Happy 60th birthday AAWE!
Our beloved AAWE is turning 60 years young this year! The thriving, diverse, multigenerational community we know today has a rich and inspiring history. Although we’re not yet quite sure when we will be able to celebrate AAWE’s 60th anniversary in person, we’re kicking off the year by celebrating our beginnings, our present and our future though an ongoing 60th Anniversary Series!
In coming months, you will learn how our association was founded – and why – and get to know some of the amazing women who contributed to its growth and accomplishments.
You’ll also hear from some of the younger members, our “Younger Wonders”, who are making AAWE relevant for the newest generation.
And you’ll find out more about the wide scope of activities that have enriched our members’ lives as well as built AAWE’s reputation as a pillar of the American and international community in Paris.
AAWE means so much to so many people: an extended family, a cultural home, a source of friendship and support, an avenue for community service, and, of course, a group of dynamic women that know how to have fun!
Getting to our 60th anniversary didn’t happen by accident — it took vision, energy, and dedication. Making sure that our association is sustainable through our 70th anniversary and beyond is a project for us all.
We have a lot to celebrate, and look forward to sharing it with you!
60 Years of AAWE Children’s Activities
In a statement in France Soir, our founder Phyllis Michaux summarized a mission goal for AAWE:
Faire connaître à nos enfants la vie américaine….[en leur apprenant] les coutumes et les fêtes
américaines…..ils connaîtront l’essentiel des constitutions des deux pays.
Remember, in those days, there was little available either in English or about American culture, so AAWE filled this gap. This was a great attraction then – and now – to being an AAWE member. And who better to meet this challenge than teams of American women who, it is well known, can organize anything with success.
Click on the + below to learn how our children’s activities have evolved over the past 60 years.
Learn More
In earlier years, gatherings were held mostly in members’ homes. Imagine, in 1973, a Saloon & Dancehall Shindig, a Ghouls and Ghosts party, a cookie baking evening, and then a Fathers’ Day baseball game. Over the years, members have continued creating environments where our children have interacted with others their age, allowing them to participate in American activities like their cousins do in the States. We had storytelling hours at Pat’s, iced Valentine cookies with Terry, and picked strawberries at the farm led by Margaret. Here our children met other American families, and found that Mom was not the only crazy woman forcing them to speak American English.
Those were the ‘old’ days. Now it’s much easier to find English in our daily world. But it is not always the same for American culture, and for that AAWE still holds the reins. The year’s calendar typically includes an Easter party, a late-spring baseball game, and a year-end holiday event. In autumn, the Halloween Party is THE event of the year. In the days when airplane baggage was not weighed, members would bring back from the USA summer suitcases full of Halloween candy and party favors to serve up at AAWE bashes. Here in the suburbs, a trip to the local farm yielded 100 pumpkins (!) for door prizes. And USA Girl Scout volunteers make for great role models. The party fun creates lots of memories…nostalgia for the parents looking back at cute photos, but also, hopefully, for their children too. It’s all true, from the big to smaller events to the more intimate home gatherings, that these AAWE activities help our children share with friends here that they know what it’s like to celebrate in the ‘American’ way.
Now there’s one last children’s event you may not realize existed. It was Kids’ Nite Out, a wonderful fun time on a much smaller scale dedicated to our children 8-11 years old who were too old to be with the little kids yet could party in the evening. Again, AAWE moms put together enjoyable pre-teen themes. And if you ask our now-grown-up generation of participants, they will all tell you the best memory from KNO is the pizza dinner and the BINGO game !
AAWE continues to bring American culture to our children through these activities as best we can with the demands of the modern age. And it’s worth it. Not only so our children can feel comfortable being bicultural, but also for those organizing, as we have bonded into several generations of moms who remained friends, watching our children grow up with a choice of stepping into a French or American world. Just as Phyllis said: ”[Nos enfants] joueront à la pétanque aussi bien qu’au baseball.”
Thank you, AAWE!
Compiled by AAWE members
Celebrating 60 Years of AAWE!
Scroll down to learn about each week in history in 1961.
As part of our year long celebration, click on each + below to learn interesting facts from each week in 1961, the year AAWE was founded.
Week 28
First in-flight movie was shown on TWA.
A U.S. commercial plane was hijacked to Cuba and began a trend.
Capt. Virgil “Gus” Grissom became the second American to rocket into a suborbital pattern around the Earth, flying on the Mercury 4 Liberty Bell 7. The Mercury capsule sank in the Atlantic, 302 miles from Cape Canaveral and Grissom was rescued by helicopter. The space capsule was recovered in 1999.
Other interesting events this week in history:
2007: The final book in the Harry Potter series was released.
1942: Deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka began.
