GREAT WOMEN

Josefa de Dominguez
b. 1768, Morelia, Mexico; d. 1829, Mexico City

Josefa Ortiz married Miguel Domínguez in 1791 and moved to the town of Querétaro, where he was appointed corregidor (magistrate) by the viceroy of New Spain. Querétaro was a hotbed of revolutionary activity and Josefa was sympathetic to the independence cause. Miguel, as the highest official in town, had knowledge of crown affairs. Soon their home became a clearinghouse for information, with Josefa running intelligence to the independencistas, who were preparing to launch an uprising in December 1810. Colonial authorities got wind of the plans and ordered the town searched. Josefa warned the rebel leader, Miguel Hidalgo, who issued the call to arms on September 16, setting off the War of Independence. Josefa's role in the insurrection was eventually discovered and she was imprisoned in a nunnery from 1813 to 1817. La Corregidora, as she is known, is today revered as a heroine of the anticolonial struggle.

Rosa Chouteau
Flourished circa 1875, Oklahoma

The correct spelling of this name is ROSANA CHOUTEAU.

Rosana Chouteau was elected chief of the Osage Beaver Band, a clan of the Native American Osage Nation, in 1875, following the death of her uncle. She was the first female clan chief of that tribe

Ana Betancourt
b. 1832, Cuba; d. 1895, Cuba

The Cuban war of independence from Spain began in 1868. Mambisas—rebel women—played a crucial role in the insurgency, as political agitators, nurses, and fighters on the front lines. Ana Betancourt, a mambisa from a wealthy landholding family, belonged to the first generation of Cuban feminists. In 1869, she addressed the Constitutional Congress on behalf of women's rights, linking female emancipation to the abolition of slavery and the anticolonial struggle. Betancourt's plea went unheeded.

FAMOUS WOMEN

Saint Joan of Arc,

1412 � 30 May 1431
nicknamed "The Maid of Orl�ans" (French: Jeanne d'Arc, is considered a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII.
She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake when she was 19 years old.
Twenty-five years after the execution, Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent and declared her a martyr.Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.[2] She is � along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux � one of the patron saints of France.

Joan asserted that she had visions from God that instructed her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orl�ans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.

Santa Juana de Arco
6 de enero de 1412 � 30 de mayo de 1431,
tambi�n conocida como la Doncella de Orl�ans (o, en franc�s, la Pucelle), fue una hero�na, militar y santa francesa. Su festividad se celebra el d�a del aniversario de su muerte, como es tradici�n en la Iglesia Cat�lica, el 30 de mayo.Nacida en Domr�my, peque�o poblado situado en el departamento de los Vosgos en la regi�n de la Lorena, Francia, ya con 17 a�os encabez� el ej�rcito real franc�s. Convenci� al rey Carlos VII de que expulsar�a a los ingleses de Francia y �ste le dio autoridad sobre su ej�rcito en el Sitio de Orleans, la batalla de Patay y otros enfrentamientos en 1429 y 1430. Estas campa�as revitalizaron la facci�n de Carlos VII durante la Guerra de los Cien A�os y permitieron la coronaci�n del monarca.

Como recompensa, el rey eximi� al pueblo natal de Juana de Domr�my del impuesto anual a la corona. Esta ley se mantuvo en vigor hasta hace aproximadamente cien a�os. Posteriormente fue capturada por los borgo�ones y entregada a los ingleses. Los cl�rigos la condenaron por herej�a y el duque Juan de Bedford la quem� viva en Ruan. La mayor�a de los datos sobre su vida se basan en las actas de aquel proceso pero, en cierta forma, est�n desprovistos de cr�dito pues, seg�n diversos testigos presenciales del juicio, fueron sometidos a multitud de correcciones por orden del obispo Cauchon, as� como a la introducci�n de datos falsos. Entre estos testigos estaba el escribano oficial, designado s�lo por Cauchon, quien afirma que en ocasiones hab�a secretarios escondidos detr�s de las cortinas de la sala esperando instrucciones para borrar o agregar datos a las actas.

Susan Brownell Anthony

(February 15, 1820 � March 13, 1906)

was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women�s rights movement to introduce women�s suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women�s Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President.She also co-founded the women�s rights journal, The Revolution. She traveled the United States and Europe, and averaged 75 to 100 speeches per year.She was one of the important advocates in leading the way for women�s rights to be acknowledged and instituted in the American government.

Marian Anderson

A photograph of Anderson by Carl Van Vechten taken in 1940.

(February 27, 1897 � April 8, 1993)

Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century.

Music critic Alan Blyth said �Her voice was a rich, vibrant contralto of intrinsic beauty.�Most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although she was offered contracts to perform roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined all of these, preferring to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and recitals. She made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire of everything from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals.

Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid twentieth century. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. Their race-driven refusal placed Anderson into the spotlight of the international community on a level usually only found by high profile celebrities and politicians. With the aid of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions. She continued to break barriers for black artists in the United States, becoming the first black person, American or otherwise, to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955. Her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi�s Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage.
Anderson was also an important symbol of grace and beauty during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, singing at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. She also worked for several years as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and as a �goodwill ambassadress� for the United States Department of State. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

Marian Anderson�s picture appears in on the $5000 paper Series I Bond issued by the US Treasury.

