This section began as a celebration of March and Women’s History Month; it continues as a regular feature because there are so many unrecognized women who have made major contributions to history.
• Performed with many circuses as a tiger trainer and had the center ring with Ringling Brothers in the early 1920s • Worked with the big cats for 57 years […]
First Woman Tiger Trainer/Tamer: Mabel Stark (1888-1968) Read More »
Elizabeth Masser and Peter Thorn emigrated to the United States from Germany and were married in Gettysburg in September of 1855. That year that the cornerstone for the local cemetery
Elizabeth Thorn: Six Months Pregnant, Burying the Dead at Gettysburg Read More »
Jazz performer and pioneer Louis Armstrong called her the “second best trumpet player” in the world; Armstrong placed himself first. Valaida Snow (1904-1956) was born into a show business family
Valaida Snow: Jazz Pioneer and “Queen of the Trumpet” Read More »
• Refused admission to the bar and the practice of law by the Illinois Supreme Court because of her gender;
• Established the Chicago Legal News, which became a vital information service for attorneys;
• Helped Mary Lincoln fight an unjust commitment to an insane asylum;
• Assisted in securing the passage of a bill that gave women the right to retain their own wages and protected the rights of widows;
• Often cited as the first woman attorney in the United States; this is untrue. Arabella Mansfield in Iowa was the first woman in the country admitted to practice law (1869).
Myra Colby Bradwell was born in Manchester, Vermont in 1831. Her family left Vermont when Myra was quite young and they lived in western New York state for a time, eventually pushing on to Cook County, Illinois. When a sister married and moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin where there was a school Myra could attend, Myra moved to Wisconsin until moving back to Elgin, Illinois after a female seminary opened.
Myra Bradwell (1831-1894): Rejected by Bar Assoc. but Builds Legal Publishing Empire Read More »
First—and thus far, the only–woman to receive National Aeronautic Association’s Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy (1980)
• Selected by The New York Times as one of most distinguished women in business (1943)
• Led company through two wars and into the space age
Olive Ann Mellor Beech (1904-1993), Aviation Industrialist and Pioneer Read More »
• Sought fame and fortune by taking a plunge over Niagara Falls • First person ever to successfully go over the Falls in a barrel • Used scientific calculations to
Annie Edson Taylor (1838-1921): American Daredevil Read More »
