05 Dec | Women’s Words & Works

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Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (05 Dec 1822 – 27 Jun 1907 | Boston MA – Arlington MA) author, educator, Radcliffe College co-founder / first president, natural history researcher.

Jane Loeau (05 Dec 1828 – 30 Jul 1873 | Waimea HI – Puunui HI) Chiefess of Kingdom of Hawaii, controversial royal Hawaiian family member.

Susan Hale (05 Dec 1833 – 17 Sep 1910 | Boston MA – Matunuck RI) artist, author, educator, world traveler, literary / Unitarian family member.

Alice Brown (05 Dec 1857 – 21 Jun 1948 | Hampton Falls NH – Boston MA) poet, novelist, biographer, playwright.

Maria Louise Anna Beaudet (05 Dec 1859 – 31 Dec 1947 | Tours FR – New York NY) opera singer, French Canadian, stage / silent film actress, opera touring company founder.

04 Dec | Women’s Words & Works

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Angelia [Angie] Louise Thurston French Newman (04 Dec 1837 – 15 Apr 1910 | Montpelier VT – Lincoln NE) poet, editor, author, teacher, lecturer, Spanish-American War hospital inspector.

Cornelia Foster Bradford (04 Dec 1847 – 15 Jan 1935 | Granby NY – Montclair NJ) social worker, kindergarten advocate, social activist and reformer, founded Whittier House [first settlement house in New Jersey].

Mary Reed (04 Dec 1854 – 08 Apr 1943 | Lowell OH – Chandag IND) missionary social worker, leprosy colony missionary.

Julia Evelyn Ditto Young (04 Dec 1857 – 19 Apr 1915 | Buffalo NY – Buffalo NY) poet, novelist.

Lillian Russell (04 Dec 1861 – 06 Jun 1922 | Clinton IA – Pittsburgh PA) singer, actress, columnist, suffragist, born Helen Louise Leonard.

03 Dec | Women’s Words & Works

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Barbara Hauer Fritchie (03 Dec 1766 – 18 Dec 1862 | Lancaster PA – Frederick City MD) folk figure, American Civil War Union activist.

Margaret [Peggy] O’Neal Eaton (03 Dec 1799 – 08 Nov 1879 | Washington DC – Washington DC) folk / political figure, involved in US President Andrew Jackson Petticoat Affair.

Louisa Susannah Cheves McCord (03 Dec 1810 – 23 Nov 1879 | Charleston SC – Charleston SC) poet, author, suffragist, playwright, translator, political essayist.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst (03 Dec 1842 – 13 Apr 1919 | Franklin MO – Pleasanton CA) feminist, suffragist, philanthropist, anthropology museum founder, founding member of National Congress of Mothers, benefactor / director of Golden Gate Kindergarten Association, co-founded all-girls National Cathedral School in Washington, DC.

Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (03 Dec 1842 – 30 Mar 1911 | Dunstable MA – Boston MA) author, professor, environmental chemist, safety / industrial engineer, experimental researcher in domestic science, first to apply chemistry to study of nutrition, first American woman to obtain a degree in chemistry, first female student and professor at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], first American woman accepted to any school of science and technology.

02 Dec | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Mortimer (02 Dec 1816 – 14 Jul 1877 | Trowbridge UK – Milwaukee WI) educator, woman’s club leader, art history lecturer, co-founded Milwaukee College, founded Industrial School for Girls of Milwaukee [middle image courtesy of Lawrence.edu].

Elizabeth Lyle Saxon (02 Dec 1832 – 14 Mar 1915 | Greenville TN – Memphis TN) speaker, memoirist, women’s rights activist, pioneer Southern suffrage leader.

Grace Mac Gowan Cooke (02 Dec 1861 – 24 Jun 1944 | Brooklyn NY – Santa Clara CA) novelist, co-writer with sister Alice Mac Gowan.

Ruth Draper (02 Dec 1884 – 30 Dec 1956 | New York NY – New York NY) diseuse, actress, dramatist, memoirist.

Josephine Aspinwall Roche (02 Dec 1886 – 26 Jul 1976 | Neligh NE – Bethesda MD) activist, politician, industrialist, humanitarian, New Deal administrator, first female Denver police officer, United Mine Workers administrator, Foreign Language Information Services director.

01 Dec | Women’s Words & Works

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Ann Preston (01 Dec 1813 – 18 Apr 1872 | West Grove PA – Philadelphia PA) educator, physician, essayist, Quaker, children’s book author, women’s medical education activist.

Caroline Crane Marsh (01 Dec 1816 – 27 Oct 1901 | Berkley MA – Scarsdale NY) poet, author, translator, women’s rights activist.

Matilda Agnes Heron (01 Dec 1830 – 07 Mar 1877 | Draperstown IE – New York NY) Irish-American actress, translator, playwright.

Christine Ladd-Franklin (01 Dec 1847 – 05 Mar 1930 | Windsor CT – New York NY) author, logician, psychologist, mathematician, color vision theorist / researcher.