1969: That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
1899: Ernest Hemingway is born.
1865: Pierre Lallement, inventor of the bicycle, arrives in America.
1799: The Rosetta Stone was found during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.
Week 27
China and North Korea signed the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.
Spain accepted equal rights for men and women.
Golfing legend Arnold Palmer wins the first of two consecutive British Open Championships.
The TIROS-3 satellite, launched from Florida, became the first to photograph weather storms.
Other history this week:
1789: French revolutionaries storm the Bastille.
1861: Wild Bill Hickok’s first gunfight.
1955: Last woman hanged for murder in Britain.
1997: Fashion designer Gianni Versace was murdered in Miami, Florida.
2013: The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter first appears.
Week 26
Rod Laver wins the first of his four Wimbledon titles.
James R. Hoffa was elected president of Teamsters.
China and North Korea signed the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.
Other interesting history this week:
1776, The Liberty Bell rang from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House to the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.
1930, Construction of the Hoover Dam began.
1951, Paris celebrated its 2.000th birthday.
1957, Althea Gibson was the first African American to win Wimbledon.
Week 25
Diana Spencer, future Princess of Wales, is born in Sandringham.
Ernest Hemingway dies from a self inflicted gunshot wound in Ketchum Idaho, aged 61.
Baseball legend Roger Maris hits his 29th and 30th home run en route to 61 for the season.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French physician, author, anti-Semite, died.
Other interesting history this week:
1969: The Stonewall Riots, history’s first major protest on behalf of gay rights, occurred in NYC.
1958: Pelé leads Brazil to first World Cup title.
1936: Gone With the Wind was published.
1914: Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.
Week 24
The US Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland’s constitution requiring state office holders to believe in God.
Iraq demands dominion over Kuwait.
The Antarctic Treaty comes into effect, setting it aside as a scientific preserve and banning all military activity on the continent.
Other interesting history this week:
1964, The KKK killed three civil rights activists.
1944, US President FDR signed the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to compensate returning members of the armed forces.
1813, French defeated in Spain, ending the Peninsular war.
1778, the US Constitution was ratified.
1775, Congress issued a Continental currency.
Week 23
Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects to the West at Le Bourget Airport in Paris.
Kuwait declares independence from the UK along with Qatar, Bahrain.
The US Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland’s constitution requiring state office holders to believe in God.
The city of San Francisco saw its highest temperature in history: 106 degrees.
A brand new, custom-built Lincoln Continental convertible is delivered to the White House for use by President Kennedy. Two years later, he would be assassinated in it.
Other interesting history this week:
1215: King John puts his seal on the Magna Carta.
1777: Congress adopts the Stars and Stripes.
1877: First African American graduates from West Point.
1940: Germany invades Paris.
1951: UNIVAC, the first commercially produced digital computer, is dedicated.
1963: Soviet cosmonaut Velentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.
Week 22
Roger Maris hits 19th and 20th of 61 home runs.
Other interesting history this week:
1534: French navigator Jacques Cartier sails the St. Lawrence River.
1939: King George VI becomes the first British monarch to visit the US.
1949: George Orwell’s 1984 is published.
1968: James Earl Ray, suspect in Martin Luther King Jr. assassination is arrested.
Week 21
This week in 1961…
The Union of South Africa became a republic, leaving the Commonwealth.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung one of the founders of modern psychiatry, died in Zurich.
John F Kennedy visited Charles de Gaulle in Paris.
Other interesting history this week:
1819: Poet Walt Whitman, author of “Leaves of Grass” was born.
1859: Big Ben rang out over London for the first time.
1921: On the night of May 31, thousands of white citizens in Tulsa, Oklahoma descended on the city’s predominantly Black Greenwood District, burning homes and businesses to the ground and killing hundreds of people.
1942: News of Holocaust death camp killings became public for the first time.
1980: CNN launched. .
Week 20
- Amnesty International was founded.
- President Kennedy announced his attention of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
- After 78 years in operation, the original Orient Express made its final trip, traveling from Paris to Bucharest.
- A USAF bomber flew the Atlantic in a record of just over three hours.
Other interesting history this week:
1637: Pequot massacres began.
1883: The Brooklyn Bridge opened.
1897: The first copies of the classic novel Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker appeared in London bookshops.
1977: Star Wars opened in theaters.
2020: George Floyd was killed igniting historic protests.
Week 19
First revolving restaurant (Top Of The Needle in Seattle) opened.
Fidel Castro offered to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers.
A white mob attacked “Freedom Riders” in Montgomery, Alabama.
