WednesdaysWomen – Remarkable Women You Have Not Heard Of

The Women Who Walked on Wings

Three of the High-Flying Daredevils of Early Aviation

Lillian Boyer performs at an aerial stunt show in the 1920s.

As early as 1911, aerial wing walking emerged when pilots had no choice but to venture out onto the wings of their planes to make repairs or technical in-flight adjustments.

Alice Ball – Scientist Who Pioneered a Leprosy Treatment

The Young Black Chemist Whose Work Was Stolen by a Male Colleague

Alice Augusta Ball developed an effective treatment for leprosy at the turn of the 20th century only to have her research stolen by a male colleague. Her work allowed thousands of quarantined individuals to recover sufficiently to leave isolation facilities and return to their homes. Her discovery involved oil from the seed of the chaulmoogra plant.

Alice Ball’s story is one reason I began writing about/honoring the remarkable women overlooked, forgotten, ignored, or simply erased from history. In what would become a prophetic statement, Ball once wrote in her high-school yearbook, “I work and work, and still it seems that I have done nothing.”

Sophie Blanchard – The Woman Who Defied the Sky

One of History’s Most Extraordinary Aerial Pioneers

From Napoleon’s favorite balloonist to the first woman killed in an aviation accident, Sophie Blanchard transformed ballooning into a profession and became one of history’s most extraordinary aerial pioneers.

Madame Sophie Blanchard (1778-1819) was a trailblazing French balloonist. While she wasn’t the first woman to take to the skies in a balloon, she was the first to pilot her own customized craft solo, the first to make ballooning a full-time career, and the first killed in an aviation accident.

Sylvia Earle: The Jersey Girl Known as “Her Deepness”

Deep Sea Diving Pioneer and One of the Most Respected
Marine Scientists of the Modern Era

Shown here swimming with a four-foot barracuda, Sylvia Earle, a highly-experiened SCUBA diver was also a pioneer of deep-diving submersibles used for scientific exploration of the oceans. (Images: NOAA)

Sylvia Earle’s a Jersey Girl. Born in Gibbstown in Gloucester County, New Jersey in 1935 she went on to become one of the most acclaimed marine biologists and oceanographers in history. Often referred to by her moniker “Her Deepness,” her career spanned over six decades, during which she set historic deep-sea diving records, advanced the design of submersible vehicles, and became the first female Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Mary Cleave: A Dire Message from Outer Space

The View from Orbit that Scared an Astronaut

Mary Cleave in NASA garb — For environmental engineer and NASA astronaut Mary Cleave, the Space Shuttle was the ultimate platform from which to study the massively destructive effects of climate change that threaten Earth and its inhabitants.

Dr. Mary Cleave was a pilot, an environmental engineer, and one of the NASA’s first female astronauts. Her name may not be well known, but she did remarkable work for NASA – both in space and here on planet Earth.

Dot Robinson – Biker Babe From Cradle to Grave

A Trailblazer in Promoting Motorcycling for Women

Dot Robinson, co-founder of the Motor Maids of America — In the mid-20th century, Dot Robinson pioneered the concept and formed a club of a female bikers who owned, maintained, and rode their machines as well as any man and, in some cases, even better. She and husband Earl (above left) became leaders of the pack at their Detroit Harley-Davidson store.

Dot Robinson, born in Australia in 1912, was quite literally a biker babe. When her mother went into labor, her father loaded his heavily pregnant wife into a Harley-Davidson motorcycle sidecar rig and rushed her to the hospital. And when her mother came home, it was in that same sidecar, holding her tightly swaddled newborn daughter.