30 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Josefa [Chipita] Rodriguez (30 Dec 1799 – 13 Nov 1863 | Mexico, New Spain – San Patricio TX) Mexican-American innkeeper, convicted / hanged for murder, first and only woman hanged in Texas, subject of books / operas / newspaper and magazine articles, Texas Legislature resolved [100+ yrs later in 1985] “Josefa did not receive a fair trial and should not have been hanged”.

Agnes Irwin (30 Dec 1841 – 05 Dec 1914 | Washington DC – Philadelphia PA) author, editor, educator, girls’ school founder, political family member, first dean at Radcliffe College, principal at West Penn Square Seminary for Young Ladies [later renamed Agnes Irwin School].

Katharine Jeannette Bush (30 Dec 1855 – 19 Jan 1937 | Scranton PA – New Haven CT) author, essayist, zoologist, dictionary editor, first to earn PhD in Sciences at Yale.

Rachel Foster Avery (30 Dec 1858 – 26 Oct 1919 | Pittsburgh PA – Philadelphia PA) suffragist, journalist, political activist, adoptive and natural mother, organized International Council of Women, secretary for National American Woman Suffrage Association.

29 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Margaret McDonald Bottome (29 Dec 1827 – 14 Nov 1906 | New York NY – New York NY) author, magazine columnist, religious organizer, founded Christian spiritual development / service organization Order of the King’s Daughters.

Lillian Heath Nelson (29 Dec 1865 – 05 Aug 1962 | Burnett Junction WI – Rawlins WY) memoirist, first female doctor in Wyoming, one of first female medical practitioners west of the Mississippi River.

Annie Montague Alexander (29 Dec 1867 – 10 Dec 1950 | Honolulu HI – Oakland CA) explorer, paleontologist, philanthropist, museum founder, fossil hunter / collector.

Love Rosa Hirschmann Gantt (29 Dec 1875 – 16 Nov 1935 | Camden SC – Philadelphia PA) physician, public health worker, eye-ear-nose-and-throat specialist.

28 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Elizabeth [Eliza] Lucas Pinckney Rutledge (28 Dec 1722 – 26 May 1793 | Antigua – Philadelphia PA) agriculturist, businesswoman, plantation owner / manager, introduced indigo as cash crop into South Carolina economy.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick (28 Dec 1789 – 31 Jul 1867 | Stockbridge MA – Boston MA) novelist, domestic fiction writer, Republican motherhood advocate.

Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard (28 Dec 1816 – 25 Jul 1897 | Ware MA – Chicago IL) author, committed by her husband / spent three years in an insane asylum, founded Anti-Insane Asylum Society, women’s mental health rights activist, advocate for those falsely accused of being insane.

Joanna Ellen Wood (28 Dec 1867 – 01 May 1927 | Lesmahagow SCOT – Detroit MI) Scottish-born Canadian, author, feminist, novelist.

27 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Fannie Ogden Ide (27 Dec 1853 – 02 Jul 1927 | Brooklyn NY – Brooklyn NY) children’s author, penname: Ruth Ogden.

Florence Byrne Cartwright (27 Dec 1863 – 22 Sep 1944 | Galena IL – Salem OR) poet, sestina / metrical composition expert.

Mina Loy (27 Dec 1882 – 25 Sep 1966 | London UK – Aspen CO) British-born American poet, artist, novelist, actress, designer, futurist, bohemian, playwright, lamp designer, Christian Scientist, born Mina Gertrude Löwy.

Olgivanna Lloyd Wright (27 Dec 1898 – 01 Mar 1985 | Cetinje MNE – Scottsdale AZ) Montenegrin-American novelist, master sacred dancer, Gurdjieff / Theosophical member, F. L. Wright autobiographical editor / author, Taliesin Fellowship co-creator / director.

26 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte [E. D. E. N.] Southworth (26 Dec 1819 – 30 Jun 1899 | Washington DC – Washington DC ) novelist, short fiction writer.

Emily Wilder Leavitt (26 Dec 1836 – 02 Nov 1921 | Boston MA – Boston MA) author, historian, professional genealogist, first female member New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Clara Southmayd Ludlow (26 Dec 1852 – 28 Sep 1924 | Easton PA – Washington DC) author, musician, scientist, aka C. S. Ludlow, music teacher, medical entomologist, first woman known to publish on taxonomy of mosquitoes and the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases.

Eva March Tappan (26 Dec 1854 – 29 Jan 1930 | Blackstone MA – Worcester MA) author, teacher, editor of Vassar [College] Miscellany, Latin / German college professor, children’s book author, historical / biographical novelist.

25 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Martha Coffin Wright (25 Dec 1806 – 04 Jan 1875 | Boston MA – Boston MA) Quaker, feminist, abolitionist, writing and painting teacher, Declaration of Sentiments signer, Underground Railroad activist conductor.

