Remarkable Women You Have Not Heard Of
As a little girl born in Budapest, Ágnes Keleti dreamed of becoming a cellist. Instead, she saw her father deported to Auschwitz, escaped the Nazis using forged identity papers and, ten years later, became one of the greatest Olympian gymnasts of all time and the most successful Jewish female athlete in the history of the Games.
Continue reading “Ágnes Keleti: Holocaust Survivor and Celebrated Olympic Gymnast”
Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919) is described as contrary, outspoken, feisty, radical, defiant and determined. But as the first woman to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor, the second woman in America to become a licensed medical doctor, a lifelong women’s rights activist, prohibitionist, and a dress reformer who steadfastly refused to accept the stodgy Victorian confines of her gender, I suspect she earned — and needed — every single one of those attributes.
Continue reading “Contrary Mary: The Only Female Congressional Medal of Honor Winner”
Margaret Bourke-White, who entered college in the 1920s with the idea of becoming a Herpetologist, could have made a name for herself handling snakes. Instead, she picked up a camera and went on to become a groundbreaking female photojournalist, giving us some of the most iconic images of the 20th century.
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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”
Long before Steppenwolf told us we were “Born to be Wild” and “choppers” and “ape hangers” became part of cycling lexicon — a handful of gutsy female riders slid onto the seats of Wagners, Indians and Harleys, and grabbed the handlebars to become pioneers in the world of motorcycling. They are this Wednesday’s Women.
Continue reading “Badass Biker Chicks in the Dawn of the Motorcycle Age”
Pair the feminist ideals of Susan B. Anthony with a half-baked scheme hatched by a failed Arizona gold miner with the implausible name Joe Boot, and you have the story of this Wednesday’s Woman. She is Pearl Hart, 28-year-old “Bandit Queen” of the Old West.
Continue reading “Pearl Hart – ‘Bandit Queen’ of the Old West”