,ANNE BOLEYN, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT,

Anne Boleyn

c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536)

was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right.[5] Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. A commoner, Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Claude of France. She returned to England in early 1522, in order to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; however, the marriage plans ended in failure and she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's queen consort, Catherine of Aragon.
In the spring of 1523 there was a secret betrothal between Anne and Henry Percy son of the 5th Duke of Northumberland. However, in January of 1524 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey broke the betrothal, Anne was sent back home to Hever Castle, and Percy was married to
Lady Mary Talbot, to whom he had been betrothed since adolescence.
In February/ March of 1526 Henry VIII began courtly pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress as her sister Mary had. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church in England began.

Ana Bolena
reina consorte de Inglaterra, primera marqués de Pembroke.

Su fecha de nacimiento solía fijarse en 1507, pero los historiadores más modernos la datan en 1501 (— 19 de mayo de 1536).2 Ana fue la segunda esposa del rey Enrique VIII y la madre de la reina Isabel I. El matrimonio de Enrique y Ana y su posterior ejecución, fueron parte del complejo comienzo de la considerable agitación política y religiosa que fue la Reforma inglesa, con Ana participando activamente en la promoción de la causa de la reforma de la Iglesia. La han llamado «la reina consorte más influyente e importante que Inglaterra ha tenido nunca».

Ana Bolena es popularmente conocida por haber sido decapitada bajo acusación de adulterio, incesto y traición. Está extensamente asumido el haber sido inocente de los cargos, y fue conmemorada más tarde como mártir en la cultura Protestante inglesa, particularmente por los trabajos de John Foxe.

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott at about age 25

Born November 29, 1832Germantown, PA, U.S.
Died March 6, 1888 (aged 55)Boston, MA, U.S.
Pen name A. M. Barnard
Occupation Novelist
Nationality American
Period Civil war
Subjects Young Adult stories
Notable work(s) Little Women


She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868. This novel is loosely based on her childhood experiences with her three sisters.

AWASHONKS ,JANE ADDAMS

Awashonks
Flourished circa 1671, Rhode Island

Awashonks was a Native American woman who served as chief of the Sakonnet tribe in Seconet, Rhode Island. In 1671, she was among the signers of a peace agreement between a confederation of local tribes and Plymouth Colony. However, she supported Chief Metacom when, after suffering years of humiliation at the hands of the whites, he broke the treaty in 1675 and attacked the English settlers. The conflict, known as King Philip's War, ended in a white victory in 1676, but by that time Awashonks had made peace with the settlers and switched sides.

Jane Addams

(September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935)

She was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace. Alongside presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson she was the most prominent reformer of the Progressive Era and helped turn the nation to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health and world peace. She emphasized that women have a special responsibility to clean up their communities and make them better places to live, arguing they needed the vote to be effective. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities.

She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy. In 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

ANNIE DODGE WAUNEKA

Annie Dodge Wauneka


Birth: 1910 -
Death: 1997
Born In: Arizona, United States of
America
Died In: Arizona,
United States of America
Achievements: Science
Educated In: Arizona
Countries Educated In: United States of
America
Schools Attended:
Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding School, University of Arizona
Worked In: Arizona, New Mexico,
District of Columbia
Countries Worked
In: United States of America



Annie Dodge Wauneka, tribal leader of the Navajo Nation and public health
activist, worked tirelessly to improve the health and welfare of the Navajo
Tribe and reduce the incidence of tuberculosis nationwide. Born in 1910 in a
traditional Navajo hogan, Wauneka was raised by her father, one of the
wealthiest men of the Navajo Tribe. While taught Navajo history and culture,
Wauneka also gained a general education. When she was eight, while attending a
government-run school on the reservation, a tragic event occurred which helped
shape the rest of her life. An influenza epidemic struck. Thousands of Navajos,
including many of Wauneka’s classmates, died. Wauneka escaped with only a mild
case that left her resistant to the disease. Thus she was able to care for those
who were too ill to feed themselves. After graduation and her marriage to George
Wauneka, Annie continued to travel with her father, observing the poverty and
disease that plagued most of the Navajo. She studied public health and then,
realizing that the best way to change the standards of health and sanitation
among tribal members was from within, Wauneka gained election in 1951 to the
Tribal Council, the second woman ever so elected. During her three terms in
office, Wauneka led the fight against tuberculosis. She wrote a dictionary to
translate English words into Navajo for modern medical techniques, such as
vaccination. Her weekly radio broadcasts, in the Navajo language, explained how
modern medicine could help improve health among the Navajo. She also worked on other health problems including better care for pregnant women and new babies,regular eye and ear examinations, and alcoholism. She continued working in her community on health issues until her death in 1997. She helped improve housing and sanitation conditions and convinced her tribe to adopt many modern medical practices and avail themselves of hospital care, when needed. She also served on the advisory boards of the U.S. Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1963, Wauneka became the first Native American to receive the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ladies’ Home Journal selected her a Woman of the Year in 1976. In 1984, the Navajo Council designated her “The Legendary Mother of the Navajo Nation.” All recognize that through her efforts in education and health, the lives of every Navajo, as well as the nation at large, have been
improved.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW MD

