Remarkable Women You Have Not Heard Of
Determined to increase literacy and boost morale in the backwoods of Depression era Appalachia, hundreds of Pack Horse Librarians, with saddlebags jammed full of books, headed out for some of county’s most impoverished and isolated communities.
Continue reading “Good Reads in Wild Places: The WPA’s Pack Horse Librarians”
If visitors to New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery in the Spring of 2018 felt the ground shift a little beneath their feet, it was probably just Mabel Rosalie Barrow Edge — once known as America’s most militant conservationist — rolling in her grave.
Continue reading “Rosalie Edge: Champion of Women’s Suffrage and Environmental Activism”
We hear a lot about privilege these days. And this Wednesday’s Woman, Lillian Wald, would be the first to tell you she was born into privilege — the daughter of wealthy German-Polish parents whose families fled Europe seeking economic opportunity. She once described herself as a well-educated, frivolous, spoiled socialite. But two pivotal events shaped this frivolous, spoiled socialite into a humanitarian and visionary who dedicated her life to helping others.
Continue reading “Lillian Wald — Mother of Public Health Nursing”
That Bessie Blount Griffin became a inventor, physical therapist, business women, forensics expert and social activist before she passed on in 2009 is all the more remarkable, given that she was born in an era before women — particularly African American women — could expect opportunities in any one of the multiple fields in which she ultimately succeeded. Her life is a lesson in tenacity, irrepressible creativity and a deep sense of empathy for the people and causes she helped.
Continue reading “Bessie Blount Griffin: Inventor, Crime Fighter, Hospital Wonder Woman”
Hammonton, New Jersey, is the Blueberry Capital of the Garden State. Once upon a time, sixteen-year-old Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway was crowned Blueberry Pageant Princess. And we all know Fats Domino found his thrill on Blueberry Hill. But were it not for Elizabeth Coleman White, none of that would have happened.
Continue reading “Elizabeth Coleman White: Blueberry Queen of the Jersey Pines”
Little did Julia Ward Howe know that in writing what became the anthem of the American Civil War in 1861, she emancipated herself from the narrow, 19th-century views that kept women in domestic confinement, and realized her long-held ambition to become a thinker, a writer and an individual on her own terms.
