David Prashker's Book Of Days: April 7

Amber pages

Wordsworth's birthday in 1770

Billie Holiday's in 1915

Ravi Shankar's in 1920

Francis Ford Coppola's in 1939

But the person I want to focus on today is

Flora Tristan, or in full Flore Celestine Thérèse Henriette Tristán y Moscoso, born today in 1803; a French-Peruvian writer, political activist, contributor to feminist theory, and some would say - herself among them - a utopist defender of both womens' and workers' rights, those latter two combined through her founding of "L’Union ouvrière", the first Trades Union for women, in 1844, the year in which she died, ill and exhausted from those Herculeaness efforts, but more immediately riven with typhoid fever, on November 14.

I will eventually write a much fuller piece about her and her achievements, but for the moment I offer this link, which has everything you could want to know about this truly extraordinary woman.

Her writings include "the Petition to Reinstate Divorce" and "a Petition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty", both in the "Journal du Peuple" ("Journal of the People") in 1837; then "Promenades dans Londres" ("Promenades in London") in 1840; and her greatest and most impactful work, the book to accompany her efforts to make utopia a reality, "L’Union Ouvrière" ("The Worker’s Union"), published in 1843.