Anne Henrietta Martin was born in Empire, Nevada, and grew up in Reno. Graduating from Bishop Whitaker’s School for Girls at 19, she went to study history at the University of Nevada and then for a second B.A. and M.A in history from Stanford University. In 1897, at 22, she founded Nevada State University’s history department, heading the department for two years before resuming her studies at Columbia University, Chase’s Art School in NYC, the University of London, and the University of Leipzig. Then, she worked as an art history instructor at the University of Nevada for several years. In 1909, at 34, Martin took a leave of absence and traveled to Asia and Europe. While in England, she became associated with leaders of the suffrage movement, joined the socialist Fabian Society, and became an active member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), working alongside Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst. She organized meetings and street protests and published short stories and political articles under the pen name of Anne O’Hara. In the fall of 1911, she returned to Nevada, joined The Equal Franchise Society, and was elected as its president the following year. Under Martin’s leadership, the campaign for women’s rights prospered. She went on a speaking tour throughout the state, convincing male voters to enfranchise women. Her goal was achieved on November 3rd, 1914, when women’s suffrage passed by popular vote in Nevada. Following her success, she was asked to join the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) but left for the more militant organization of the National Woman’s Party, elected as its first national chairman in 1916. In addition to this position, Martin served as president of the Nevada Women’s Civic League and the delegate to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. At 43, Martin decided to exercise her new right and became the first woman to run for US Senate. She ran as an independent candidate representing Nevada in 1918 and 1920, addressing various social topics, such as labor issues and the nationalization of railroads and other public utilities. Though she lost twice, she did win 18% of the vote in 1918 and 20% in 1920. In 1921, Martin moved to Carmel, California. For the next 30 years, she advocated for social causes, women’s equality, and farmers’ markets, believing it would benefit both consumers and laborers by eliminating the cost of middlemen. She died at the age of 76. Read more...

Sabin was born in Central City, Colorado, in a mining site, where her father worked as an engineer. When she was 7 years old, her mother died, and soon after, she and her sister moved to live with their grandparents in Vermont. As a child, she wanted to be a pianist, but as she grew up, she set her mind on science. After graduation, she enrolled in the all-women Smith College and earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology. Afterward, she taught math at a high school to earn tuition money for graduate school. At 25, Sabin attended Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her determination and observational skills caught the attention of the anatomist Franklin P. Mall, who encouraged her to focus on two significant projects – producing a model of a newborn’s brain stem and the development of newborn’s lymphatic system. Upon graduation, she gained an internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and in the following year, she won a fellowship in the Department of Anatomy at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. At 35, she began to teach in the hospital’s department of Anatomy, and within three years, she got promoted to an associate professor. At the age of 46, she was appointed professor of embryology and histology and became the first woman to serve as a full professor at a medical college. Four years late, she became the first female president of the American Association of Anatomists, where she worked mainly on researching the origins of blood vessels. At the age of 54, Sabin left Johns Hopkins to concentrate on her research, becoming the head of the Department of Cellular Studies at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in NYC. That same year, she became the first female member of the National Academy of Science and a member of the research committee of the National Tuberculosis Association. She dedicated the next 12 years researching immune cells and the effects of foreign substances on the formation of antibodies. After her retainment, she accepted a request to chair a subcommittee on health in Colorado. In this position, she lobbied for health care legislation. Working tirelessly for this cause, she assisted the passing of the “Sabin Health Laws,” which modernized the state’s public health as well as dealing with other health issues such as tuberculosis treatment, public sanitation, and the standardization of milk quality. At age 77, she became Denver’s manager of health and charities. Throughout the years, she published more than 100 scientific papers, numerous book chapters, two medical books, and a biography of her mentor Franklin Paine Mall. Read more...