Other interesting history this week:
1536 Anne Boleyn, 2nd wife of Henry VIII, was beheaded.
1802 Napoleon created the Legion d’Honneur.
1920 Pope Jean Paul II was born
1935 T.E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia”, died at the age of 46 following a motorcycle accident.
1994 Jackie Kennedy, US First Lady, known for her style and elegance, died in New York City.
Week 18
Pres. Kennedy authorized American advisors to aid South Vietnam against the forces of North Vietnam.
Dennis Rodman, NBA forward (Chicago Bulls), was born.
Gary Cooper (60), 2 time Academy award winning actor (High Noon), died.
36 Unification church couples were wed in Korea.
Other interesting history this week:
1858 Minnesota enters the Union.
1877 Rutherford B. Hayes installed the first phone in the White House.
1922 Kidnapped Lindbergh baby found dead.
1940 Winston Churchill became prime minister of Britain.
1994 Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president was inaugurated.
Week 17
Alan Shepard, aboard Freedom 7, became the 1st American in space.
The first CORE Freedom Ride, a series of bus journeys by civil rights activists to test the newly-passed Supreme Court ruling against segregation, departed from Washington, D.C.
George Blake, a British spy found guilty of working as a double agent for the Soviet Union, was imprisoned for 42 years. After just five, he would escape and flee to Moscow.
George Clooney, actor, was born in Lexington, KY.
Other interesting history this week:
1469 Italian philosopher and writer Niccolo Machiavelli was born.
1776 Rhode Island became the first colony to declare independence from England.
1821 Napoleon died in exile.
1966 Willie Mays broke the National League home run record.
Week 16
The United Kingdom granted Sierra Leone independence.
ABC’s “Wide World of Sports made its debut.
Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba received the Lenin Peace Prize and four days later announced that there would be no more elections in Cuba.
Harper Lee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her coming-of-age novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
Other interesting history this week:
On April 27, 4977 B.C., the universe was created, according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, considered a founder of modern science.
1954 the Polio vaccine trials began.
1956 Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco married.
1969 Charles de Gaulle resigned as leader of France.
Week 15
The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the earth.
The UN General Assembly condemned South Africa’s apartheid.
The Soviet Union made its first live television broadcast.
France won its second Five Nations Rugby Championship with a 15-3 victory over Ireland in Dublin.
1,400 Cuban exiles land in the Bay of Pigs in a doomed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.
Other interesting historical facts for the week of April 12-18:
In 1633, Galileo was accused of heresy.
1743, Thomas Jefferson was born.
1775, First American abolition society founded in Philadelphia.
1818, Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language is printed.
1865, John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln.
1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.
1928, The first nonstop flight went from Europe to North America.
1997, Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament for the first time.
Week 14
Zog I, King of Albania (1925-39), died in exile in France.
At the 25th US Masters golf tournament, South African Gary Player became the 1st international champion.
The trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the holocaust, began in Jerusalem, for war crimes in WWII.
Folk singer Bob Dylan performed in New York City for the first time.
In 1805, Lewis and Clark resumed their journey West after spending the winter at Fort Mandan, near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota.
Week 13
The 23rd amendment, allowing residents of Washington, DC to vote for president, was ratified.
Eddie Murphy, actor, (SNL, 48 Hours, Beverly Hill Cop), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
The UN adopted its Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs. It included language that prohibited the chewing of coca leaves.
After four-and-a-half years, the South African Treason Trial comes to an end. All 156 defendants, including Nelson Mandela, are found not guilty.
Too bad we’re not looking at 1889. March 31st of that year the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated!!
Week 12
Black demonstrators in Charleston staged ride-ins on street cars.
There was a failed assassination attempt on King Saif al-Islam Achmad of Yemen.
Week 11
South Africa withdraws from the British Commonwealth.
The Beatles make their first appearance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.
The Agony and the Ecstasy was published by Irving Stone.
The “Poppin’ Fresh” Pillsbury Dough Boy was introduced.
The Eurovision Song Contest is won by Luxembourg for the song “Nous les amoureux”. It is the first of the country’s five victories over the coming years.
The “Kurenivka mudslide” occurs in Kiev after a local dam collapses. Soviet authorities suppress information about the disaster and claim 145 fatalities. As with other 1961 events, the passage of time paints a different picture, with a 2012 study estimating the actual number of victims to be close to 1,500.
Week 10
Sputnik 9 was launched with a dog named Chernushka (Blackie) on a one-orbit mission. Also onboard the spacecraft was a dummy cosmonaut, mice, frogs and a guinea pig. (Unfortunately Chernushka did not come back alive).
Mattel releases the Ken doll, introducing him as Barbie’s new boyfriend.
US nuclear submarine Patrick Henry arrived at Scottish naval base of Holy Loch from SC in a record under seas journey of 66 days 22 hrs.
Week 9
U.S. President JFK establishes the Peace Corps.
