pink beanie.

Edith Louisa Cavell (1865-1915) was a British nurse, who was a pioneer of modern nursing. In WWI, she was known for treating wounded soldiers from both sides without discrimination. She covertly helped some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium — which in wartime was a death penalty offense because those soldiers were then able to return to active service and continue fighting. She was convicted of treason and executed. Her execution received worldwide condemnation.

Edith the Fair, (Old English: Ealdgȳð Swann hnesce, "Edyth the Gentle Swan"; born c. 1025, died c. 1086) also known as Edith Swanneck, was one of the wealthiest magnates in England on the eve of the Norman conquest, and may also have been the first wife of King Harold Godwinson. "Swanneck" (or Swan-Neck) comes from the folk etymology which made her in Old English as swann hnecca, "swan neck", which was actually most likely a corrupted form of swann hnesce, "Gentle Swan". She is sometimes confused with Ealdgyth, daughter of Earl Ælfgar of Mercia, who was queen during Harold's reign.

Edith Maude Eaton (1865 – 1914), known by her pen name 'Sui Sin Far' (Chinese: 水仙花; pinyin: Shuǐ Xiān Huā), was a Chinese-British author known for her writing about Chinese people in North America and the Chinese American experience. 'Sui Sin Far', the pen name under which most of her work was published, is the Cantonese name of the narcissus flower, popular amongst Chinese people.

Edith Starrett Green was once referred to as "the most powerful woman to ever serve in the Congress."

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Edith Starrett was born in South Dakota to two schoolteachers. Her family moved to Oregon when she was 6. She attended college for a time, but left to married Arthur Green in 1930. The Greens started a family. About a decade later, Starrett (who will now be referred to as Starrett Green) returned to college, finished her degree, and pursued graduate study at Stanford University. Though she had originally intended on pursuing engineering or the law, she developed interested in educational issues, and became a lobbyist for the Oregon Education Association.

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In 1952, Starrett Green ran as the Democratic candidate for Oregon Secretary of State; though she lost to the Republican incumbent, she was in a good position to run for Congress in 1954. She won the 1954 congressional election versus future Republican Gov. Tom McCall. Her election slogan was, "Education should be the number one business in this country."

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Starrett Green's congressional career included an impressive array of legislation that became law. A former education lobbyist, much of her legislation focused on education. While not claiming the word "feminist" she nonetheless stood behind much of the legislation feminists wanted, and even wrote and introduced some of it.

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Perhaps the most lasting legislation Starrett Green had a hand in was in the passage of Title IX. Title IX has come to be closely associated with Rep. Patsy Takemoto Mink (D-HI), after whom the bill renamed in 2003. In fact, while Mink was perhaps the most essential force in the bill's passage, Mink, Starrett Green and Sen. Birch Bayh (D-IN) worked together in the formulation and passage of the legislation. Title IX was ostensibly focused on sex discrimination in sports; tennis legend Billie Jean King is regularly a featured speaker on the topic, including at the bill's 50th anniversary in early 2022. The actual wording of the bill has come to be far more broadly significant. (For anyone curious, check out Know Your IX.)

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Among the other legislation she pursued were the Equal Pay Act, introduced by Starrett Green in 1955 and signed into law in 1963 (Starrett Green regarded this her finest accomplishment); legislation regarding mental health in Alaska; the Library Services Act, which provided access to libraries in rural communities; the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which worked to strengthen US education in STEM fields during the space race; the Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, which focused on construction and repair of university facilities; the 1965 Vocational Rehabilitation Act, which focused on improving training opportunities in cities; and the Higher Education Act of 1965, which sought to strengthen resources at and access to institutions of higher education. Some of these bills were a meaningful part of Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society program.

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In 1964, Starrett Green made an impression over something she voted against. During the debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the word "sex" was added to the list of categories by which employers could not discriminate, alongside race, color, religion, and national origin. The word was introduced by Rep. Howard Smith (D-VA), who was on the record opposing any kind of civil rights legislation. There is some debate as to the nature of this; often it is said that Smith had added the word as a means of defeating the legislation. Yet Smith claimed the change had been offered in genuine support; Smith had in fact worked with Alice Paul, the longtime women's rights activist and chair of the National Women's Party. Moreover, in the 1950s, Smith had declared that if civil rights legislation was inevitable, he “certainly ought to try to do whatever good with it that we can.” It is often noted that there was laughter on the floor of the House of Representatives when Smith introduced the amendment, but it actually seems likely Smith was genuinely in favor of the legislation.

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Starrett Green was not. She was the only woman to vote against the addition of sex to the bill. Starrett Green declared, "For every discrimination that I have suffered, the Negro woman has suffered ten times that amount of discrimination."