Fannie Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Worcester. After high school, she attended Mount Holyoke College, where she discovered progressive politics and became active in the suffrage movement. At age 22, after receiving her Bachelor’s degree in physics and chemistry, she moved to Chicago and taught chemistry in various schools. During vacation and in her free time, she volunteered at the Hull House settlement house, where she worked with Jane Addams. At 25, she joined the Episcopal church and changed her name to Frances. In 1907, she moved to Philadelphia to study economics at the University of Pennsylvania while working as general secretary of the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association. Two years later, she moved to NYC, where she worked at the New York School of Philanthropy investigating childhood malnutrition as well as studying political science at Columbia University. At the age of 30, Perkins was appointed the head of the National Consumers League in New York. In this position, she lobbied to improve working conditions and to set working hours limitations for factory workers, especially for women and children. In 1911, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, where 146 workers, mostly women, were trapped in the building and died. Following this event, she was chosen by the new mayor of NYC, Theodore Roosevelt, as the executive secretary for the Committee on Safety of the city. As secretary, Perkins served as an expert witness and led legislators on inspections of factories and worksites. The Commission formulated a set of laws for workplace health and safety, which became a federal government model. In 1913, she married Paul Caldwell Wilson, and three years later, she gave birth and left the office. Not long after, her husband was hospitalized for mental illness, and she returned to work in the New York State government. On February 18th, 1919, Perkins was appointed to head of the New York’s State Industrial Commission, becoming the first woman to serve at an administrative position in the state government, and the highest-paid woman in public office in the US. As a commissioner, she oversaw the industrial code and supervised the bureau of mediation and arbitration and the bureau of information and statistics. In 1929, at the age of 49, Perkins was appointed by the new governor Franklin Roosevelt as the inaugural New York State industrial commissioner. Supervising 1,800 employees, she reduced the workweek for women to 48 hours, expanded factory investigations, and pushed for ending child labor as well as unemployment insurance laws and minimum wage. Four years later, when Roosevelt was elected as the president, he asked Perkins to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of Labor, becoming the first woman in the US to hold a cabinet position and enter the presidential line of succession. She presented a list of labor programs, known as the “New Deal,” and in the 12 years she held the position, she had accomplished all the items on the list, but one – universal access to health care. Perkins also served as a member of the Special Board for Public Works, ensuring funds for social projects such as schools, housing, and roads. She chaired the President’s Committee on Economic Security, in which she established the She-She-She Camps for unemployed women and the Civilian Conservation Corps and drafted the Social Security Act. In 1945, when Truman was elected president, she was replaced in the cabinet but was asked to serve on the US Civil Service Commission. As a commissioner, she spoke against the requirement of secretaries and stenographers to be hired for their looks. She held this position for seven years, retiring in 1952 after her husband had died. She remained active as a lecturer and teacher in several academic institutes until she passed away at the age of 85. Read more...

Born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the only child to parents of Jewish descent. Her mother converted to Catholicism, and Lamarr was raised as Christian. Her interest in technology started early on in her life. At age 5, she dismantled and reassembled her music box to understand how it works. Her interest in acting also developed from a young age, fascinated by theater and film, she took an acting class, and at 16 years old, she skipped school to work as a script girl at a film production company. Not long after, she got a role as an extra in a film, and at 17 landed her first speaking role. Afterward, she moved to Berlin, and at 18, she was given the lead role in the controversial and sexually charged film, “Ecstasy”, performing in the nude in some scenes as well as during an orgasm. That same year, Lamarr married Friedrich Mandl – a 33 years old wealthy arms merchant. Mandl was a controlling husband who prevented Lamarr from pursuing her acting career, and after a few years, she fled home, escaping on a bike in the middle of the night. At 23, Lamarr moved to London, where she met Louis B. Mayer of MGM. She turned down an offer of $125 a week, but booked a ticket to the same ship to America as he did, and managed to secure an offer of a $500 a week. Under the name Hedy Lamarr, Mayer promoted her as the “world’s most beautiful woman”, and in 1938, after the release of the movie “Algiers”, she became a worldwide sensation. Afterward, Lamarr was usually typecast in the roles of the glamorous seductress. In 1950, Lamarr played the lead in the award-winning film “Samson and Delilah”, although she got critical acclaim for this role, her film career began to decline. In the following years, the movies she appeared in were failing at the box offices, and at the age of 44, she acted for the last time as her 30th movie was filmed. In addition to her prosperous acting career, Lamarr was a self-taught inventor and had numerous inventions, including an upgraded traffic stoplight and a water-dissolve tablet that creates a soda beverage. During WW2, Lamarr and the composer George Antheil invented a technology for Secret Communications System, changing radio frequencies that prevent the enemies from decoding messages. Although it was granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, it wasn’t implemented until 1962, when an updated version was designed. That invention is actually the basis of present days wireless communications, such as WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Only in 1997, Lamarr was recognized for this invention, and became the first woman to receive the BULBIE™ Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award – “The Oscars of inventing.” Read more...

