Katherine Millett was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She grew up with an alcoholic and abusive father, who left the family to live in poverty when she was 14. She was educated at parochial schools and later studied English literature at the University of Minnesota, graduating magna cum laude in 1956. Supported by her wealthy aunt, she furthered her education by studying at St Hilda’s College, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford in England, becoming the first woman to receive a first-class honors degree from the institute. She taught English briefly at the University of North Carolina before moving to New York City to pursue a career as an artist, supporting herself by working as a kindergarten teacher in Harlem. In 1961, at 27, Millett moved to Tokyo to study sculpture and held her first solo exhibition there. After two years, Millett returned to the US and taught English and Philosophy at Barnard College while creating art. At the time, she became involved with various women’s organizations, serving as a National Organization for Women committee member and joining the New York Radical Women and Radical Lesbians. In 1970, She began her writing career by contributing pieces to the anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement. That same year, she published her Ph.D. dissertation as a book titled Sexual Politics. In this groundbreaking work, Millett used sociology and anthropology tools to define the goals and strategies of the women’s liberation movement. Although it cost her the teaching position in Bernard, the book became the movement’s manifesto, making her a prominent figure and the voice of the second wave of feminism in the US. The following year, Millett founded the self-supporting women’s artist colony, Women’s Art Colony and Tree Farm in Poughkeepsie, New York, later renamed the Millett Center for the Arts. In her second book, The Prostitution Papers (1971), Millett discussed the inherent relationship between prostitution and patriarchy and compared it to marriage contracts. Her following two books, published in 1974 and 1977, were autobiographies in which she explored her sexuality and role as a public figure. In the following decades, Millett continued to write and explore various aspects of feminism through writing and art. Throughout her life, she published ten books and exhibited her artwork in dozens of venues worldwide. She died of cardiac arrest several days before her 83rd birthday. Read more...

Samella Sanders Lewis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and grew up in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. Her passion for art started from a young age, inspired by various genres, from comic books and Romance novels to depictions of police brutality against African Americans. In 1941, at 18, she began to study history at Dillard University, taking only one art class. Encouraged by her professor and later mentor, the artist Elizabeth Catlett, she changed her major to art and later transferred to Hampton Institute in Virginia, earning a master’s degree in 1947. In those years, she began collecting art, mainly by artists associated with Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) and the Harlem Renaissance. She took a teaching position at Morgan State University while furthering her education in art history and cultural anthropology at Ohio State University. In 1951, at 28, Lewis completed her doctorate and became the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in fine art and art history. In 1953, Lewis got appointed the chair of the fine arts department at Florida A&M University, serving the position for five years. That year, she organized the first professional conference for African American artists. As a member of the NAACP and a civil rights activist, Lewis encountered harassment from the KKK, which led her to leave Florida in 1958. She took a teaching post at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, where she developed an interest in Asian art, culture, and languages. Over time, she returned to focus on African American Art as an artist and a scholar. She became known for her figurative works, which included linocuts, lithographs, and serigraphs, mainly pictorial manifestations of black liberation, as seen in her work Field. In 1966, Lewis began teaching at California State University at Long Beach and established herself as a leading figure in the Los Angeles art scene. She created the short documentary series “The Black Artists” and worked as a coordinator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she fought for hiring more Black workers and founded the Concerned Citizens for Black Art group, which defined guidelines for the museum to be more inclusive. In 1969, she coedited the two volumes of Black Artists on Art, and to publish the book, she cofounded Contemporary Crafts Gallery – the first African American–owned art book publication. The following year, she was appointed professor of art history and humanities at Scripps College, becoming the first African American faculty member to receive tenure. In 1975, at 52, Lewis cofounded the journal Black Art: An International Quarterly, later renamed International Review of African American Art. The following year, she established the Museum of African American Art, serving as its senior curator until 1986. Lewis organized exhibitions and developed educational programs, claiming that museums are responsible for exploring the roots and origins of African American art. She continued to establish three more African American art museums and galleries in LA. Throughout her life, Lewis earned four degrees, published seven books, created five films, and displayed her artworks in nine solo and group exhibitions. She died of renal failure at the age of 99. Read more...

