Mary Treat (1830-1923) was a prolific scientific writer who earned a reputation as “the world’s most famous and industrious woman naturalist” at a time when few women were professionally engaged in biology. The daughter of a minister, Treat attended a private girls’ academy early in life. Such academies, or “seminaries,” were an answer to the […]
Ann Hopkins, Pioneering Law Firm Partner
Ann Hopkins was an attorney who bravely pursued a landmark American employment discrimination case after being denied partnership at a law firm for her gender. Told she was “overly aggressive, unduly harsh, difficult to work with,” and “needed a course in charm school,” Ann fought back by suing the firm for sex discrimination. The landmark […]
Clara Barton, Humanitarian and Founder of the American Red Cross
Clarissa “Clara” Barton is most widely acknowledged as the founder of the American branch of the Red Cross. Her life’s work cemented her as one of the most important figures in the history of social work and nursing alike, and millions of people from across the globe have benefited from her contributions to American healthcare. […]
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Feminist Writer, Lecturer, and Thinker
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a feminist writer, lecturer, and thinker at the turn of the 20th century. Despite her lack of formal education, she authored Women in Economics, a foundational text of early feminism, and became known as a preeminent sociologist, philosopher, and social critic. Her works of fiction represented the psychological impact of traditional […]
Mary Bunting, Champion of Women’s Education
Mary I. Bunting was the Rutgers dean who led the fight for coeducation at the United States’ most prestigious universities. The program she created in 1958 to support a community of mature women lives on at Douglass Residential College in her name. When Mary Bunting began her academic career in 1937, women like her had limited […]
Bessie Coleman, Fearless Aviator Breaking Barriers
Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) was the first African-American woman to become a licensed airplane pilot. She persevered through discrimination and danger in order to fly in the early days of aviation. Like many aviators of the early 20th century, she made her living as a barnstormer, similar to today’s stunt pilots. People lined up to see […]
Nancy Harkness Love, WWII Pilot & Commander
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 […]