Julia Ann Moore (01 Dec 1847 – 05 Jun 1920 | Plainfield Township MI – Manton MI) poet, poetaster known for writing bad poetry, aka Julie Ann Davis, aka The Sweet Singer of Michigan.

30 Nov | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Hayden Green Pike (30 Nov 1824 – 15 Jan 1908 | Eastport ME – Baltimore MD) author, novelist, pen names: Mary Langdon and Sydney A. Story, Jr.

Martha George Ripley (30 Nov 1843 – 18 Apr 1912 | Lowell VT – Minneapolis MN) suffragist, feminist, woman’s physician, women’s rights advocate, public health activist / educator, founder / administrator Minneapolis Maternity Hospital [later renamed Ripley Memorial Hospital].

Mary Eliza McDowell (30 Nov 1854 – 14 Oct 1936 | Cincinnati OH – Chicago IL) social worker / reformer, community / neighborhood organizer, workplace / public health activist, head of University of Chicago’s Settlement House [later renamed Mary McDowell Settlement], aka The Settlement Lady and Angel of the Stockyards.

Elise Mercur Wagner (30 Nov 1868 – 27 Mar 1947 | Towanda PA – Old Economy Village PA) author, public / private architect, first female architect in Pittsburgh.

Etta Cone (30 Nov 1870 – 31 Aug 1949 | Jonesboro TN – Baltimore MD) heiress, literary figure, modern art collector.

29 Nov | Women’s Words & Works

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Jemima Wilkinson (29 Nov 1758 – 01 Jul 1819 | Cumberland RI – Jerusalem NY) charismatic Quaker, abstinence / gender equality advocate, religious community leader / founder, aka The Public Universal Friend.

Abigail Goodrich Whittelsey (29 Nov 1788 – 16 Jul 1858 | Ridgefield CT – Colchester CT) The Mothers’ Magazine founding editor and publisher.

Maria Teresa [Teresita] Sandoval Suazo (29 November 1811 – 1894 | Taos NM – Pueblo CO) pioneer in Arkansas Valley, co-founder of El Pueblo in Pueblo, Colorado, managed Doyle Settlement Ranch.

Louisa May Alcott (29 Nov 1832 – 06 Mar 1888 | Germantown PA – Boston MA) novelist, Unitarian, Civil War Union nurse.

28 Nov | Women’s Words & Works

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Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat (28 Nov 1823 – 16 Jan 1908 | Portland ME – Portland ME) poet, author, diarist, reformer, journalist, travel writer, first female New England book reviewer.

Phebe Cobb Larry Dole (28 Nov 1835 – 26 Apr 1909 | Gorham ME – Windham ME) poet, artist, landscape painter, magazine / newspaper writer, editor-in-chief of weekly Portland ME paper The Narragansett Sun.

Helen Magill White (28 Nov 1853 – 28 Oct 1944 | Providence RI – Kittery Point ME) educator, pacifist, suffragist, school principal, first US female PhD.

Suzanne Adams Stern Mackay (28 Nov 1872 – 05 Feb 1953 | Cambridge MA – London UK) lyric coloratura soprano.

27 Nov | Women’s Words & Works

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Rachel Brooks Gleason (27 Nov 1820 – 13 Mar 1905 | Winhall VT – Elmira NY) author, physician, essayist, hydrotherapist, anti-slavery activist, women’s dress reform advocate, hydrotherapy spa administrator, fourth US female to earn medical degree.

Adele [Della] Lindley Straup (27 Nov 1866 – 15 Sep 1947 | South Bend IN – Salt Lake City UT) educator, active club woman.

Margaret Ruthven Lang (27 Nov 1867 – 29 May 1972 | Boston MA – Boston MA) composer, devotional pamphlet writer / printer / publisher, one of first two US female composers with music performed by American symphony orchestras.

Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons (27 Nov 1875 – 19 Dec 1941 | New York NY – New York NY) author, feminist, folklorist, sociologist, anthropologist, textbook author, pen name: John Main.

26 Nov | Women’s Words & Works

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Sarah Moore Grimké (26 Nov 1792 – 23 Dec 1873 | Charleston SC – Boston MA) writer, lawyer, speaker, suffragist, abolitionist, feminist, women’s laws / legal activist.

Lilly Martin Spencer (26 Nov 1822 – 22 May 1902 | Exeter UK – New York NY) French-American artist, genre painter, born Angelique Marie Martin.

Ellen Gould Harmon White (26 Nov 1827 – 16 Jul 1915 | Gorham ME – Saint Helena CA) author, religious pioneer, Seventh Day Adventist co-founder / leader / visionary / prophetess.

Mary Edwards Walker (26 Nov 1832 – 21 Feb 1919 | Oswego NY – Oswego NY) surgeon, alleged spy, feminist, suffragist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, prisoner of war, only woman [as of 2015] ever awarded US Medal of Honor.