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was born in her family estate Mårbacka in Värmland, Sweden. She was a quiet child who spent most of her time reading and listening to her grandmother’s fairy tales and fantasy stories. From an early age, Lagerlöf wrote poetry but didn’t publish it. She received her early education at home and, at 24, left for Stockholm to attend the Royal Women’s Superior Training Academy and became a teacher. In 1885, at 27, Lagerlöf began to work as a country schoolteacher. There, she developed her story-telling skills to teach her students about the different countries in the religious scriptures. At the time, she began to work on a novel. In 1890, She submitted her first chapters to a magazine literary competition and won first prize – a publishing contract for a book. The following year, she published her first novel Gösta Berling’s Saga. Although it later became one of Swedish literature’s greatest classics, in the beginning, it went unnoticed and received few reviews. That changed when its Danish translation received critical acclaim, and Lagerlöf gained acknowledgment for her work. With the financial support of the philanthropic feminist Fredrika Limnell, Lagerlöf could concentrate on her writing, and by 1895 she stopped teaching. Together with her friend and companion Sophie Elkan, Lagerlöf made two journeys that influenced her literary future. While in Italy, she heard a legend about a Christ Child figure that was replaced with a false version. This story inspired her 1897 novel Antikrists Mirakler (The Miracles of the Antichrist). In 1900, her visit to Jerusalem resulted in her most acclaimed work, a two-volume book titled Jerusalem, about several generations of pilgrims who moved to the holy land. Published in 1901, the book became a best seller in Sweden and abroad, and Lagerlöf was compared to Homer and Shakespeare. In 1902, at 44, Lagerlöf accepted the National Teachers’ Association’s request to write a geography book for children. Published in 1906, Nils Holgerssons Underbara Resa Genom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventures of Nils) follows a boy from the southernmost part of Sweden who travels across the country on a back of a goose. By mixing historical and geographical facts, Lagerlöf created an educational adventure story appealing to children and adults. The two-part novel became Lagerlöf’s most famous work, and it has been translated into over 30 languages and adapted into various films and TV shows worldwide. On 10 December 1909, 51 years old Lagerlöf was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first female Nobel laureate in Literature. Over the years, Lagerlöf became involved with the women’s suffrage movement and was a speaker for the National Association for Women’s Suffrage while continuing to publish her work. However, the outbreak of WWI disturbed her deeply, and during those years, she focused her time and effort on raising funds for charitable causes, especially for refugee children. When the war ended, Lagerlöf returned to writing and published the novel Mårbacka in 1922, named after her childhood home; this book was the first of three autobiographical books. Three years later, she began publishing her historical trilogy – Löwensköldska Ringen (1925), Charlotte Löwensköld (1927), and Anna Svärd (1928). When WWII erupted, Lagerlöf’s creativity once again declined. In March 1940, she suffered a stroke and died a few days later at 81. 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...

Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori was born in Chiaravalle, Italy, and grew up in Rome. At 16, after graduating from the Regia Scuola Tecnica Michelangelo Buonarroti, she enrolled in the technical institute Regio Istituto Tecnico Leonardo da Vinci intending to become a doctor. Due to her gender, she got rejected from the medical program and studied natural sciences; with her diploma di licenza, she enrolled in medical school at the University of Rome. There, she suffered hostility from students and professors because of her gender. While in school, she specialized in pediatrics and psychiatry, worked at a pediatric consulting room and emergency service, and became an expert in pediatric medicine. In 1896, 26 years old Montessori became the first woman in Italy to become a doctor of medicine. With her new degree, she began to work as an assistant at the University hospital and opened a private practice. At the time, she developed an interest in the educational challenges of intellectually disabled children, visiting asylums to observe the children and their behavior. In 1898, she began publishing articles on the subject and giving lectures in which she urged the need to establish separate institutions for children with learning difficulties. A year later, Montessori joined the National League for the Protection of Retarded Children and gave lectures on hygiene and anthropology in teachers’ seminars. The following year, she was appointed director of the State Orthophrenic School of Rome, which trained teachers in educating children with learning difficulties. In 1907, Montessori opened the first Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House), a school for children aged three to six in the poor San Lorenzo district of Rome. There, she applied her educational theories to neurotypical children. According to her teaching method, later called the Montessori system, children can independently learn from their environment, provided with designed learning materials and surroundings that foster their natural interest and desire to learn through stimulation and practical play. Teachers should offer and demonstrate didactic apparatus but essentially to remain in the background. Her program was proven successful, and the Montessori Method began to draw the attention of educators and journalists. Within only a few years, the system was adopted in schools worldwide, from Paris and Stockholm to the US and New Zealand. Over the next three decades, she wrote, lectured, and established teacher-training programs according to the Montessori Method worldwide. In 1922, at 52, Montessori was appointed government inspector of schools in Italy, serving in this position until 1934, when she left the country because of the Fascist regime. She traveled to Spain and lived in India for seven years before settling in the Netherlands, where she died at the age of 81. Read more...

Naomi Rebekah Wolf was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She studied English literature at Yale University and then at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. During her college years, Wolf encountered class hierarchy for the first time, as well as sexism and antisemitism. These experiences influenced her views and writing in her future career. When she presented a feminist theory as her doctoral thesis, her tutor rejected her proposal and told her that her subject does not exist. Wolf did not complete her Ph.D. at the time but formed her writing into her first book, The Beauty Myth. Published in 1991, Wolf’s book challenged beauty norms, the unrealistic standards of beauty, and the cosmetics industry for its women’s exploitation. This ground-breaking book became an international bestseller and was nominated by The New York Times as one of the 70 Most Significant Books of the Century. At 29, Wolf became a leading spokeswoman for what was later referred to as The Third Wave of the Feminist Movement. Two years later, Wolf published her second book, Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How to Use It, in which she wrote on women’s empowerment and sexual liberation. Following its release, she began writing for various publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, exploring in her essays a wide range of topics, from abortions and suppressed sexuality to ISIS and Edward Snowden. In 1996, at the age of 34, Wolf was asked to advise on women issues in President Clinton’s re-election campaign and to give her input on reaching female voters. She was not paid for her contribution but was called on again as a formal consultant in Al Gore’s bid in the 2000 presidential election. In 1997, Wolf published her third book Promiscuities: A Secret History of Female Desire, in which she argued that schools need to teach about sex rather than encouraging abstinence. In the same year, she co-founded the Board of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership – a non-profit organization dedicated to developing young women’s professional skills and training them in ethical leadership. In the next two decades, Wolf published ten more books. Read more...

Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, one of six children of working-class parents. She discovered her love for books from an early age and performed poetry readings in front of her church community. Educated in the segregated public school system, she was very aware of racism, and being taught by mostly black women shaped her perspective as a girl of color. After high school, she studied English at Stanford University and continued postgraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Later she completed her doctorate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1976, at the age of 24, she began her long-life academic career. First, she taught English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California, then African and Afro-American Studies at Yale, Women’s Studies at Oberlin College, and English at the City College of New York. In 1978, at 26, she published her first poetry collection titled “And There We Wept” under the name “bell hooks.” The pen name she chose is a tribute to her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. She persisted in righting the name in lowercase letters to focus the attention on her work and ideas rather than her name and personality. In 1981, she published her first book, which she had worked on since she was 19, “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism.” In the book titled after Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, hooks explored the civil rights movement and feminist movements throughout the decades and examined how hundreds of years of racism and sexism affect Black women today. The book was recognized for its contribution to feminist thought and was named “One of the twenty most influential women’s books in the last 20 years.” Three years later, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center was published, in which hooks accused second-wave feminism of racism and argued that the privileged white women’s experiences overshadowed the opportunity for multiracial feminist solidarity. During the 1980s, hooks organized a support group for Black women named the Sisters of the Yam. The group and its name were the inspiration for her 1993 book Sisters of the Yam: Black women and self-recovery, in which she celebrated Black sisterhood. The importance of sisterhood and the call to come together from an empowering point, rather than from a victim position, became a key notion in feminist thinking. After years of exploring and highlighting various aspects of racism in feminist theories, hooks developed a more active approach to solving the problem, as can be seen in her 1995 book Killing Rage: Ending Racism, in which she suggests that rage is a source of love and strength that can lead to positive change. In 2004, at 52, hooks returned to Kentucky to serve as Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies at Berea College. There, she established the bell hooks Institute in 2014 and the bell hooks Center in 2021. Over the years, hooks published more than 40 books, poem collections, scholarly articles, and five children’s books. In her work, she addressed racism, sexism, patriarchy, sexuality, and geographic influences. In her innovative approach, hooks changed common perceptions of the subjects she explored and redefined feminist theories and Women’s Studies. She died of kidney failure at the age of 69. Read more...

Agnes Campbell MacPhail was born in Proton Township, Ontario, Canada, to a family of farmers. At 14, she wanted to attend high school, but her parents wanted her help on the farm. After receiving permission to further her education, MacPhail went to study at the Owen Sound Collegiate School for a year before transferring to Stratford Normal School, graduating with a teaching certificate. While teaching at several schools in Ontario and Alberta, she became active in the Ontario agricultural co-operative movement, joining the political and social organization United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) and the United Farm Women of Ontario. She also began to publish a column in the Farmer’s Sun newspaper. Following the amendments to the Elections Act that passed two years earlier, Canadian women could vote in national elections for the first time in 1921. Macphail decided to represent the farmers in her region and ran as a member of the Progressive Party of Canada, representing the district of South-East Grey. When elected, she became the first woman Member of Parliament (MP) in Canada and served for 19 years. In 1924, Macphail felt that the Progressive Party did not protect and promote the interests of farmers and industrial workers, and she co-founded the Ginger Group. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the group allied with various agrarian, labor, and socialist groups to found the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), with Macphail serving as its first president. The organization lobbied for the nationalization of key industries and called for the formation of a welfare state to provide universal health insurance, pensions, and unemployment insurance. Throughout her tenure as MP, Macphail promoted various social issues, advocating farmers’ rights and also women, immigrants, miners, prisoners, and other marginalized groups. In 1936, she contributed to the formation of the investigative Archambault Commission, which concluded with overall prison reform; in 1939, she founded the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada, which assisted women and gender diverse people in the justice system. In 1940, at the age of 50, she lost her seat in the House of Commons, and for the next three years, she wrote for various newspapers, lectured throughout Canada and the US, and worked for the CCF. In 1943, she returned to politics and won the provincial election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Alongside Rae Luckock, Macphail became one of the first two women members of the Ontario Legislature and was the first woman sworn in as an Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP). She lost her seat in the 1945 elections but won it back three years later. In 1951, her final year in this role, she worked for the passage of the Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act, the first equal pay legislation in Ontario. Shortly after, she lost her seat. She continued to promote issues she believed in, mainly women’s status and social rights. In 1954, she was offered an appointment to the Senate by Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent, but she died before receiving the position. She was 63 years old. Read more...

Dorothea Lynde Dix was born in Hampden, Maine, and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her parents were alcoholics, and her father was abusive. At 12, she and her two brothers moved to live with her grandmother in Boston. At 14, she taught at a school for girls in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she developed a curriculum for her class that focused on natural sciences and ethical living. Five years later, she returned to Boston and opened a school for girls from wealthy families and a charity school for poor and neglected children she ran from her grandmother’s barn. Her declined health has forced her to give up her teaching career, and she began to work as a governess. In 1836, after suffering a breakdown, she was encouraged to travel to Europe to improve her health. While visiting England, she met a group of social reformers who advocated for government involvement in social welfare, especially in the management of mental institutions and asylums. Back in the US, she started teaching female prisoners at East Cambridge House of Correction. There, she observed the inhumane conditions of the mentally ill, who were locked in the dark basements without heat and sanitary facilities, being flogged and chained to the walls. Dix embarked on a two-year journey throughout the state, visiting asylums and prisons and recording the disgraceful conditions she examined. In 1845, she published her conclusions in a report titled Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline in the United States. After presenting it to the Massachusetts legislature, he increased the budget of the State Mental Hospital at Worcester. Her local successes drove her to expand her efforts to the entire country. She visited facilities in the north and the south, from New York and Pennsylvania to the Carolinas and Louisiana, documenting the treatment of patients, lobbing for improving asylums’ conditions, and adding more hospitals for the mentally ill. She reached out to politicians, advocation to pass federal legislation to establish supervised national asylums; in 1848, US Congress approved a bill to secure 12 million acres of land for the cause. Unfortunately, it got vetoed by President Franklin Pierce in 1854. Following the setback, Dix returned to Europe, continuing her investigation on mental treatment throughout the continent and lobbying for reforms for its improvement. Thanks to her efforts, numerous new institutes were established in Italy, Scotland, England, and the Channel Islands. During the American Civil War, she volunteered as a nurse in the Union Army and was appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses. In this position, she was in charge of setting up field hospitals, managing supplies, recruiting nurses, and overseeing their training programs. While most male doctors opposed the presence of female nurses, Dix appointed more than 3,000 female nurses to the Union Army and advanced the role of field women nurses for years to come. When the war ended, Dix resumed her campaign to improve the caring conditions of the mentally ill and the disabled, leading to the founding of more than 30 institutes across the US and Canada. In 1870, at 68, she contracted malaria and had to give up her traveling, though she continued to promote the cause by every other means available to her. 1881, at 79, she moved into a designated suite built for her in the New Jersey State Hospital, an institute that she had founded. She died six years later, at the age of 85. Read more...

Jean Augustine was born in Happy Hill, Grenada. When she was a year old, her father had died, and she and her mother moved in with an older woman in their village that encouraged Augustine to excel in school. After graduating high school, she worked as a teacher for several years. At 23, Augustine immigrated by herself to Canada on the Canada-Caribbean Domestic Program, which required her to work as a domestic servant on her arrival. The family she worked for recognized she was overqualified for the job and found her a clerical position at a billing firm. After taking evening classes at the Toronto Teacher’s College, she became an elementary school teacher at the Metropolitan Separate School Board in Toronto while furthering her education at the University of Toronto, earning a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Education. When she got promoted to principal, she became one of the first black school principals in the country. Upon her arrival in Toronto, she became active in various educational and social organizations, such as the Urban Alliance on Race Relations and the National Black Coalition of Canada, and served as a board member of many of them, including The Hospital for Sick Children, York University, the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Her community work led her into politics, and she became associated with the local branch of the Liberal Party. In 1985, at the age of 48, Augustine was appointed to the transition team for new Ontario premier David Peterson, which named her chair of the Metro Toronto Housing Authority in 1988. During the six years she held the position, she became more involved with the national Liberal Party leadership. In 1993, at 56, Augustine was the Liberal Party candidate for a seat in the House of Commons from the Etobicoke-Lakeshore section of Toronto. When she won the federal elections, she became the first Black woman elected to the Parliament of Canada. During her 13 years in parliament, she chaired numerous committees, including the Human Rights Committee, the Foreign Affairs and International Trade committee, and the National Women’s Caucus. In 2002, she was appointed Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women in Canada, making history as the first Black woman appointed to the federal cabinet. Two years later, Augustine was appointed Assistant Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole, the first Black person to occupy the Speaker’s Chair in the Canadian House of Commons. In 2007, 70 years old Augustine left the parliament to become the first Fairness Commissioner. In this position, she established new regulatory standards for ensuring access to employment for Canadians with foreign professional credentials. At the age of 78, she retired from her official role and continued working and advocating for many social causes, mainly through the Jean Augustine Centre for Young Women’s Empowerment she established in 2014. Read more...