Anna Howard Shaw

Birth: 1847 -
Death: 1919
Born In: , England
Died In: ,
Achievements: Humanities


Reverend Doctor Anna Howard Shaw, minister, physician, ardent feminist, and masterful orator, worked to improve individual morality through her ministry, tried to improve society by moving into the temperance and suffrage movements, and finally campaigned vigorously for the League of Nations to promote world peace. Essentially self-taught, Shaw’s first career, to help support her family,
was as a frontier school teacher. Her father having let the family down on several occasions, at the age of twelve Shaw had to assume the burden of the survival of her semi-invalid mother and her siblings. From this experience, Shaw developed both a low opinion of men’s abilities and an ambition to excel in a man’s world, passions that helped shape her career. After the Civil War, she was able to move into the home of a married sister and attend high school. She became active in the Methodist church, preaching her first sermon when she was
twenty-three and becoming a licensed to preach a year later. In 1873, she entered Albion College, paying for her two years of education there by preaching and giving lectures on temperance. In 1876, she left Albion to attend Boston Theological Seminary. Upon graduation, in 1878, as the only woman in her class, she took charge of a church in East Dennis, Massachusetts, but the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church refused her application for ordination because she was a woman. It also took steps to revoke her preaching license. Finally, in 1880, Shaw convinced the Methodist Protestant Church to
grant her ordination so she could administer the sacraments and continue her ministry in East Dennis. In addition to ministering at two churches, Shaw earned a medical degree from Boston University in 1886. However, she never practiced medicine. Instead, she resigned her pastorates in 1885 to take up the banners of temperance and women’s suffrage. From the 1880s until her death in 1919, Shaw worked at the grass roots level throughout the country to achieve women’s suffrage. For a few years she headed the Franchise Department of the Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union. In 1904 she became president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. During World War I, Shaw turned her attention to foreign affairs. She became chair of the Woman’s Committee of the United States Council of National Defense, coordinating women’s contributions to the war effort. For this work, in 1919 she became the first woman to earn the Distinguished Service Medal. At the end of the war, at the request of President Woodrow Wilson and former President William Howard Taft, she lectured in the
United States and Europe in support of world peace and the League of Nations.

It was during one of those speaking tours that she fell ill and died in July, 1919, at the age of seventy-two. While Shaw died just before the Women’s Suffrage Amendment was ratified, she fulfilled her vision of success: “Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great cause more than life itself.”

ANNE SULLIVAN

Anne Sullivan (Anne
Sullivan Macy)

Birth: 1866 –

Death: 1936
Born In: Massachusetts, United States of America
Achievements: Education
Educated In: Massachusetts
Countries Educated In: United States of America
Schools Attended: Perkins School for the Blind
Worked In: Alabama, Massachusetts, New York
Countries Worked In: United States of America


Born in 1866, Anne Sullivan lost her mother when she was young and her father became an alcoholic. She and her siblings were sent to live with relatives, but in 1876 the family sent Annie and her youngest brother to the Tewksbury, Massachusetts poorhouse. There she lost her sight to trachoma. After four years, she was sent to the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston and
eventually received medical treatment that restored her sight. Upon graduation from Perkins in 1886, she began to teach. The next year, the Headmaster of Perkins wrote to her about the situation of a student who was blind and deaf, unable to communicate and demonstrating violent temper tantrums. No one had been successful in reaching her.

Anne Sullivan rose to the challenge and traveled to Alabama to meet Helen Keller. Sullivan had learned the manual alphabet and immediately began to teach Keller by letting her touch things. Sullivan would then spell what the object was in Keller’s hand. Sullivan succeeded in teaching Keller to read, write and minimally speak.

In 1904, Keller graduated from Radcliffe College, supported by Sullivan’s presence. Sullivan and Keller became world famous through Keller’s writing, lectures and other public appearances. Sullivan’s dedication and innovative teaching had made it possible for Keller to break through the formidable barriers that challenged people with multiple
disabilities. Both became role models for thousands of physically challenged people around the world and raised thousands of dollars for organizations that assisted the blind. Sullivan’s focus, persistence, and creativity forged a model that contributed to changing public perceptions regarding the capabilities of people with disabilities.

Her insight and dedication contributed to the contemporary expansion of opportunities for people with disabilities and to breaking down myths and stereotypes, furthering social and economic justice.

ANNIE OAKLEY

Annie Oakley

Birth: 1860 -

Died In: Ohio, United States of America
Achievements: Arts
Worked In: Ohio, Louisiana
Countries Worked In: United States of America, England, France, Spain, Italy



Annie Oakley was probably the nation’s finest marksman.