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In time, Starrett Green moved to the right fairly drastically. After having supported the Great Society of the 1960s, and even writing legislation as a part of it, she changed to a small-government conservative. This rejection of "big government" led to her rejection of legislation she wrote herself. She argued that federal programs had done little to improve education or the plight of the poor, despite her and others' efforts. Instead, she started advocating a shift to state and local governmental authority.

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On example of her conservative drift occurred during the student riots of the 1960s and 1970s. Starrett Green, who had championed higher education for decades, went on the record suggesting that federal aid be denied to universities that didn't successfully control student riots.

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When asked about her rightward drift, Starrett Green bristled, declaring that "ultra-liberals have moved so far to the left that they have distorted the position of all other liberals." This was right line with Anne Armstrong, the Republican activist who gave a prominent keynote address at the 1972 Republican National Convention; Armstrong argued that the Democrats had moved too far to the left and that those of Armstrong's (and Starrett Green's) backgrounds should vote Republican.

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Though no anti-Vietnam zealot, Starrett Green was one of the seven House votes against Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson's request for increased funds for escalating military involvement in Vietnam. She regarded it as a usurpation of congressional power, and publicly expressed discontent with her colleagues and with the president.

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Starrett Green rebuffed at least three suggestions that she run for the Senate; she believed she could have more influence on education in the House and was unwilling to give up the seniority she eventually amassed. She also had no interest in fundraising for a state-wide campaign.

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Still, she was no stranger to presidential politics. She seconded the nominating of former Gov. Adlai Stevenson (D-IL) for president at the 1956 Democratic National Convention. She spearheaded Oregon primary campaigns for presidential candidates John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Henry M. Jackson. She also earned the scorn of Lyndon B. Johnson for her perceived contradictions.

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Starrett Green decided against running for reelection in 1974, and resigned shortly before the end of the 93rd Congress on 31 December 1974.

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After leaving Congress, Starrett Green served as the co-chair of the National Democrats for Gerald Ford.

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Edith Starrett Green died at age 77 in 1987.

In 1958, Massachusetts Republicans tried to get Edith Nourse Rogers to challenge a young up-and-comer in the Senate named John F. Kennedy. Rogers, who had been serving in the House for more than 30 years, declined. Two years later, Kennedy would ascend to the presidency.

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Edith Nourse Rogers followed an unlikely path to prominence in politics. A product of two old New England families, she was engaged primarily with charity work when she married a Harvard Law graduate named John Jacob Rogers in 1907. Rogers got involved in politics early in their marriage, and was elected to Congress as a Republican representing Massachusetts in 1912.

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John Jacob Rogers was serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee when World War I broke out; he traveled to Europe in that capacity, and briefly enlisted in the United States Army for the last few months of the war while remaining a congressman.

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While her husband was making forays into military affairs, Edith became active in aid organizations, particularly those relating to veterans’ health and affairs. She also became deeply aware of the the role of women working alongside the armed forces. This experience led to an appointment by President Warren G. Harding as an inspector of new veterans’ hospitals, a job she continued under the Coolidge and Hoover administrations. She served as an elector to the Electoral College in 1924.

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In March 1925, Edith’s trajectory was forever changed when her husband, in the midst of his seventh term in Congress, died (of appendicitis or cancer, sources differ). Edith was encouraged by local Republicans and members of the American Legion (who supported her work with veterans) to run for her husband’s seat. She won a landslide defeat against Eugene Foss, the former governor of Massachusetts. When she was sworn in in June, she became the seventh woman to serve in the United States Congress. John Jacob Rogers had held significant committee posts at the time of his death; Edith was not granted any of these, earning middling committee assignments, and a spot on the Veterans’ Affairs committee.

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Veterans’ affairs played a central role in Edith’s congressional career. In 1926, she secured pensions for army nurses, and helped create a permanent nurse corps in the Veterans Administration. In 1930, as a chair of a Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on hospitals, she secured a $15 million provision to develop a national network of veterans’ hospitals in the Veterans Administration Act. In May 1941, Edith introduced the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) Act, creating a voluntary program for women to join the Army in noncombat roles. The Act was signed into law in May 1942. That measure was supplanted by the Women’s Army Corps Bill, which granted military status to the women volunteers by creating the Women’s Army Corps within the Army. From 1947-1949 and 1953-1955, Edith became the chair of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. During World War II, she put forward a package of measures, known as the GI Bill of Rights, which passed in 1944. These measures included tuition benefits and low-interest home mortgage loans for veterans. In 1952, her legislation extended these benefits to Korean War veterans. A STEM scholarship as part of the GI Bill bears her name. She also put forward a proposal to create a Cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs, a proposal that didn’t reach fruition until 1989.