Adelina “Nina” Otero Warren was born near Los Lunas, New Mexico. Her family was among the early settlers in New Mexico, and her parents were part of the Hispanic elite. When she was 2 years old, her father was killed by an Anglo squatter. A few years later, her mother married an English businessman, and she grew up in a multicultural environment. She was influenced by her mother, who was an advocate for social and educational developments and served as the director of Santa Fe’s Board of Education. At 16, the family relocated to Santa Fe, where she became a socialite. At the age of 26, she married Lieutenant Rawson D. Warren, a cavalry officer who was nine years older than her. Though the marriage did not last long, she kept her x-husband’s last name and called herself a widow, so she would not be stigmatized as a divorced woman.   At 31, Nina moved to NYC to keep house for her brother. There, she became active in Anne Morgan’s settlement house, working alongside the famous suffragist Alice Paul and organizing crafts programs for working-class women. Two years later, her mother died, and Nina returned to Santa Fe to take care of her half-siblings. Upon her arrival, she started working for the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. Soon she became the first Mexican-American state leader of the Congressional Union in New Mexico, raising support from the Spanish-speaking community as well as from the English-speaking community. Using her family connections, she was a successful lobbyist for voting in favor of the Nineteenth Amendment, and she had a key role in its ratification in 1920. In 1922, at the age of 41, Nina ran as the Republican Party nominee for New Mexico to the US House of Representatives – The first Latina to run for the US Congress. During her campaign, she spoke Spanish and advocated for the improvement of education, health care, and welfare services, as well as for the preservation of Hispano heritage and culture. Ultimately, she lost the election by less than 9%, probably because it was discovered that she was a divorcee, not a widow. In 1917 Nina was appointed as the Santa Fe Superintendent of Instruction – one of the first women to serve as government officials in New Mexico. In her 12 years in office, she worked tirelessly to improve the education of Hispano. Read more...

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was born in Lake Jackson, Texas, to a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. From a young age, her father noticed her musical abilities, and at the age of 9, she became the lead singer of her family’s band Selena y Los Dinos. At first, the band played at the family’s restaurant, but when it was bankrupt, they played everywhere they could, from street corners to fairs and weddings. Over time their popularity grew, especially Selena’s. At 13, she recorded her first Tejano music LP album, and by 17, she recorded five more albums and frequently appeared at the popular Spanish radio program – the Johnny Canales Show. At 18, while performing at the Tejano Music Awards, she was discovered by the music producer José Behar of label EMI Latin Records. She released an album every year, getting more and more popular with singles hitting the top US Billboard Regional Mexican Albums chart, the US Billboard Top Latin Songs chart, performing all over the US and Mexico, and winning music awards. In 1993 she released her third studio album “Live!” for which she won Best Mexican/American Album at the 1994 Grammy Award, becoming the first female Tejano artists to win a Grammy. Her successes broke barriers in the Latin music world, and she was referred to as the Queen of Tejano music. In 1990, a fan named Yolanda Saldívar founded the official Selena fan club, and Saldívar started working for Selena. Selena’s father discovered that Saldívar had embezzled more than $30,000 from the fan club. On March 31, 1995, Selena confronted Saldívar in a hotel. Saldívar took a gun out of her purse and shot Selena while she attempted escaping. Selena died on the way to the hospital when she is only 23 years old. About 35,000 fans came to the funeral to pay their last respect while the funeral was broadcasted live by the local radio station.   Read more...