Born in 1860, she was an outstanding Ohio woman who gave freely of her time, funds and energies to benefit other women. Oakley’s shooting skills were developed early in her life and when she was age 21 she met her future husband, shooting champion, Frank Butler by defeating him in a match. They toured as a team for some years before he retired to manage her career. She joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1885 and
performed as the star of that 19th century show for more than 16 years. She astonished Americans and royalty across England and Europe with her amazing skill. She was injured in a train accident in 1901 that ended her career with the Wild West. After she recovered she went on to shoot in charity events to help orphans, widows, and underprivileged women. She campaigned for women’s rights to hold paid employment, earn equal pay, participate in sports, and defend herself in her own home and on city streets.

EUGENIE NIBOYET

Eugénie Niboyet

Born 10 September 1796
Montpellier
Died 6 January 1883 (age 87)
Paris
Nationality French
Other names Eugénie Niboyet
Occupation Writer, journalist, translator, and political activist
Spouse Paul Louis Niboyet
Children Jean Alexandre Paulin Niboyet

Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet (September 10, 1796 – January 6, 1883) was a French author and early feminist. She is best known for founding La Voix des Femmes (The Women's Voice), the first feminist daily newspaper in France.
Eugenie Niboyet, named Eugenie Mouchon at birth, was born on September 11, 1796, in Montpellier, France.1 Eugenie wrote about her own family background in the last part of her literary work, The Real Book of Women [Le vrai livre des femmes2]: “I come from a literate family with origins from Geneva, Switzerland," she wrote before emphasizing the importance of her grandfather Pierre Mouchon, an erudite pastor in Geneva and contributor to the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. Only afterward did she mention her father, who came to France to study at the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, and her mother by simply stating, "He married the daughter of a pastor from Gar," which indicated a Protestant origin. At the beginning of her book, Eugenie emphasized the importance of her family’s origins in Geneva, the importance of her father relative to new ideas from the French Revolution but also relative to moderation, and his "refusal of excess," which led to him having to take refuge in the Cevennes to avoid execution.
Eugenie had two sisters, Aline and Elisa, to whom she later wrote: "We do not write for the narrow minds who want to confine women to the household. Women no longer have to buy their freedom, but to exercise it."

Debut as a Female Writer
Arriving in Paris on November 4, 1829, she began to make a living as a writer. In 1830, she participated in a writing contest of Société de la morale chrétienne (The Society of Christian Morality). She focused on the theme of The blind and their education, her writing received favorable notices, and she ultimately shared the contest prize with M. Duffaut.
Debut of Women’s Journalism
With the Saint-Simonian proletarians, she was part of the group of women who participated in the first periodical written entirely by women: The Free Woman La Femme libre, created by Marie-Reine Guindorf and Desiree Veret.
Fourierism
Like the two founders and participants in the first issues of The Free Woman, she drew closer to the movement of the philosopher Charles Fourier, who presented the treatment of women as the truest measure of social progress. In particular, she went to meet with Flora Tristan.
Female Publisher
Back in Lyon in 1833, Eugenie founded the first feminist periodical outside the Paris region with a publication titled The Women's Advisor [Le Conseiller des femmes], a weekly without illustrations printed by Boitel, followed for a few months by The Lyon Mosaic [La Mosaïque Lyonnaise]. Then she participated in the creation of The Peace of Both Worlds [La Paix des deux mondes], and in 1834 of The Athenaeum of Women [L’Athénée des femmes].
In July 1836, back in Paris, Eugenie founded The Gazette of Women [La Gazette des Femmes] with the help of friends such as Charles Fredric Herbinot de Mauchamps. A sort of club, bringing together editors and subscribers, met to support and manage the newspaper, but also to discuss particular issues including the struggle for political and civil rights of women. Eugenie gathered many women during these weekly meetings on Thursdays at 27 Rue Lafite. There one could meet Flora Tristan, Hortense Allart, Anais Segalas and many other feminists.

Militant Feminist Politics
The revolution of 1848 gave new hope to feminism, including the lifting of restrictions on meetings, thereby allowing the development of groups that advocated for women's rights.

In March 1848, Eugenie Niboyet founded and ran a newspaper dealing only with women’s issues. The Voice of Women [La Voix des femmes], subtitled “a socialist and political newspaper representing all women’s interests,” was the first French feminist daily newspaper. Following the model of the club of The Gazette of Women [La Gazette des Femmes],

The Voice of Women soon joined a political club which included many feminists already involved with small pre-existing publications. Eugenie managed to assemble many women already involved in the feminist struggle such as Jeanne Deroin, Desiree Gay, Suzanne Voilquin, Elisa Lemonnier, and Anais Segalas, but also popular authors such as Gabrielle Soumet, Amelie Prai, and Adele Esquiros. This movement was no longer reserved only for women as men also contributed, such as Jean Mace and Paulin Niboyet, Eugenie’s son.
The club promoted a very large catalog of reforms favorable to women, as much in the domestic realm as in the political. Extending the right to vote to all men provoked a resounding initiative when, on April 6, The Voice of Women nominated the candidacy of George Sand to the French Constituent Assembly. Sand disavowed this initiative and harshly judged these women whom she claimed not to know. Satirical cartoonists lampooned Eugenie and the journalists of The Voice of Women. The brouhaha created by this matter was overwhelming, such that people turned against the promoters of this initiative, and the government decided to end women's clubs. On June 20, Eugenie Niboyet, discouraged and hurt, ceased publication of The Voice of Women, and the feminists dispersed to avoid repression.

End of Life
Eugenie Niboyet retired from public life and went into exile in Geneva, where she lived with difficulty doing translations of Charles Dickens and children's books published by Lydia Maria and Maria Edgeworth. Nevertheless, she took up the pen again after the "Paris Commune" to support requests for pardons of convicts.

In 1860, Eugenie Niboyet returned to France, where she published The True Book of Women [Le Vrai livre des femmes] in 1863.6 Her letters to Leon Richer, the editor of The Rights of Women [Le Droit des femmes], attest to the fact that she always remained interested in the feminist movement. In 1878, at the age of 82 years, she was honored at the feminist congress in Paris.

Eugenie Niboyet died in Paris on January 6, 1883.

ANTONIA NOVELLO MD

Antonia Novello MD

Birth: 1944 -

Born In: Puerto Rico, United States of America
Achievements: Government, Science
Educated In: Puerto Rico, Michigan, District of Columbia, Maryland
Countries Educated In: United States of America
Schools Attended: University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine at San Juan, University of Michigan Medical Center, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health Worked In: Virginia, Maryland, District
of Columbia, New York, Florida Countries Worked In: United States of America

The first woman and the first Hispanic to become the Surgeon General of the United States (1990-1993), Antonia Novello brought to her work a strong empathy for people without power in society and used her position to alleviate suffering, especially for women and children. Trained as a pediatric nephrologist and in public health, Novello became a clinical professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University Hospital in 1986, after working in private practice and later in the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1987 she was named coordinator for AIDS research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and then Deputy Director. As Surgeon General, Dr. Novello was among the first to recognize the need to focus on women with AIDS and on neonatal transmission of HIV. She found new opportunities for Hisp anic/Latino
Americans to participate in health issues, convening national and regional meetings to discuss community health needs. She raised national awareness in the medical profession about the domestic violence epidemic in America, and worked to elevate public conciousness about underage drinking and alcohol abuse.

ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Birth: 1906 -

Death: 2001
Achievements: Arts, Science


Anne Morrow Lindbergh first won literary acclaim when she was very young.

At her graduation from Smith College, she won the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize for the most original literary piece and the Elizabeth Montagu Prize for the best essay on women of the 18th Century. The novels, essays and diaries she later composed have been described as 'small works of art." In 1929, her life dramatically changed with her marriage to America's "last hero," aviator Charles A. Lindbergh. Throughout their marriage the legendary pair flew together constantly on goodwill tours and on business trips to explore transcontinental routes for commercial aviation. In the early 1930s, she became the first woman in the United States to obtain a glider pilot license.

In 1931, she received her private pilot's license. Later, they covered 30,000 miles over five continents. For her part in the expedition, Lindbergh received the United States Flag Association Cross of Honor. In 1934, she became the first woman to receive the National Geographic Society Hubbard Gold Medal, one of several awards won for her piloting and navigational skills. Throughout her aviation career, Lindbergh continued to write.

Her first book, North to the Orient, chronicled the couple's flight in a single engine airplane over uncharted routes through Canada and Alaska to Japan and China.

Listen! The Wind documents their 30,000-mile survey of north and south Atlantic air routes.

In all, Lindbergh published 11 major works. Her 1955 essay, "Gift from the Sea," led the non-fiction bestseller list for many weeks, and a special anniversary edition was reissued 25 years later.

ANNE HUTCHINSON

Anne Hutchinson

Birth: 1591 - Death: 1643
Born In: , England
Died In: New York, United States of America
Achievements: Humanities
Educated In:
Countries Educated In:
Schools Attended:
Worked In: Massachusetts
Countries Worked In: United States of America

"She was a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, a nimble wit and active spirit, a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man," said Governor John Winthrop of religious pioneer Anne Hutchinson, whom he expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638 for her insistence on practicing religion as she chose, and on preaching herself. An émigré from England who settled in the New World in 1634,

Anne Hutchinson came under fire from the colony elders when she began expounding her theology at meetings in her home.

She believed in a "covenant of grace," in which faith alone was enough to achieve salvation. Others disagreed, and when Winthrop became governor, Hutchinson was banished and excommunicated.

She moved with her family to the area of the country that became Rhode Island, and after her husband's death, she moved to Long Island, where in 1643 she and five of her six children were killed in an Indian attack. This advocate of freedom of religion, the right to free assembly and women's rights was honored in the naming of the Hutchinson River and the Hutchinson River Parkway.

ANNE DALLAS DUDLEY

Anne Dallas Dudley

Birth: 1876 - Death: 1955
Born In: Tennessee, United States of America
Died In: Tennessee, United States of America
Achievements: Humanities
Educated In: Tennessee
Countries Educated In: United States of America
Schools Attended: Ward Seminary, Prince College
Worked In: Tennessee
Countries Worked In: United States of America

In the final years of the struggle to pass the 19th Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote, Anne Dudley was central to both the national campaign (serving as National Director) and the critical struggle in her home state of Tennessee, which was to become the 36th and final state to support women's suffrage, thus making the Amendment the law of the land. Dudley, a woman of elegance and high social standing, ignored the natural constraints of her position to speak out with great force and persuasion on behalf of suffrage. She viewed women's voting as "a matter of simple justice," and became the founder and first president of the Nashville Suffrage League, and president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association. In 1917 she was chosen Vice President of the National American Women's Suffrage Association, working closely with President Carrie Chapman Catt in planning the master strategies of the campaign that finally succeeded in 1920. Dudley became a vigorous and outspoken campaigner throughout the South, matching her speeches with articles for publication and work introducing legislation. Dudley became the first woman in Tennessee to make an open-air speech, given after she led a march of 2,000 women from downtown Nashville to Centennial Park -- the first suffrage parade in the South, in May 1914. She was also the first female associate of the Tennessee Democratic Committee, and the first female delegate-at-large of the National Democratic Convention in 1920. Throughout her life and political career, Dudley lived and modeled her conviction regarding women and the rights they were due: "This is a government of, by and for the people, and only the law denies that women are people!"

ANNIE JUMP CANNON

Annie Jump Cannon

Birth: 1863 - Death: 1941
Born In: Delaware, United States of America
Died In: Massachusetts, United States of America
Achievements: Science
Educated In: Delaware, Massachusetts
Countries Educated In: United States of America
Schools Attended: Wilmington Conference Academy, Wellesley College, Radcliffe College
Worked In: Massachusetts
Countries Worked In: United States of America, Peru

Astronomer Annie Jump Cannon perfected the universal system of stellar classification still in use today, and compiled the largest accumulation of astronomical information ever assembled by an individual - the Draper Catalog. Cannon was an assistant at the Harvard Observatory beginning in 1896, and working with Williamina Fleming, she undertook a continuation of the project of recording, classifying and cataloging all stars down to the ninth magnitude.

The resulting classification system by temperature was her concept, and was universally adopted. More than a quarter of a million stars were so classified, and published as The Draper Catalogue in nine volumes, from 1918 to 1924. Cannon became curator of astronomical photographs of the Observatory in 1911 and professor of astronomy in 1938.

She published the Draper Catalogue Extension in two volumes (1925 and 1949), with thousands more stars catalogued. These works were of enormous value to the science of astronomy, and forever secured Cannon's place in scientific history. Cannon was a women's suffrage advocate and a member of the National Women's Party.

ANTOINETTE BLACKWELL

Antoinette Blackwell

Birth: 1825 - Death: 1921
Born In: New York, United States of America
Died In: New Jersey, United States of America
Achievements: Humanities
Educated In: New York, Ohio
Countries Educated In: United States of America
Schools Attended: Monroe County Academy, Oberlin College
Worked In: Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey
Countries Worked In: United States of America

As the first woman minister of a recognized denomination (Congregational), Antoinette Brown Blackwell worked throughout her life to validate women's public role by challenging traditional barriers that restricted them. Blackwell encountered traditional restraints on women's intellectual endeavors and social action when she was not permitted to participate in classroom discussions, attend graduation or be awarded a preacher's license when studying theology at Oberlin College in l850 (the institution later awarded her honorary master's and doctoral degrees). Following ordination, she served as a pastor in Wayne County, New York and later as a visiting pastor - serving as role model to other young women seeking a life's work in the ministry. Blackwell married and had seven children. Throughout her life, she engaged in philosophical and scientific studies, publishing eight books and many essays. Blackwell was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was a leader in the women's rights movement. She was one of the few movement pioneers who lived long enough to cast her ballot in 1920 when the suffrage Amendment was enacted.

ANN BANCROFT

Ann Bancroft
Birth: 1955 -

Born In: Minnesota, United States of America
Achievements: Education, Science
Educated In: Oregon
Countries Educated In: United States of America
Schools Attended: University of Oregon
Worked In: Minnesota
Countries Worked In: United States of America, Greenland, North Pole, South Pole (Antarctica), Canada

A lifelong athlete and educator whose love for the wilderness includes sharing it with others, Ann Bancroft is the first woman to travel across the ice to the North Pole (as the only female member of the Steger International Polar Expedition) in 1986. One of the world's most respected polar explorers, Bancroft also was the first woman to travel east to west across Greenland on skis, leading the first American women's team (1992). She was team leader of the AWE (American Women's Expedition), a group of four women to have skied over 600 miles pulling heavy sleds to the South Pole (1993). A teacher who triumphed over her own struggle with dyslexia, Bancroft also coached numerous sports. She is an instructor for Wilderness Inquiry, an organization that helps disabled and able-bodied individuals experience wilderness adventure. She has developed educational curricula for teachers from elementary school through college, in mathematics, science, geography, the environment and women in non-traditional roles. Bancroft is committed to and involved with numerous health concerns, including multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and those with learning disabilities. Bancroft has also worked as an active volunteer for women's health research, literacy efforts and the Special Olympics.

ANGELINA GRIMKE WELD

Angelina Grimk Weld

Birth: 1805 - Death: 1879
Born In: South Carolina, United States of America
Died In: Massachusetts, United States of America
Achievements: Humanities
Educated In:
Countries Educated In:
Schools Attended:
Worked In: Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey
Countries Worked In: United States of America

Sarah and Angelina Grimke eloquently fought the injustices of slavery, racism and sexism during the mid-19th century. As daughters of a prominent South Carolina judge and plantation owner, the Grimke sisters witnessed the suffering of slaves. Determined to speak out, they were eventually forced to move to the North, where they continued to appeal to northerners and southerners to work toward abolition.

They also urged white northerners to end racial discrimination.

The Grimke sisters were pioneering women. Among the first female abolitionists, they were the first women to speak publicly against slavery, an important political topic. Faced with criticism from clergy and others that they were threatening "the female character," they continued their crusade. In 1838, Angelina became the first woman to address a legislative body when she spoke to the Massachusetts State Legislature on women's rights and abolition. Active in the women's movement, they helped set the agenda later followed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and others, calling for equal educational opportunities and the vote. One historian said of Sarah's writings: "[They were] a milestone on the road to the Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls" and "central to the feminist writings in the decades that followed." Sarah was one of the first to compare the restrictions on women and slaves, writing that "woman has no political existence . . . . She is only counted like the slaves of the south, to swell the number of lawmakers." After the Civil War, they continued to champion the causes of equality and women's rights. Through their examples and their words, the Grimke sisters proved that women could affect the course of political events and have a far-reaching influence on society.

ALICE PAUL

Alice Paul
Birth: 1885 - Death: 1977


While earning degrees in law and social work, Alice Paul studied in London and joined the radical British suffrage movement. She was jailed several times and returned in 1910 determined to put new life into the American woman's struggle for the ballot. The National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA), the old organization of Anthony and Stanton, was still focused on state-by-state campaigns, but Alice Paul preferred to lobby Congress for an amendment to the Constitution. She worked first within the NAWSA and then in her own rival organizations. She soon demonstrated her political savvy, stealing the limelight at Woodrow Wilson's inauguration with a gigantic suffrage parade. When Wilson proved slow to aid the suffrage cause, Alice Paul adopted the British strategy of holding the party in power responsible. Her group, then called the Congressional Union, campaigned against Democrats in the states where women already voted. Alice Paul led them in militant tactics, including picketing the White House. After World War I broke out, tensions grew and the pickets were alternately threatened by hostile crowds and thrown in jail. Placed in solitary confinement in a psychopathic ward, Alice Paul was force-fed, but her spirit remained unbroken. In the 1920s her group, by then the National Woman's Party, set the agenda for feminism: the vote won, the next target would be an Equal Rights Amendment.

ALLIE B.LATIMER

Allie B. Latimer

Birth: 1929 -
Born In: Pennsylvania, United States of America
Achievements:Government
Educated In:Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania
Countries Educated In: United States of America
Schools Attended: Laboratory High School at Alabama State College, Barber-Scotia College, Hampton Institute,
Howard University School of Law, Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America, Howard University School of Divinity, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, Pennsylvania State University, American University, Federal Executive Institute
Worked In: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, North Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia
Countries Worked In: United States of America, China, Australia, Togo, Malawi

An attorney, civil rights activist and humanitarian, Allie B. Latimer has been active in legal, civic and religious activities throughout her lifetime. Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Alabama, Latimer was the child of a school teacher and a builder. After graduating from high school, she earned her bachelor’s degree from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University). Latimer then volunteered for two years with the American Friends
Service Committee, performing work in prisons and mental institutions. She participated in the effort to desegregate the New Jersey State Hospital at Vineland and an effort to integrate a suburban community outside Philadelphia. Latimer later enrolled in Howard University School of Law and earned her Juris Doctor in 1953.

In 1958, she went on to earn a Master of Legal Letters degree from The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, and earned both a Master of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Howard
University School of Divinity. Latimer was instrumental in organizing Federally Employed Women (FEW) in 1968, and served as the organization’s founding president until 1969. The organization began as a grassroots effort with the major objective of equality of opportunity for all. To date, FEW has more than two hundred chapters nationwide. FEW’s many accomplishments and activities have impacted the federal workplace and contributed to improved working conditions for all.

In 1969, Latimer became an Ordained Elder at Northeastern Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. She has traveled to more than fifty countries to participate in various church related conferences.