Hannah Maria Conant Tracy Cutler (25 Dec 1815 – 11 Feb 1896 | Becket MA – Ocean Springs MS) author, essayist, physician, abolitionist, social reformer, suffrage / temperance movements activist / leader.

Louisa [Lou] Hawkins Canby (25 Dec 1818 – 27 Jun 1889 | Paris KY – Portland OR) humanitarian, Union Army wife, charitable activist, aka The Angel of Santa Fe, converted Santa Fe home into hospital to nurse Confederate soldiers during US Civil War.

Clarissa [Clara] Harlowe Barton (25 Dec 1821 – 12 Apr 1912 | North Oxford MA – Glen Echo MD) teacher, patent clerk, humanitarian, pioneering nurse, founded Red Cross.

24 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Sarah Bradlee Fulton (24 Dec 1740 – 09 Nov 1835 | Dorchester MA – Medford MA) political activist, active member of Daughters of Liberty, aka Mother of the Boston Tea Party, volunteer spy and nurse in American Revolutionary War.

Esther Clark Short (24 Dec 1806 – 28 Jun 1862 | Tioga County PA – Vancouver WA) Algonquin-German-American pioneer landowner, businesswoman, aka The Pioneer Mother, Vancouver, Washington settler / co-founder.

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler (24 Dec 1807 – 02 Nov 1834 | Centre DE – Tecumseh MI) poet, writer, children’s anti-slavery author, first US female writer to focus on abolition of slavery as her principal theme.

Jane Marie Bancroft Robinson (24 Dec 1847 – 29 May 1932 | West Stockbridge MA – Detroit MI) author, scholar, historian, professor, genealogist, philanthropist.

23 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Ada Langworthy Collier (23 Dec 1843 – 06 Aug 1919 | Dubuque IA – Dubuque IA) author writing sketches, short stories, poems, novelist, clubwoman / social activist, pen names Anna L. Cunningham and Marguerite.

Helen Cecilia De Silver Abbot Michael (23 Dec 1857 – 29 Nov 1904 | Philadelphia PA – Boston MA) author, chemist, biologist, physician, hospital founder, plant analysis expert researcher.

Louisa Melvin Delos Mars (23 Dec 1859 – c. 1926 | Providence RI – Boston MA) singer, composer, librettist, first African-American woman to have her opera composition produced, one of first black graduates of New England Conservatory, one of first black women to achieve recognition as a composer [Note: none of her works survive].

Harriet Monroe (23 Dec 1860 – 26 Sep 1936 | Chicago IL – Arequipa PER) poet, editor, scholar, biographer, playwright, literary critic, patron of arts, autobiographical author, Poetry magazine editor / founder / publisher.

Anna Farquhar Bergengren (23 Dec 1865 – unknown | Brookville IN – unknown) editor, author, memoirist, journalist, foreign correspondent, pen name Margaret Allston.

22 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Ann Hasseltine Judson (22 Dec 1789 – 24 Oct 1826 | Bradford MA – Amherst MM) author, translator, essayist, educator, catechism writer, aka Ann of Ava, one of first female American foreign missionaries to India and Burma.

Josephine Brawley Hughes (22 Dec 1839 – 22 Mar 1926 | Meadville PA – Tucson AZ) Western writer, pioneer, suffragist, social activist, women’s advocate, temperance activist, aka Mother of Methodism, managed Arizona Daily Star newspaper, established first girls’ school in Southwest US, first female public school teacher in Arizona, founded Arizona Chapter of Women’s Christian Temperance Union [WCTU].

Maria Teresa Carreño (22 Dec 1853 – 12 Jun 1917 | Caracas VE – New York NY) singer, composer, pianist, conductor, master teacher, Venezuelan-American, aka The Valkyrie of the Piano.

Aline Bernstein (22 Dec 1880 – 07 Sep 1955 | New York NY – New York NY) American author, set / costume designer, novelist, autobiographical author, Museum of Costume Art co-founder, first female member of Designers Union.

21 Dec | Women.Words.Work

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Julia Ann Gleason Stone (21 Dec 1818 – 21 Jul 1900 | Warren MA – Cleveland OH) seamstress, wife of well-known Midwest industrialist / New England bridge builder Amasa Stone.

Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman (21 Dec 1829 – 24 May 1889 | Hanover NH – Boston MA) poet, pioneer deaf-blind student, developed unique tapping alphabet and handwriting system.

Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune (21 Dec 1830 – 03 Jun 1922 | Amelia VA – New York NY) novelist, essayist, cookbook writer, short story writer, social etiquette commentator, pen name Marion Harland.

Henrietta Szold (21 Dec 1860 – 13 Feb 1945 | Baltimore MD – Jerusalem EY) author, memoirist, Jewish-American, women’s US Zionist leader, Hadassah Women’s Organization founder.