Dorothy May Day was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Chicago, the third of five children. Even though Day’s parents were not devoted Christian, she had been interested in religion from a young age, reading the Bible, attending church, and studying catechism. At the age of 14, she was baptized and confirmed in an Episcopal church. She was also an enthusiastic bookworm, reading one book after another, from Russian literature to American social works, such as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, that shaped her way of thinking. After graduating high school, Day attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for two years before moving to NYC. There, she settled on the Lower East Side and became involved with the literary and liberal bohemia, having several love affairs. With a growing interest in social causes, she searched for ways to help the workers and the poor. She joined the Industrial Workers of the World and wrote for several Socialist publications. She was arrested numerous times for her involvement in protests, and in 1917, after being jailed for protesting for women’s suffrage in front of the White House, she went on a 10 days hunger strike. In 1921, she married Berkeley Tobey, and the newlyweds traveled to Europe. Away from politics, she began working on a semi-autobiographical novel, The Eleventh Virgin, which was published three years later. By then, Day and her husband separated, and with the payments for selling the movie rights to her novel, she bought a beach house in Staten Island. At 28 years old, Day, who thought she could not have children due to traumatic abortion, was surprised to realize that she is pregnant from her boyfriend, Forster Batterham. During her pregnancy, her connection to Catholicism has increased, and by the time her daughter Tamar was born, she was baptized and joined the Roman Catholic Church. Over the next few years, she supported herself by writing columns for local newspapers and book reviews for Catholic publications, combining her two passions – Catholicism and social activism. In 1932, Day met Peter Maurin, and together they founded The Catholic Worker Movement. They published a newspaper titled “Catholic Worker,” in which they promoted Catholic teachings, pacifism, and social justice principles, especially highlighting the working conditions of women and African Americans. Soon, the paper gained popularity, and within three years, it was distributed to 150,000 subscribers. As part of the movement’s agenda of hospitality, Day co-founded the House of Hospitality, a settlement house providing food and clothing for those in need, as well as several communal living farms. The movement spread out of NYC, and by 1941 it had more than 30 communities in the US, UK, and Canada. Throughout her life, she was dedicated to promoting her socialist beliefs inside her faith, writing, protesting, and campaigning for causes such as disabling nuclear weapons, equal rights for people of color, and defending the poor and the homeless. In her last years, she lived in one of the settlement houses she established in NYC. When she was 83 years old, she died from a heart attack. To this day, The Catholic Worker Movement is active, with more than 200 communities in the US and abroad. Read more...

Leona W. Chalmers was born in the early 1900s. Little is known about her life, except the fact that she was an actress and the inventor of the first usable and available modern menstrual cup – a reusable device is used to collect menstrual flow. Though different designs appeared from 1867, none were usable, comfortable, nor safe. The model that Chalmers created and is the prototype of modern days cups is comfort, invisible, safe to use, as well as environmentally friendly. In 1937 Chalmers patented and marketed her latex rubber menstrual cup. The cups didn’t do well in the market due to the mentality of the time, and the availability of disposable solutions, and due to the shortage in supplies of rubber in WWII, the cups’ production was put on hold. After the war, Chalmers continued her enterprise progressing menstrual cups but failed. She sold the rights of the design to Robert P. Oreck, who launched a new menstrual cup company in 1959, Tassette, Inc. Still, Tassette also didn’t succeed in selling the new product to American women, mainly since they were used to the use of pads. Other reasons for the failure are the fact that it was hard to advertise a product related to a taboo subject, femininity, as well as the mindset to insert the device into the vagina. After years out of the markets, the cups were relaunched at the beginning of the 21st century. Nowadays, menstrual cups are becoming more popular due to the growing awareness of environmental issues and the availability of hypoallergenic medical silicone. Chalmers didn’t get to see her vision pushing through, but she would definitely be proud to see her significant contribution to today’s menstrual solutions available.   Read more...