In 1977, as a federal attorney, Latimer was the first African American and first woman to serve as General Counsel of a major federal agency as well as the first African American and first woman to attain the GS-18 salary level at the General Services Administration. Veteran Feminists of America (VFA) recognized Latimer as part of the ‘second wave of feminist pioneers.” She was also the recipient of the Ollie May Cooper Award, presented by the Washington Bar Association for a lifetime of legal humanitarianism and outstanding contributions to the legal profession.

ALICE HAMILTON

Alice Hamilton


Birth: 1869 – Death: 1970
Achievements: Science

Alice Hamilton chose medicine because “as a doctor I could go anywhere I pleased – to far – off lands or to city slums – and be quite sure I could be of use anywhere.” She quickly discovered she felt more at home in the laboratory than at the bedside. Her first job, teaching pathology at Northwestern University, gave her the chance to realize her dream to live at Hull House.
There she came to know Jane Addams and other reformers who encouraged her to find a way to apply her scientific knowledge to social problems. Alice Hamilton began to investigate industrial diseases.
She saw cases of lead palsy and carbon monoxide gassing among workers in the area. Because they were Poles, Italians, or Blacks, their fate had passed unnoticed. Industries denied responsibility, and states had no workmen’s compensation laws. Dr. Hamilton conducted pioneering surveys of industrial disease, and found that European countries not only outdistanced the U.S. in research but also legislated sickness insurance programs.
She studied the poisons affecting workers in the lead, munitions, and copper industries, traveling the country and touring mines and factories, smelters and forges. Her reports were always meticulously fair and impartial .

In 1918 Alice Hamilton was appointed assistant professor of industrial medicine at the Harvard University Medical School. She was the first and for many years the only woman on the Harvard faculty.

Though she was treated shabbily, excluded from the faculty club and the commencement procession, her research continued to help promote safety in the American workplace.

ALTHEA GIBSON

Althea Gibson

Birth: 1927 – Death: 2003
Born In: South Carolina, United States of America
Died In: New Jersey, United States of America
Achievements: Athletics
Educated In: North Carolina, Florida
Countries Educated In:United States of America
Schools Attended: Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
Worked In: New York, New Jersey, Missouri
Countries Worked In: United States of America, France, Australia, England

Widely regarded as one of the most talented athletes in the United States, Althea Gibson overcame extreme racism to break barriers in tennis and pave the way for talented athletes of all races to compete equally. Born in South Carolina, she moved to Harlem at the age of three. After being given a tennis racquet at the age of 13, Gibson displayed such talent that she was invited to become an honorary member of the elite Cosmopolitan Tennis Club. In 1942, at the age of 15,
Althea began playing in the American Tennis Association (ATA) and won the first tournament she ever entered. The ATA was a counterpart to the United States Lawn Tennis Association (now the USTA), which did not allow African American players to enter tournaments at the time.

In 1957, Gibson became the first African American to win the All-England Championships at Wimbledon and the U.S. National Tennis Championships at Forest Hills, forever changing the face of tennis.

She repeated these feats in 1958. After retiring from tennis, Gibson went on to play professional golf, again smashing barriers by becoming the first African-American to earn her LPGA card. Althea Gibson’s tremendous feats continue to inspire generations of athletes from all races and walks of life

ALICE EVANS

Alice Evans
Birth: 1881 – Death: 1975

Identified the organism causing undulant fever.

This discovery, one of the most medically important in the early 20th century, led to laws mandating milk pasteurization, saving countless lives in America and throughout the world.
Evans, one of the first woman scientists to hold a permanent appointment in the USDA Bureau of Animal Husbandry (she later worked at the National Institute of Health), initiated her studies of bacterial contamination of milk in 1910 and revealed her findings in 1917. Fierce opposition to her results developed but in the 1930s, milk pasteurization laws were enacted. Although she was herself infected with undulant fever in 1922, she worked throughout her life as a widely-respected scientist, serving as the first woman president of the American
Society of Bacteriologists. After retirement in 1945, Evans lectured frequently on female career development, emphasizing scientific careers.

ABIGAIL ADAMS

Abigail Adams

Birth: 1744 – Death: 1818


Born In: Massachusetts, United States of America
Died In: Massachusetts, United States of America
Achievements: Humanities
Worked In: Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania
Countries Worked In: United States of America

Wife of one president and mother of another, Abigail Adams was more than a family helpmate. Insightful, witty, and intensely concerned with politics, she shared and shaped her husband John’s political thought and career.

Because of his service to the nation in war and diplomacy, they spent more than half their married life apart, but they communicated closely. In early 1776 she was caring for their four young children alone, but she wrote him to urge daring and boldness, quoting Shakespeare:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.” In her famous “Remember the Ladies” letter, Abigail Adams half jestingly proposed that women should claim their share of liberty. She objected specifically to the legal codes under which married women could not own property. But she was ahead of her time; later generations of women would have to struggle to change such laws.

“I never wanted your advice and assistance more in my life,” John Adams wrote to her earnestly after his election as the second president of the United States. Ironically, the reinforcement he gained from Abigail may have prevented him from developing the willingness to compromise. His unbending devotion to principle helped make him a one-term president.