Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At 6, her parents separated, and she and her mother moved in with her maternal grandparents in Taunton, Massachusetts. While growing up, her mother was committed several times to a mental sanitarium. From a young age, Douglas was an avid reader, and by her teens, she began to write. At 16, she contributed to the children’s publication St. Nicholas Magazine, and in the following year, won a prize for her story “An Early Morning Paddle.” After graduating from Taunton High School, Douglas studied English at Wellesley College, where she edited the college literary magazine and joined the suffrage club. In 1912, the same year she received her degree, her mother died of cancer. After working in various department stores, she met and married Kenneth Douglas, who was 30 years her senior. Soon, she discovered she married a con artist, who committed forgeries and theft crimes and tried to scam her father, whom she hadn’t been in touch with for 19 years. While her husband was in jail, Douglas’s father reconnected with her and persuaded her to file for divorce and reunite with him in Miami, Florida. Douglas began to work at her father’s paper, which later became The Miami Herald, writing the society column, covering tea parties and social events. Not long after, she received the responsibility of the editorial page. When the US entered WW1 in 1917, 27 years old Douglas took a writing assignment and became the first woman in Florida to enlist in the Naval Reserve. The following year, she joined the Red Cross and got stationed in Paris as a nurse. On her return to the US, Douglas was appointed assistant editor at The Miami Herald; she wrote a daily column, The Galley, addressing social issues close to her heart, such as women’s suffrage, civil rights, and urban planning for the growing population. In 1923, at 33, Douglas had a nervous breakdown and left her job in the newspaper. She began to work as a freelance writer, selling articles and short stories to various magazines, which enabled her to purchase a house in Coconut Grove. Douglas wrote about life events such as murders, fires, and hurricanes, and her own experiences, from WW1 to the life of the pioneers in South Florida. Between 1920 to 1990, she published over 100 stories and articles. In addition to writing, Douglas also taught at the University of Miami, served on the editorial board of the University of Miami Press, was the book review editor of The Miami Herald, and wrote plays for the Miami Theater. In 1942, Douglas was asked to write about the Miami River. During her research, she became aware of the threats of the demolition of the Everglades and wrote about it instead. In 1947, after five years of work, she published the book The Everglades: River of Grass, in which she discussed the construction of the Tamiami trail that was built around and through the Everglades and the construction of dams and canals that would drain the wetlands and destroy its wildlife and ecosystem. The book became a best-seller and initiated Douglas’s second career as an activist and spokeswoman for conservation. She played a crucial role in defeating plans to construct an airstrip within the heart of the Everglades, alter the natural water flow within the grasslands, and promote initiatives to restore the natural ecosystem. In 1969, at 79, Douglas founded the Friends of the Everglades, which enabled her to advocate for preserving the Everglades nationally and internationally. Thanks to her efforts, the Everglades was declared a National Park in 1947, an International Biosphere Preserve in 1976, a legislatively designated wilderness area in 1978, a Wetland of International Significance in 1986, and, in 1991, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Everglades Protection Act passed, which fund water treatment facilities in the area. She was awarded by President Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her tireless work in 1993. All this time, Douglas never stopped writing; in 1951, she published her first novel, Road to the Sun, and in 1987, her autobiography, Voice of the River. Throughout her life, she published ten books and 20 short story collections. She died at the age of 108. Read more...