Born Letitia Ellen Mooney on a farm at Chatsworth, Ontario, grew up in Manitoba. She had received formal education only when she was nine, learning reading and writing and discovering the wonders of literature, which shaped her liberal thinking. At 16, she got her teaching certificate from the Winnipeg Normal School and started teaching at Hazel school near Manitou, Manitoba. As a teacher, she implemented her progressive views regarding girls’ education, including introducing football for girls and boys. In 1892, at 19, she took a teaching position at the Manitou school and stayed at a family of a Methodist minister. The minister’s wife, Annie E. McClung, was a women’s suffrage supporter and the provincial president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), who inspired and influenced McClung to become an active member of the organization. She developed a romantic relationship with the family’s second son, Wesley, and the couple married in 1896. After the wedding, she stopped working but remained socially active in the WTCU, and other organizations, including the Methodist Ladies’ Aid, Epworth League for Methodist youth, and the Economics Association. At the age of 29, McClung wrote a short story for a contest in an American family magazine. Although she did not win, the story was the basis for her first novel, Sowing Seeds in Danny, published in 1908. It became a best-seller, and afterward, McClung continued to publish articles, short stories, and books in Canada and the US. In her writing, she expressed her beliefs on social issues, such as laws against women, battering of wives and children, single motherhood, and the land and culture right of the native population. In 1911, McClung and her family moved to Winnipeg, where she joined the local women’s organizations, including the Canadian Women’s Press Club and the Local Council of Women. She co-founded the suffrage’s Political Equality League and became one of the most effective public speakers for the cause. In the 1914 elections, McClung played a leading role in the Liberal campaign against the Conservative Premier of Manitoba, who opposed women’s suffrage. She did not enjoy the fruits of her success because when Manitoba became the first province in Canada to grant women the vote in 1916, she already lived in Edmonton, Alberta. In Edmonton, she continued her activism, fighting for various causes, such as women’s suffrage, property rights for married women, mothers’ allowances, prohibition, factory safety legislation, and medical care for school children. After WW1, she continued the campaign for suffrage, emphasizing the importance of women’s contribution to society after they had filled in for the men working positions during the war. In 1921, 48 years old McClung won the Liberal seat at the Alberta Legislative Assembly, serving in this position until 1926. In the following year, she became part of what became known as The Famous Five. A group of five women, Emily Murphy, Louise Crummy McKinney, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Irene Parlby, petitioned the Supreme Court to recognize women as Persons. Though rejected in Canada, they appleade to the British Privy Council, who ruled that women included in the term Persons, thus can serve in the Senate. In 1933, McClung moved to Lantern Lane in Vancouver Island, where she invested herself in writing, completing her two-volume autobiography Clearing in the West: My Own Story, published in 1935, as well as four more novels and various short stories, essays, and a syndicated column. She was a member of various social organizations, continued to give public speeches, and in 1936 she became the first woman to be appointed to the new Canadian Broadcasting Corporation board of governors. In the last ten years of her life, McClung suffered from arthritis and heart problems that limited her activities. She died at the age of 78. Read more...

Catharine Alice MacKinnon was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She attended Smith College, graduating magna cum laude with a B.A. in government, continued her education at Yale University, earning her J.D. in 1977 at the age of 31, and her Ph.D. in political science at 41 in 1987. During the 70s, MacKinnon became an active member of the newly formed women’s liberation movement. While in graduate school, she initiated a course that later will develop into Yale’s women’s studies program. As part of her law studies, MacKinnon wrote a paper in which she argued that sexual harassment in the workplace is a form of sex-based discrimination. That paper was the foundation of her first book, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination, published in 1978. In the book, MacKinnon categorizes two types of sexual harassment – sexual compliance in exchange for benefits and sexual harassment as a persistent condition. In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adopted MacKinnon’s guidelines and prohibited both kinds of sexual harassment, and in 1986 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of MacKinnon’s argument in its first sexual harassment case. During the 80s, MacKinnon focused on legal issues in the sex industry, fighting it as a form of sex discrimination and human trafficking, arguing it as a civil rights violation. Alongside activist Andrea Dworkin, MacKinnon wrote an ordinance that allows women harmed by trafficking in pornography to sue the producers for damages. In 1998, MacKinnon’s and Dworkin’s law against prostitution passed in Sweden and was termed as the Swedish Model, and later was adopted in various countries, including Canada, France, Norway, and Ireland. In 1993, MacKinnon represented Bosnian survivors of Serbian sexual atrocities and achieved legal recognition of rape as an act of genocide. She continued to advocate against prostitution and trafficking crimes as a Special Gender Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and practiced nationally and internationally with organizations such as Equality Now, the ERA Coalition, and the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Throughout her career, MacKinnon served as a professor at several law schools; among them are Yale, Stanford, the Hebrew University, and the University of Basel. She was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. She is also a Roscoe Pound Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and an Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. MacKinnon published 17 books about sexual harassment, pornography, and prostitution, helping to change the legal system in the U.S and abroad in gendered-based sex crimes.   Read more...