First London minicabs are introduced.
79-year-old artist Pablo Picasso marries Jacqueline Roque, 44 years his junior, in Vallauris, France.
The phrase “affirmative action”, referring to the policies of hiring and treating individuals on merit without race, creed, color or national origin being a factor, is first coined in an Executive Order signed by President Kennedy.
Week 8
John F. Kennedy named Henry Kissinger national security adviser.
British Foreign Sec. Douglas-Home said in a “Top Secret” letter to Defense Minister Harold Watkinson that, “It must be fully obvious to the Americans that Hong Kong is indefensible by conventional means and that in the event of a Chinese attack, nuclear strikes against China would be the only alternative to complete abandonment of the colony.” The document was made public in 2006.
The last active tram in Sydney ceases operations, bringing to an end the largest tram network in the entire Southern Hemisphere.
Hassan II is pronounced King of Morocco, a position he would hold until his death in 1999.
Week 7
This was a bleak week in U.S. history:
- Sabena Flight 548 crashes in Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team, several coaches and family members.
- Albania disavows Chinese “Revisionism.”
- 1st all-solid-propellant rocket put in orbit, Wallops Island, Virginia.
- China uses its 1st nuclear reactor.
Week 6
The Beatles make their debut appearance at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, the first of the band’s 292 performances at the venue.
Soviet Union fires a rocket from Sputnik V to Venus.
Niagara Falls hydroelectric project begins producing power.
Week 5
At Wailuku, Hawaii, former U.S. President, Barack Obama’s parents, Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr. were married.
The push-button telephone was put into public service for the first time; its first customers were in Carnegie, PA and Findlay, OH.
Jane Fonda made her television acting debut in the NBC drama “A String of Beads.”
Marilyn Monroe was admitted to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic and locked inside a padded cell, four days after the release of her latest movie, The Misfits, which would also turn out to be her last.
French interior designer Stéphane Boudin made his first visit to the White House, to plan the refurnishing of the U.S. President’s residence at the request of the new First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.
Was born: Prince François, Count of Clermont, Dauphin of the Orleanist, claimant to the French throne.
Week 4
Walt Disney’s “101 Dalmatians” was released.
President Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television.
“Are You Lonesome Tonight?” by Elvis Presley peaked at #1.
Janet G. Travell became the 1st woman personal physician to the US President.
In South Carolina 10 black men were arrested for ordering lunch from a whites-only counter at McCrory’s variety store in Greensboro. One man paid a fine and the rest became known as the “Friendship Nine.” In 2015 prosecutors sought to vacate their arrests and convictions.
Ham the Chimp becomes the first ape in space, climbing to a distance of 157 miles above Earth in the Mercury-Redstone 2 Launch Vehicle.
Disenchanted with life in the Soviet Union, American defector Lee Harvey Oswald wrote to President Kennedy’s newly appointed US Secretary of the Navy, John Connally, to ask for a reversal of Oswald’s dishonorable discharge from the United States Marines. The letter was never acted upon, and on November 22, 1963, Oswald would shoot both Kennedy and Connally.
Week 3
This week in 1961 saw the inauguration of America’s 35th and youngest President, John F. Kennedy. For the first time the event was shown on color television. He gave his now famous “Ask not” speech from the Capitol steps.
Four time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost was the first poet to participate in a presidential inauguration. Because of failing eyesight, a bright glare on a sunny day with snow cover, and a dim typewriter ribbon, he could not recite the poem he wrote for the occasion, “Dedication”, but recited from memory his famous poem “The Gift Outright”.
Jackie Kennedy was on the cover of TIME Magazine.
Week 2
To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the best selling books. The US banned travel by its citizens to Cuba, except in special cases. Clark Gable was on the cover of Life Magazine. The US government published its very first set of dietary guidelines: eat less fat. The Supremes signed with Motown Records. The University of Georgia admitted African-American students for the first time, provoking race riots.
Week 1
1961 was a year filled with tension and excitement in equal measure. While gigantic advancements were being made in the space race, they were equaled by developments in numerous conflicts across the globe, most notably the Vietnam War and the Cold War, all heralded by the inauguration of one of America’s most popular presidents, John F. Kennedy.
On the Chinese calendar, 1961 was the Year of the Ox. People born under this sign are known to be persistent and straightforward. AAWE’s founder, Phyllis Michaux, was very persistent and straightforward when she set out to find women in her similar position, after challenges with US citizenship due to her marriage to a foreign national, and then forming our club.
AAWE members have been persistent ever since in keeping our club alive, vibrant, and successful.
This New Year 2021 is also a Year of the Ox. And together we will surely be persistent and get through this pandemic.
Look for more to come surrounding our 60th celebration!