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 […]
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’ […]
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 […]
Henrietta Dugdale, Australian women’s rights and suffrage pioneer
It should always be the aim of woman to rise from the degrading position assigned her in the age of bestial ignorance and brute power. Henrietta Dugdale Henrietta Dugdale (1827–1918) was a passionate, confident, and assertive feminist who was one of the pioneers of Victoria, Australia’s feminist movement. She founded the Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society, […]
Elizabeth Yates, the British Empire’s first female mayor
Elizabeth Yates (1845–1918) was the mayor of Onehunga in New Zealand in 1894, just two months after women gained the right to vote in New Zealand. This made her the first woman to be a mayor anywhere in the British Empire. Born Elizabeth Onan in Scotland, she was the older of two daughters. She moved […]
Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D., America’s first female doctor
Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. (1821-1910), was the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States and is often thought of as America’s first woman doctor. A dedicated public health advocate, social reformer, and prolific writer, Blackwell changed the course of modern medicine, founding hospitals and medical colleges for women in the United States […]
Qiu Jin, Chinese feminist & revolutionary martyr
Qiu Jin (1875–1907) was a Chinese writer & poet, a strong-willed feminist who is considered a national hero in China. Also called “Jianhu Nüxia” (Woman Knight of Mirror Lake”), she was executed after participating in a failed uprising against the Qing Dynasty. Qiu Jin was born in 1875 to a family of the gentry, and […]
Queen Liliʻuokalani, first and last queen regnant of Hawaii
Liliʻuokalani (1838–1917), born Lydia Liliʻuokalani Loloku Walania Wewehi Kamakaʻ, was the first female monarch of Hawaii to reign in her own right. Up until the 1890s, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻ was an independent sovereign state, officially recognized by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Germany. During Liliʻuokalani’s reign, the Overthrow of the […]
Sarah Guppy, Eclectic English Inventor
I used to live in Richmond Hill in Bristol and was aware of the green plaque a few doors down advising the world that it used to be the home of Sarah Guppy, an English inventor who lived between 1770 and 1852. Indeed I always parked my car in the tree-filled garden opposite her home […]
