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.