Guest Author - Isabelle Harman
Twenty Women You Should Know
1. Clementine Hunter (1886-1988) – An artist born in Louisiana who spent most of her life on Melrose Plantation, she is known for her late-in-life artistic undertakings depicting life in the South.
2. Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) – A scientist who participated in the research that led to the discovery of DNA.
3. Ruth Muskrat (Bronson) (1897-1982) – Author and activist, she wrote “Indians Are People Too” in 1944. She was devoted to improving the lives of Indians in the United States.
4. Emilie du Chatelet (1706-1749) – Born in an era when women were not recognized for their intellectual capabilities in science, she championed her adversaries by dressing as a man in order to mingle with the powers that be in the world of science.
5. Margaret Kenyatta (b. 1928) – An educator and politician who ensured that her father’s vision for Kenya was carried out while he was imprisoned. She became a symbol of “steadfastness and endurance”.
6. Teresa Carreno (1853-1917) – A Venezuelan-born musician, this child prodigy played for President Lincoln, in concerts in Europe where such great composers as Lizst and Rossini helped her performances and she introduced new works by Tchaikovsky and Grieg.
7. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900-1978) – A Nigerian teacher and activist for women and human rights, she is noted for her role in “colonial reforms during a constitutional crisis from 1947 to 1950”.
8. Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952) – An out-of-the-box thinker from Australia, she is noted for her work with victims of polio and the establishment of clinics in Australia and England.
9. Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) – An author, she is noted for her ability to pen letters of distinction and is known for a collection of correspondence written while she lived in Turkey.
10. Edith Sodergran (1892-1923) – A poet born in St. Petersburg of Finnish ancestry, she is noted for her ability to capture her thoughts in the poetry she wrote before she died from tuberculosis.
11. Philippa Duke Schuyler (1931-1967) – Born to a white mother from Texas and a black father who was a noted journalist, she is known as a child prodigy. Her gifts transcended music and journalism from the USA to Latin America and Europe.
12. Queen Margarethe II (b. 1940) – At the age of 32, became the first woman to rule Denmark.
13. Indira Ghandi (1917-1984) – Elected Prime Minister of India, she served two separate terms. The cause of her death was assassination.
14. Sarah Weddington (b. 1945) - At the age of 28 she won the U.S. Supreme Court debate regarding a woman’s right to choose in the infamous Roe v. Wade case.
15. Mairead Corrigan (b. 1944) – Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. She is the cofounder of Northern Ireland’s Community of Peace People movement.
16. Julia Morgan (1872-1957) – A native San Fransican, she was the first woman to graduate from the University of California with a degree in Engineering; first woman licensed architect who designed (from 1920-1938) W. R. Hearst’s San Simeon.
17. Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) – Also known as “brave Bessie”, she is the first black woman in the world to receive her pilot’s license and the first U.S. woman to receive an international pilot’s license.
18. Sirimavo Bandaranaike (1916-2000) – She was born in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka). She became the world’s first woman Prime Minister when she succeeded her husband after his assassination.
19. Marguerite Higgins (1920-1966) – A Pulitzer Prize winner for Foreign Correspondence, this American woman born in Hong Kong covered events in the Korean and Vietnam wars and served as bureau chief in both Berlin and Tokyo.
20. Florence Griffith Joyner (1959-1998) – Famous for her Olympic achievement and world records in the 100m and 200m track events, she also co-chaired the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and founded the FGJ Youth Foundation.
All of the above information was gathered from two resources: Women Who Dare, an engagement calendar printed in 1999 by Pomegranate and the U.S. Library of Congress; and A Woman’s Book of Days, another engagement calendar published by Barnes and Noble Books and edited by Beverly Wettenstein in 1994.
