Ann Dunham

Stanley Ann Dunham (born November 29, 1942 in Wichita , Kansas , † November 7, 1995 in Honolulu , Hawaii ) was an American anthropologist specializing in economic anthropology and rural development in Indonesia . She is the mother of Barack Obama , the 44th President of the United States . Dunham was known as Stanley Ann Dunham during high school, later as Ann Dunham , Ann Obama , Ann Soetoro , Ann Sutoro, and then again as Ann Dunham after their second divorce.

resume

Stanley Ann Dunham was born in 1942 at Saint Francis Hospital in Wichita (Kansas), the only child of Madelyn Lee Payne (10/26/1922-02/11/2008) and Stanley Armor Dunham (03/23/1918-08/02/1992) . She was mostly of English ancestry, with some Scottish, Welsh, Irish, German, and Swiss ancestry. Genetic studies have shown that she also descended from an African slave. She studied at the East-West Center and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in Honolulu, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology (1967) and later a Master of Arts (1974) and a PhD (1992), also in anthropology . From 1961 to 1962 she also attended the University of Washington in Seattle . She was interested in handicrafts, weaving and the role of women in housekeeping. Dunham's research focused on the work of women on Java Island and blacksmithing in Indonesia. To address the problem of rural village poverty, she created one of the earliest microcredit programs while working as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development . In Indonesia, where she spent part of her life, she also worked as a teacher and consultant and carried out extensive economic and anthropological studies. Dunham also worked for the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and advised the Asian Development Bank in Gujranwala ( Pakistan ). In the last part of her life, she worked with Bank Rakyat Indonesia , where she helped apply her research to the largest microfinance program in the world. Dunham was examined and diagnosed with uterine cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City in early 1995 . At this point the cancer had already spread. She moved back to Hawaii to live near her widowed mother and died on November 7, 1995, 22 days before her 53rd birthday.

Private

While attending a Russian course at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Dunham met Barack Obama Sr. , the school's first African student. At the age of 23, Obama Sr. came to Hawaii to continue his education, leaving a pregnant wife Kezia and a young son Malik in his hometown of Nyang'oma Kogelo , Kenya. Dunham and Obama Sr. were married on February 2, 1961 on the Hawaiian island of Maui , despite parental opposition from both families. Dunham was three months pregnant at the time. Obama Sr. eventually informed Dunham of his first marriage in Kenya but claimed he was divorced. Years later she discovered that this statement was wrong. Kezia Obama later said that she had given her consent to marry a second woman, as was the custom of the Luo . On August 4, 1961, at the age of 18, Dunham gave birth to their first child, Barack. The marriage to Obama eventually broke up and the couple divorced in 1964. Her son Barack only saw his father one more time in 1970 before he was killed in a car accident in Kenya in 1982.

At the East – West Center of the University of Hawaii, Dunham met Lolo Soetoro , an Indonesian student who had come to Honolulu in September 1962 on a scholarship from the Center to study geography at the University of Hawaii. Soetoro and Dunham married in Hawaii in 1965, and Soetoro returned to Indonesia in 1966. Dunham graduated from the University of Hawai'i on August 6, 1967 with a bachelor's degree in anthropology and moved to Jakarta with her six-year-old son in October of that year to rejoin her husband, who was now working for the Indonesian government. In 1970 their daughter Maya was born, who would be their only child together. Lolo Soetoro and Dunham were divorced on November 5, 1980.

legacy

After her son was elected president, interest in Dunham's work was renewed: the University of Hawaii held a symposium on her research; an exhibition of Dunham's Indonesian batik textile collection toured the United States; and in December 2009 Duke University Press published Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia , a book based on Dunham's 1992 dissertation. Janny Scott , a writer and former reporter for the New York Times , published a biography of Ann Dunham's life in 2011 entitled A Singular Woman . The posthumous interest also led to the establishment of the Ann Dunham Soetoro Foundation in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii under Mānoa, as well as the Ann Dunham Soetoro Graduate Scholarships, which support students at the East-West Center (EWC) in Honolulu should.

In an interview, Barack Obama described his mother as "the dominant figure in my formative years ... The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I act in the world of politics."

Individual evidence

^ President Obama: From Kansas to the Capital, Parts 1-4. July 1, 2009, accessed February 11, 2020 .
^ Research Connects First African-American President to First African Slave in the American Colonies. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
^ Spotlight on Alumni: EWC Alumna Ann Dunham - Mother to President Obama and Champion of Women's Rights and Economic Justice. April 7, 2011, accessed February 11, 2020 .
↑ BBC World Service - Documentaries - Dreams From My Mother. Retrieved February 11, 2020 (UK English).
↑ Ann Dunham: A Personal Reflection - UH Anthropology. June 10, 2010, accessed February 11, 2020 .
↑ Janny Scott: A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama's Path . In: The New York Times . March 14, 2008, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed February 11, 2020]).
↑ Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself, It Is Hawaii That Made His Rise Possible. In: Washington Post. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
↑ WebCite query result. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
↑ Interview by Deborah Solomon: All in the Family . In: The New York Times . January 20, 2008, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed February 11, 2020]).
↑ The Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowed Fund. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .

personal data
SURNAME	Dunham, Ann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Dunham, Stanley Ann (full name); Obama, Ann; Soetoro, Ann; Sutoro, Ann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American anthropologist, mother of Barack Obama
DATE OF BIRTH	November 29, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wichita , Kansas
DATE OF DEATH	November 7, 1995
Place of death	Honolulu , Hawaii

[1] President Obama: From Kansas to the Capital, Parts 1-4. July 1, 2009, accessed February 11, 2020 .

[2] Research Connects First African-American President to First African Slave in the American Colonies. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .

[3] Spotlight on Alumni: EWC Alumna Ann Dunham - Mother to President Obama and Champion of Women's Rights and Economic Justice. April 7, 2011, accessed February 11, 2020 .

[4] BBC World Service - Documentaries - Dreams From My Mother. Retrieved February 11, 2020 (UK English).

[5] Ann Dunham: A Personal Reflection - UH Anthropology. June 10, 2010, accessed February 11, 2020 .

[6] Janny Scott: A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama's Path . In: The New York Times . March 14, 2008, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed February 11, 2020]).

[7] Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself, It Is Hawaii That Made His Rise Possible. In: Washington Post. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .

[8] WebCite query result. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .

[9] Interview by Deborah Solomon: All in the Family . In: The New York Times . January 20, 2008, ISSN 0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed February 11, 2020]).

[10] The Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowed Fund. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .