Jeannette Ridlon Piccard was born in Chicago, Illinois, one of nine children. From an early age, she showed interest in both science and religion, and at the age of 11, she declared that she wanted to become a priest, an unimaginable ambition in those days. She attended Bryn Mawr College, and after receiving her bachelor’s degree in philosophy and psychology, she continued to study organic chemistry at the University of Chicago. In 1919, at 24, she met Jean Felix Piccard, who became her scientific partner and collaborator. After their wedding, they moved to Switzerland for several years, where her husband taught at the University of Lausanne. During this period, Piccard’s brother-in-law, a physics professor, worked on a balloon, researching the upper atmosphere. In 1926, on their return to the US, her husband began to work as director of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined his brother’s balloon project. In 1933, he designed a balloon for the Chicago ‘Century of Progress’ trade show, and Thomas G. W. Settle piloted it. When the balloon returned to the Piccards, the couple decided to fly into the stratosphere. He was in charge of the science, and she of the piloting. The first step to complete the mission was for her to have a piloting license, and on October 23rd, 1934, at the age of 39, Piccard became the first licensed woman balloonist in the US and one of the first in the world. The second step for reaching their goal was to gain financial support, which turned out to be a difficult task for a woman pilot, rejected several times because “it was too risky for a woman and a mother.” Eventually, the Piccards raised enough funding, and on October 23rd, 1934, the couple accented from Dearborn, Michigan, and landed in Cadiz, Ohio, after an eight hours flight, in which they achieved an altitude of 57,579 feet, and she made history as the first woman in the stratosphere. She kept her record for 29 years until 1963, when the Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. After the flight, she received publicity for her achievement, and the Piccards began to give lectures on their adventure, promoting women in aviation. In 1936, they moved to Minnesota, where her husband received a teaching post, and she continued her education, earning a doctorate in 1942, at the age of 47. In 1963, her husband died, and Piccard was offered a position as consultant to the Director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, overseeing the moon landing in 1969. Over time, her interest shifted from space to religion, and her childhood dream of becoming a priest was rekindled. In 1971, only one year after the Episcopal Church began to admit female deacons, she was ordained a deacon. Three years later, at the age of 79, she was ordained as an Episcopal priest at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, alongside ten other women who became known as the Philadelphia Eleven. Afterward, she served as an assistant pastor at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church and volunteered as a chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She died from cancer at 86, after a lifetime of challenging the conventions of what a respectable lady could and should do. 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...

Born in Baraga, MI, in 1922. During WW2, Walters joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots and served as a transport pilot. As a war veteran, she had the right to enroll in the University of New Mexico School of Law. She was the only woman in her class. After graduating at the age of 40, Walters served as a delegate at the New Mexico Constitutional Convention. Three years later, she was appointed as a Probate Judge in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the first woman in the state to become a district judge. At the age of 62, Walters became the first woman to be nominated as a justice in the New Mexico Supreme Court, as well as the first president of the New Mexico Women’s Political Caucus. Read more...