You know several members of the First Continental Congress from school – John Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. If you drink beer, you know another member – Samuel Adams. But there were more, 50 more.

The idea of a meeting such as this was floated a year earlier by Renaissance man Benjamin Franklin, but it took the closing of Boston Harbor by the British and the following Boston Tea Party ¹ to get the ball really rolling. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia’s Carpenters Hall on September 5, 1774. Of the 12 colonies, only 12 sent delegates, as Georgia was beset by problems with Indians and needed help from the British military to put down the problems.

So…you know those few men that you had to know for school, but what about the other ones? Here they are from the First Continental Congress -

From the Province of New Hampshire
Nathaniel Folsom

From the Province of Massachusetts Bay
John Adams
Samuel Adams
Thomas Cushing
Robert Treat Paine

From the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
Stephen Hopkins
Samuel Ward

From the Connecticut Colony
Silas Deane
Eliphalet Dyer
Roger Sherman

From the Province of New York
John Alsop
James Duane
John Jay
Philip Livingston
Isaac Low
County of Kings
Simon Boerum
County of Orange
John Haring
Henry Wisner
County of Suffolk
William Floyd

From the Province of New Jersey
Stephen Crane
John De Hart
James Kinsey
William Livingston
Richard Smith

From the Province of Pennsylvania
Edward Biddle
John Dickinson
Joseph Galloway
Charles Humphreys
Thomas Mifflin
John Morton
Samuel Rhoads
George Ross

From New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, on Delaware
Thomas McKean
George Read
Caesar Rodney

From Maryland
Samuel Chase
Robert Goldsborough
Thomas Johnson
William Paca
Matthew Tilghman

From the Colony and Dominion of Virginia
Richard Bland
Benjamin Harrison V
Patrick Henry
Richard Henry Lee
Edmund Pendleton
Peyton Randolph
George Washington

From the Province of North Carolina
Richard Caswell
Joseph Hewes
William Hooper

From the Province of South Carolina
Christopher Gadsden
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Henry Middleton
Edward Rutledge
John Rutledge

Possibly next – the members of the Second Continental Congress. ²

“The Goldbergs” was a live radio program that was eventually translated for television and became the first sitcom broadcast on American television in 1949.

It followed the lives of the Molly and Jake Goldberg and their family as they made their way through their everyday lives in Brookylyn, NY. Gertrude Berg, the writer-producer behind the show, portrayed Molly and Philip Loeb portrayed her husband Jake. Also on the show were Roslyn Silber and Alfred Ryder Molly and Jake’s children Rosalie and Sammy.

During the first season on CBS, the show was the third most popular program on the air. It was such a popular show that performers from other fields desired to be on the show, like Jan Peerce of the Metropolitan Opera.

It went on to be the 3rd highest rated show for CBS during that time. It eventually went from CBS to NBC to a now none-existent network known as the Dumont network where it ended its run in 1955. ¹

They’ve tried, and failed, to run for the highest office in the land. I’m not talking about the Libertarian Party, even though that description fits them, too. I’m talking about the ladies.

Many women have made a run for the presidency. Who were they?

Victoria Woodhull, 1872: The first woman to run for president, Woodhull was an Equal Rights Party candidate. Ulysses S. Grant won the 1872 election as a Republican.

Belva Ann Lockwood, 1884 and 1888: Lockwood, who also ran on the Equal Rights Party ticket, eventually became the first woman lawyer to practice before the Supreme Court. In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected president; in 1888, Cleveland lost to Republican Benjamin Harrison.

Margaret Chase Smith, 1964: Smith, a Maine Republican, was the first woman to run on a major party ticket, entering primaries in New Hampshire, Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas and Oregon, among others. She withdrew after the first round of voting at the Republican National Convention. Sen. Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination and lost in a landslide to the incumbent, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Shirley Chisholm, 1972: The first black woman to run for president, Chisholm ran as a Democrat and received more than 150 votes at the Democratic National Convention. She was also the first black woman to serve in Congress; New York sent her to the House of Representatives in 1968. George McGovern won the Democratic nomination that year and lost to the incumbent, Richard M. Nixon.

Patsy Mink, 1972: A congresswoman from Hawaii, Mink ran in the Oregon Democratic primary as an anti-war candidate.

Pat Schroeder, 1988: Schroeder’s headline-grabbing campaign never got off the ground after the Democratic congresswoman from Colorado could not raise enough money. The party’s nomination went to Michael Dukakis and the election to Republican George H.W. Bush. Schroeder was first elected to the House in 1972, where she served for 24 years.

Elizabeth Dole, 2000: Dole announced her presidential bid in January 1999 and dropped out of the race nine months later. Republicans eventually nominated George W. Bush, who defeated Democrat Al Gore for the presidency. Dole’s husband, former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., was the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, when he lost to Bill Clinton. Mrs. Dole is now North Carolina’s senior senator, elected in 2002.

And last, but certainly not least-

Carol Moseley Braun, 2004: The first black woman to serve in the Senate, Braun was one of 10 candidates to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in the last presidential election. Primary voters eventually tapped Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as the nominee. He lost to George W. Bush. ¹