Jovita Idar was born in Laredo, Texas. Her parents advocated for Mexican Americans’ civil rights, and she and her seven siblings grew up in a socially and politically active household. Idar attended the Methodist Holding Institute in Laredo, earning her teaching certificate in 1903. Afterward, she moved to Los Ojuelos, where she taught Chicano children (Mexican-Americans with no Anglo heritage). There, she experienced the segregation and poor conditions of this community. Upon the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Idar resigned from her teaching position and returned to Laredo to work in her father’s newspaper, La Crónica (The Chronicle), which advocated for Mexican-American rights. Using a pseudonym, she focused on the loss of Mexican culture and the use of the Spanish language, Mexican-Americans’ poor living and working conditions, and lynching. She also used this platform to promote women’s suffrage and wrote articles encouraging women to vote. In 1911, the Idar family organized the First Mexican Congress to unite Mexicans to fight injustice. That same year, she founded and served as the first president of the feminist organization La Liga Feminil Mexicaista (the League of Mexican Women), which encouraged women to break out of the domestic sphere, offered study sessions for women, and established bilingual schools for children. Over time, the organization provided food and clothes to those in need. She also founded the El Etudiante, a bilingual education newspaper for teachers which offered practical methods for bilingual education. During the Mexican Revolution in 1913, 28 years old Idar crossed the border to help people injured in the attack on the city of Nuevo Laredo. She joined the La Cruz Blanca (the White Cross) and volunteered as a nurse. In 1914, on her return to the US, she began to write for the El Progreso newspaper. Following a criticizing article she published about US President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send US troops to the border, the Texas Rangers came to newspaper offices to shut it down. However, Idar argued that per the First Amendment, the newspaper could publish opinion articles and physically block the entrance to the office. The Texas Rangers left but returned the next day while Idar was away and destroyed the newspaper’s presses. The incident did not hold her back, and she continued to publish her articles in other papers. Several months afterward, her father died, and she became the editor of La Crónica. Two years later, she founded another paper called Evolución. In 1917, at 32, she married Bartolo Juárez, and soon after, they moved to San Antonio, Texas. There, she became active in the Democratic Party, co-founded with her husband the Democratic Club, and served as editor of the Methodist Church publication El Heraldo Cristiano. She continued to promote equal rights for women and established a free kindergarten. She also volunteered as a translator at the county hospital and taught hygiene and childcare classes to women. She died at 61 from a pulmonary hemorrhage caused by advanced tuberculosis. Read more...

Ellen Browning Scripps was born in London, England, one of six children. In 1844, after her mother died and her father’s bookbinding shop failed, the family moved to the US, settling in Rushville, Illinois. There, her father re-married and had four more children. Scripps was an avid reader from an early age and received her education at local private schools and seminars. In 1855, at 19, she gained a teaching certificate and taught for a year before attending Knox College in Galesburg, IL, studying science and mathematics. After graduating with honors, Scripps returned to Rushville and taught in a one-room schoolhouse. In 1867, 31 years old Scripps joined her half-brother, James E. Scripps, in Detroit and invested her saving in his new newspaper, The Detroit Evening News. She worked there as a proofreader and began to write a daily column titled Matters and Things, expressing her progressive thinking and opinions about the news and daily events. During the 1870s and 1880s, more of her brothers joined the enterprise, forming various partnerships that created America’s largest chain of newspapers, which included the St. Louis Chronicle, The Cincinnati Post, and The Cleveland Press. As a shareholder, Scripps had a pivotal role in securing the company. Her financial devices often saved the company. She kept investing in her brothers’ growing chain of newspapers, which includes dozens of local newspapers, such as the Kansas City Star, The Los Angeles Record, The San Francisco News, The Seattle Star, The Portland News, and The Tacoma Times. These newspapers were all working-men oriented, pitching to the miners, cannery, and dock workers. As the business expanded, Scripps became a wealthy woman, and while leaving modestly, she put her fortune aside as “a trust for the benefit of humanity.” In 1890, she and her brother E.W. bought land in San Diego, where she established the Miramar Ranch. In 1897, at 61, Scripps moved to a cottage in La Jolla, became involved with various movements and progressive causes, and co-founded the La Jolla Woman’s Club. At the time, she began to reap the benefit of her investments and used her fortune for extensive philanthropy work. She donated to causes close to her heart, like research, science, and education, mainly for women. She also promoted wildlife preservation, donating to organizations such as Scripps College, the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, the San Diego Zoo, and the San Diego Natural History Museum. In the last three decades of her life, Scripps donated more than $2 million, which today is approximately $39,722,000. Although her generosity drew public attention, Scripps avoided publicizing her philanthropy work and stayed away from the spotlights. She died a few weeks before her 96th birthday. Read more...

Barbara Jill Walters was born and raised in Boston, the third generation of a Jewish immigrant family. She was the youngest of three children. Her brother died as a toddler, and her sister had mental disabilities. Still, Walters said she was one of the most significant people in her life, making her compassionate, empathic, and ambitious. Her father, Louis “Lou,” was in entertainment and show business. He ran nightclubs, produced on Broadway, and was a booking agent. The family moved from Boston to Miami Beach and then to New York City following his business, so Walters changed schools every several years, but growing up surrounded by celebrities and talents helped her feel comfortable and natural around them and create intimacy during interviews. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in New York in 1953, Walters went to speed writing school and finished at the top of her class. A skill she used extensively throughout her career. The local NBC station hired her as the assistant due to her connection as Lou Walter’s daughter and her speed typing skills. She started writing stories about fashion, beauty, and other subjects she nicknamed the “tea pourers.” The managers admired her writing skills, and in 1961 Walters joined the panel team of NBC’s The Today Show. Soon she became the regular Today Girl and was sent to cover stories, receiving more and more airtime. Her breakthrough occurred when the network temporarily hired her to cover a convention. The temporary assignment lasted for 13 years. Since the conception in those days was that people could not hear the hard news from a woman, her college Frank McGee asked the hard questions, while Walters was allowed to do remote interviews and ask a question only after McGee asked four questions. When McGee passed away in 1974, Walters officially became the co-host of the Today show. The first female co-host of a news program in the United States. In 1976 ABC signed Walters on a 5-year $5 million contract, making her the highest-paid news anchor. She co-anchored ABC Evening News from 1976 to 1978, the first US female network news anchor. From 1984 till her retirement, she co-hosted ABC newsmagazine 20/20. Walters appeared in ABC specials, covering events like the Oscar lineups and presidential inaugurations. She became famous for her Barbara Walters Specials interview program, interviewing celebrities, sports icons, world leaders, and royalties, including the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, Empress Farah Pahlavi, and Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro. From 1997 until her retirement in 2014, Walters co-hosted, co-created, and co-produced the daytime talk show The View. In the show, women of different generations, backgrounds, and viewpoints discussed current events. Other networks copied the concept. Her last on-air interview was in December 2015, and she made her final public appearance in 2016. After she paved the way for women in television and inspired many to join the field, Walters passed away in her home in Manhattan in 2022 after suffering from Alzheimer’s in recent years. Read more...

Anne Briardy Mergen was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Discovering her love for art from a young age, she went on to study commercial art at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. At the age of 20, she moved with her family to Miami, Florida, where she worked as a fashion advertising artist for a local department store. At the age of 26, she married Frank Mergen, and the couple had two children. In 1933, at the age of 27, Mergen tried her luck and submitted some fashion drawings to the Miami Daily News. Her unique perspective, style, and skill caught the editor’s attention, and the paper began publishing her cartoons. Her first published drawing was a one-page fashion story titled “Anne and Peg’s Scrapbook.” Soon, the strip was expanded into a two-page feature and published for three years. In that same year, the newspaper published Mergen’s first political cartoon. After three years, she was appointed the editorial cartoonist of the newspaper, the first and only female editorial cartoonist in the US. In her cartoons, Mergen covered local, national, and international political and social issues. From tourism in Florida to the Great Depression, World War II, the Polio epidemic, and the Iron Curtain. Her witty cartoons became the readers’ favorite, and Mergen gained national recognition. At the age of 50, Mergen left the Miami Daily News but continued to create cartoons as a freelance for several more years. Throughout her career, she published more than 7000 cartoons, often highlighting topics she cared about, such as world peace, domestic problems, community well-being, and the importance of education. Mergen died at the age of 88. Her work paved the way for other female cartoonists. Read more...

Born Ada Louise Landman in NYC, an only child in a middle-class Jewish family. Growing up in Manhattan, Huxtable loved strolling along the streets, fascinated by its building, such as the Grand Central Terminal, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Natural History. She studied art at Hunter College, graduating magna cum laude, and then architectural history at NYU Institute of Fine Arts. At the time, she worked in Bloomingdale’s furnishings department, where she met her soon-to-be husband, Garth Huxtable. In 1946, at 25, Huxtable landed a job as an assistant curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. After five years, she left her job to study Italian architecture in Italy for a year. Upon her return, she began writing as a contributing editor for various art and architectural journals. At the age of 37, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship, in which she examined the structural and design advances of American architecture. In 1963, 42 years old Huxtable was hired as the first architecture critic at The New York Times, a position she held for almost 20 years. In her column, she wrote about new and old buildings, threatened buildings, and bad-designed buildings. She also mentioned emerging architects, architectural trends, movements, and exhibitions. Huxtable encouraged the everyday readers to look at buildings from a new perspective, not as an assembly of bricks and pilasters but as a public statement with history and meaning. Raising awareness of the city’s heritage, the urban environment, and civic engagement, she set the tone for modern architecture criticism, for which, at the age of 49, she was the first-ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. In 1981, at the age of 60, Huxtable received a MacArthur grant that allowed her in-depth research on subjects she was interested in, such as the development of the skyscraper, the negative impact of postmodernism building, and preservation vs. modernity. At 76, she returned to writing for the public as an architecture critic for The Wall Street Journal, publishing columns for the next 15 years. Throughout her career, Huxtable was involved in various committees, serving as a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Architectural Selection and Building Design Committees for the Getty Center, Getty Villa, and as a Jury member for The Pritzker Architecture Prize. She published more than 10 books on architecture, including “Kicked a Building Lately?,” “Goodbye History,” “Hello Hamburger,” and a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. Huxtable died in NYC at 91. Read more...

Sheila Crump was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Illinois. She found her love for music at an early age, becoming an accomplished violinist by 9. In 1970, at the age of 21, she received her B.A. in music performance and education from the University of Illinois and moved to Washington, DC, with her first husband, Robert Johnson. There, she worked as a violin instructor at a private school and gave private violin lessons to supplement her income. Within four years, her private lessens business grew, and when she had 100 students, she left her position at school and founded a youth orchestra called Young Strings in Action, which performed both in the US and abroad. In 1980, Johnson and her husband founded Black Entertainment Television (BET), a cable network that approached African American viewers. She closed her music business and became the network’s community relations manager and the producer of teenagers’ talk shows. By the late 1990s, BET took a raunchy direction, and Johnson became concerned about its sexually explicit content and how it portrays and influences young women. In 1999, she began to pursue other business opportunities and sold BET to Viacom for an overall sum of $3 billion, making her, at the age of 53, the first black woman billionaire in the US. In 2005, Johnson married William T. Newman, Jr., divorcing her first husband three years earlier. She purchased a 350-acre estate in Middleburg, Virginia, and built the Salamander Inn & Spa, founding Salamander Hospitality LLC, a hotel resort and spa management firm. During this period, Johnson became the majority owner of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, serving as its President and Managing Partner. A woman of varied interests, Johnson is also involved in the film industry. Since 2008, she has produced numerous films, all with humanitarian messages – Kicking It, A Powerful Noise, She Is the Matador, The Other City, and the critically acclaimed film The Butler. Throughout the years, Johnson spent much of her time and fortune on philanthropic work. She donated money to various institutes, including the United Negro College Fund, Howard University, and the Parsons School of Design. She founded the Sheila Crump Johnson Institute at the State University of New York to support the college community diversity and co-founded the WE Capital consortium to aid female-led enterprises. Johnson sits on the boards of many organizations; among them are the Americans for the Arts, the University of Illinois Foundation, the Curry School of Education, VH1’s Save the Music Foundation, and the Greater Washington Partnership. Read more...

Caitlyn Marie Jenner was born William Bruce Jenner in Mount Kisco, New York. As an undiagnosed dyslectic boy, Jenner struggled at school but found an outlet in sports. After high school’s sophomore year, Jenner’s family moved to Newtown, Connecticut, where he began his athletic career, playing basketball and gridiron football and practicing waterskiing independently, winning the East Coast all-over champion three times. After graduating, Jenner earned a football scholarship at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, and studied physical education. A few months into freshman year, Jenner had a knee injury and was forced to stop playing football. His coach recognized his talent and encouraged him to switch to track. In 1970, at the age of 21, Jenner debuted as a decathlete, reaching 5th place in the Drake Relays decathlon. Less than two years later, he participated in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, finishing in 10th place. In the next Olympics in Montreal, Canada, 27 years old Jenner won the gold medal in the decathlon and set a new world record with a score of 8,634 points. Following his Olympic success, Jenner became a television sports commentator and a spokesperson for Wheaties breakfast cereal. In the next few decades, he made television commercials, starred in several television programs, published numerous books, became a motivational speaker, and headed the aircraft company Bruce Jenner Aviation. In 2007, Jenner’s fame renewed when he starred on the reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians alongside his (then) wife Kris Kardashian and their children. In 2015, at the age of 66, Jenner revealed that she identifies herself as a woman and adopts the name Caitlyn Marie Jenner. Her transition was documented in the reality series I Am Cait. Her coming out as a trans woman and her public gender reassignment process became a cultural milestone, breaking many stereotypes and prejudices for American people. Jenner became a transgender rights activist advocating for transgender rights. Read more...

Born Jane Isabel Butzner in Scranton, Pennsylvania. At 19, she moved with her sister to NYC and settled in Greenwich Village. She worked as a stenographer while writing as a freelance for different magazines, writing about the working districts of NYC. To deepen her knowledge, she registered for an interdisciplinary program at Columbia University, taking classes in history, culture, environment, and economic geography. In her 20s, she worked as a reporter for a publication of the US State Department, where she met her future husband, an architect named Robert Hyde Jacobs. They settled in Greenwich Village, raising their three children there. In 1952, the 36 years old Jacobs began working as an associate editor at the Architectural Forum magazine. She covered topics of urban planning and urban development, as well as criticized rebuilding projects. In 1961 she published her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The book was translated into several languages and became one of the most influential texts about the failings of cities. Following the book’s successes, Jacobs became known as the voice of modern urban planning. She was an active leader in the fight to Save Washington Square Park, and she was appointed as chairman of the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway. In this position, she worked to stop New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses from building a highway through the West Village and Washington Square Park. Thanks to her campaign, which included her arrestment, Moses’ plans got canceled. When she was 46 years old, Jacobs left her job at the Architectural Forum to focus on her next book, The Economy of Cities. In 1969, opposing the Vietnam war and fearing her sons will be drafted, Jacobs moved with her family to Toronto, Canada. There, she advocated for community-based urban planning, opposing the expansion of the Toronto Island Airport, and led the Stop Spadina Campaign to prevent the highway construction through residential neighborhoods. Jacobs published seven more books, exploring various aspects of urban planning and the importance of community facilities, such as parks, sidewalks, and retail areas. In her writing, Jacobs applied not only to planners and developers but also to the residents themselves, encouraging them to become familiar with the places they live, work, shop, and play. Jacobs died of a stroke at the age of 89. Read more...

Ava Marie DuVernay was born and raised in California. She studied English literature and African-American studies at the University of California. While at college, DuVernay was interested in broadcast journalism and interned for CBS News during the O.J. Simpson trial. Following been assigned to look through the trash of the jury, DuVernay decided to change her career path and get into public relations. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree, she began to work as a junior publicist at several production studios and PR agencies. In 1999, when she is 27 years old, she opened her PR firm, The DuVernay Agency, working on campaigns for films such as Shrek 2, Dreamgirls, and Collateral. At the time, she also launched numerous lifestyle and promotional networks, including the Urban Beauty Collective for African-American beauty salons and barbershops and HelloBeautiful for millennial women of color. As a PR agent, DuVernay frequently visited film sets, observing filmmakers on the job, figuring that she can be one as well. She bought books on the art of screenwriting, and in 2003 she began to work on her first script. In the following year, at the age of 32, DuVernay directed her first short film, Saturday Night Life, based on her mother’s experiences in a discount grocery store. At 38, DuVernay released her first narrative feature, I Will Follow, about a woman who losses her aunt to cancer. The film was the official selection of several film festivals, including the American Film Institute Fest and the Chicago International Film Festival. A year later, DuVernay’s film Middle of Nowhere premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won Best direction, making her the first African-American woman to receive the award. In the following years, she continued creating movies and TV series, winning awards as the first African-American woman. In 2018, she made history again by becoming the first woman of color to direct a live-action film with a budget higher than $100 million in the movie A Wrinkle in Time, featuring Oprah Winfrey. Between one feature film to another, DuVernay directed many TV documentary films, music videos, and commercials. She also founded the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM) to support films made by black artists, later rebranded as ARRAY, expanding the movement’s mission to women artists. She also co-founded the Evolve Entertainment Fund, promoting inclusion and providing opportunities for under-served communities in the entertainment industry. Read more...