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Edith earned a spot on the Foreign Affairs committee in 1933, and soon became one of the earliest and loudest voices against rising fascism in Nazi Germany and Italy. In the wake of Kristallnacht, Edith put forward legislation to admit Jewish refugee children fleeing Nazi violence. The bill ultimately failed.

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Edith’s last years were marked by a pronounced commitment to anticommunism. She supported the House Committee on Un-American Activities and supported Joseph McCarthy

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Edith was approached about challenging John F. Kennedy in the 1958 Massachusetts Senate race; she declined. She was preparing for her 19th election to the House of Representatives when she died of pneumonia in September 1960.

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Edith Nourse Rogers, at the time of her passing, was the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress. She maintained that title until 2012, when she was surpassed by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). She remains the third longest-serving woman in congressional history, after Mikulski and Rep, Marcy Kaptur (D-OH).

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Edith Nourse Rogers was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998.

Edith Kenao Kanakaʻole (1913 – 1979) was a Hawaiian dancer, chanter, teacher, and kumu hula. Born in Honomu, Hawaii in 1913, she was taught hula from a young age, and dropped out of her formal schooling before completing middle school.

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She began to compose traditional Hawaiian music in 1946, choreographing hula to accompany many of her chants, and founded Halau o Kekuhi in 1953. In the 1970s, she taught Hawaiian studies and the Hawaiian language at Hawaiʻi Community College and later the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, where she worked until her death in 1979.

Although likely uncommon, Edalyn sounds like a combination of Edith and Linda and is the main witch on Disney.

Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (of Grey Gardens fame), anyone?

Edith Up, a nymph character from the video game Rayman Origins, bears this name.

Lady Edith! Yayyyy!

We can't forget Edith Finch Jr. And Edith "Edie" Finch Sr. From "What Remains of Edith Finch".

Edith Södergan (1892-1923) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish poet, considered the first modernist writer in Scandinavia.

My favorite bearer of this name is Edith Piaf, a French singer that I really like.

Edith Frank was the mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, the daughter-in-law of Alice Betty Frank and Michael Frank, the sister-in-law of Robert, Herbert, and Helene Frank. She died from starvation at the age of 44, ten days before her 45th birthday.

The pure hearted heroine in the movie Crimson Peak, by Guillermo Del Toro, bears this name. Edith Cushing.

"Downton Abbey" Edith Crawley, middle daughter of Lord and Lady Grantham.

Edith Stuyvesant Dresser was the wife of George Vanderbilt, famous for owning and living in America's largest home, Biltmore Estate, in the late 1800s. The house, consisting of 4 acres of floor space, 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces, resided on a 125,000 acre estate in the mountains of Asheville, NC. The house was originally meant to be a country retreat, not their main place of residence. Today, the house is open for the public to come and visit, continuing on the Biltmore tradition of gracious hospitality.

Dame Edith Sitwell English poet and eccentric.

British actress Dame Edith Mary Evans (1888-1976).
British politician Baroness Edith Somerskill (1901-80, a physician known for her attempts to outlaw the sport of boxing on health grounds.

Actress Edie Falco from "Nurse Jackie" real name is Edith Falco.

Edie Sedgwick, the famous socialite & Warhol 'superstar' was called Edith. I used to think the name was a bit frumpy but now I associate it with her!

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt (1861-1948) was the second wife of US President Theodore Roosevelt, and the mother of five children.

Edith Granger is a character in Charles Dickens' novel "Dombey and Son."

I think this one's probably now due for a comeback, due in part to the ever-increasing popularity of the Scottish-born radio and television personality Edith Bowman, who I find really funny and down-to-earth. Then again, if you're more likely to think of the fictional, dowdy-dressed Edith Artois in the British sitcom 'Allo Allo', Eden would be a good alternative.

Edith Eleanor Bowman (born 15 January 1975) is a Scottish-born radio and television presenter who presents her own show on Radio 1 in the United Kingdom every weekday afternoon.

Edith Louisa Cavell was a British nurse and spy in World War I.

Edith Head is a famous costume designer.

French singer Edith Piaf was a famous bearer.

Edith is Archie Bunker's wife in the '70's T.V. show "All in the Family." She was played by Jean Stapleton.

Two famous authors bore this name.
Edith Wharton, writer of The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, was one.
Edith Nesbit, writer most famous for Five Children and It, was the other.

Finno-Swedish poet Edith Södergran (1892 - 1923) was a famous bearer of this name.

It was also the name of J.R.R. Tolkien's wife: Edith Mary Tolkien.

Edith was the name of Anne Frank's mother.