Nancy Harkness Love was a trailblazing WWII pilot and commander who was instrumental in the founding of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of WWII, the first women in history trained to fly American military aircraft. We were in the air flying from Boston to Vassar College to visit friends when I noticed ugly clouds […]
Melanie Klein, the Founding Mother of Children’s Psychology
As with many fields of study, the canonical works of the social sciences are overrun with the findings of white males. But in the field of psychoanalysis, Melanie Klein, a Viennese Jewish woman, made an impact on the field with her unlikely-sounding theories published in her book The Psychoanalysis of Children, where she documents infants’ […]
Margaret Hamilton, the Woman Behind the Moon Landing
Nearly fifty years ago, history was made when Neil Armstrong took his famous first small step on the surface of the moon. But, as they say, behind every great man is a woman, and for Armstrong that woman was Margaret Hamilton, the programmer who invented the software that made the moon landing possible, not to […]
Margaret Nash, courageous WWII POW navy nurse
United States Navy nurse Margaret Nash was a woman of resilience and courage. Captured and held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese during World War II, she neglected her own health to nurse hundreds of her fellow prisoners suffering from disease and near-starvation in the Philippine Islands. She was still struggling to survive […]
Gertrude Bell, Al Khatun: Queen of the Desert
British-born Gertrude Bell, also referred to as the female Lawrence of Arabia, was an adventurer, spy, archaeologist and powerful political force who travelled into the uncharted Arabian desert and was recruited by British Military Intelligence to help reshape the Middle East after World War I. She drew the borders of Iraq, helped install its first […]
Daphne du Maurier, English writer
Daphne du Maurier was an English writer, most famous for her novel Rebecca. Other significant works include My Cousin Rachel, The Scapegoat, and The House on the Strand. Several of her stories have been made into films, most notably Hitchcock’s Rebecca and The Birds, and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. Du Maurier came from an […]
Elizabeth Woodville, The White Queen
Elizabeth Woodville was a key figure in British history. Every tactful move Elizabeth made affected the outcome of the Wars of the Roses. She is a pivotal person, but one who is often forgotten about.
Admiral “Amazing Grace” Hopper, pioneering computer programmer
United States Navy Admiral Grace Hopper (1906–1992) was one of the first programmers in the history of computers. Her belief that programming languages should be as easily understood as English was highly influential on the development of one of the first programming languages called COBOL. It is largely due to Grace Hopper’s influence that programmers […]
Fe del Mundo, first female student at Harvard Medical School
Fe del Mundo was a Filipino pediatrician who was the first woman to be admitted to Harvard Medical School in 1936 — over ten years before the school officially began admitting women.
Cathay Williams, AKA William Cathay, American Civil War soldier
Cathay Williams (1844 – 1892), a.k.a. William Cathay, was the first known African American woman to enlist in the United States Army, and the only black woman documented to serve in the US army in the 19th century. Born a slave in Independence, Missouri in 1844, Cathay worked as a house servant on a nearby […]