28 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Elizabeth Ann Seton (28 Aug 1774 – 04 Jan 1821 | New York NY – Emmitsburg MD) widow, mother, memoirist, sainted religious, Sisters of Charity founder.

Lucy Webb Hayes (28 Aug 1831 – 25 Jun 1889 | Chillicothe OH – Fremont OH) US Presidential First Lady, social activist, public speaker, temperance leader, aka Lemonade Lucy.

Clara Erskine Clement Waters (28 Aug 1834 – 29 Feb 1916 | St Louis MO – Boston MA) biographer, translator, world traveler, travel writer, arts history author.

Maria Leopoldina Burns (28 Aug 1855 – 03 Jun 1942 | Utica NY – Honolulu HI) nun, member of Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, co-worker and biographer of Marianne Cope, last Catholic sister to serve with Father Damien in Hawaii.

Alice Chapin Ferris (28 Aug 1857 – 05 Jul 1934 | Keene NH – Keene NH) heiress, playwright, silent film actress, suffragist active in England.

27 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Elsa Musselman Whitmer (27 Aug 1778 – Jan 1856 | Strasberg PA – Richmond MO) folklore figure, family matriarch, Mormon convert / excommunicant, one of two females known to witness the Book of Mormon Golden Plates.

Sophia Smith (27 Aug 1796 – 12 Jun 1870 | Hatfield MA – Hatfield MA) diarist, educator, deaf activist, philanthropist, public co-educational high school founder, founded / endowed / namesake of women’s Smith College.

Sarah [Sallie] Chapman Gordon Law (27 Aug 1805 – 28 Jun 1894 | Wilkes NC – Memphis TN) first recorded Confederate Civil War nurse, Southern Mothers Association president, aka Mother of the Confederacy.

Margaretha [Molly] Meyer-Schurz (27 Aug 1833 – 15 Mar 1875 | Hamburg DEU – Washington DC) German-American, child educator, Froebel system advocate, founded first US German-language kindergarten in Watertown WI.

Mary Anderson (27 Aug 1872 – 30 Jan 1964 | Lidköping SE – Washington DC) labor activist, Social Justice Feminist, women’s work advocate, autobiographical author, US Department of Labor Women’s Bureau head.

26 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Eliza Maria Posey Street (26 Aug 1792 – 02 Feb 1847 | Fredericksburg VA – Agency IA) pioneer, folk / historical figure, settler wife of US Indian Agent, deeded 640 acres of Sac / Fox land.

Sarah [Annie] Turner Wittenmyer (26 Aug 1827 – 02 Feb 1900 | Adams County OH – Sanatoga PA) author, hymnist, historian, relief worker, social reformer, temperance activist.

Isabel Hampton Robb (26 Aug 1860 – 15 Apr 1910 | Welland ON – Cleveland OH) textbook author, first Superintendent of Nurses at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, nurse theorist / advocate / curriculum developer.

May Lamberton Becker (26 Aug 1873 – 27 Apr 1958 | New York NY – Epsom UK) editor, author, journalist, anthologist, literary critic, social / charitable activist, Reader’s Guide columnist, pro-British during WWII, active member of Books Across the Sea, namesake for Library Reading Room dedicated by T. S. Eliot [1960].

Zona Gale Breese (26 Aug 1874 – 27 Dec 1938 | Portage WI – Chicago IL) author, novelist, essayist, playwright, newspaper writer, education / pacifism / women’s rights activist.

25 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Jane Lathrop Stanford (25 Aug 1828 – 28 Feb 1905 | Albany NY – Oahu HI) arts activist, educational leader, women’s rights advocate, Stanford University co-founder, allegedly murdered by accumulated strychnine poisoning.

Chloe Annette Buckel (25 Aug 1833 – 17 Aug 1912 | Warsaw NY – Oakland CA) Civil War nurse, pioneering surgeon / physician, one of the first female doctors in California, founded Hospital for Women and Children in San Francisco.

Ellen Goodell Smith (25 Aug 1835 – 03 Nov 1906 | Belchertown MA – Brooklyn NY) author, teacher, vegetarian, physician, hydrotherapist, co-founded first hydropathic sanitarium in St. Paul MN.

Martha Hale Shackford (25 Aug 1875 – 11 Jan 2013 | Dover NH – Wellesley MA) poet, editor, author, textbook writer, professor of English literature.

Louise Emerson Ronnebeck (25 Aug 1901 – 17 Feb 1980 | Philadelphia PA – Denver CO) painter, teacher, New Deal / WPA muralist, professor of drawing and painting.

24 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Ann White Johnson (24 Aug 1808 – 05 May 1872 | Westmoreland NH – New York NY) abolitionist, lecturer on physiology, matron of Sing Sing Prison, prison reform advocate, founding member of New England Non-Resistance Society.

Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson (24 Aug 1816 – 03 Nov 1905 | Hillsboro OH – Hillsboro OH) aka Mother Thompson, non-violent temperance Visitation Bands leader, founded Ohio Women’s Crusade Against Alcohol [basis for Women’s Christian Temperance Union].

Marie Brose Tepe Leonard (24 Aug 1834 – 14 May 1901 | Bretagne FR – Pittsburgh PA) Civil War vivandière, aka Fearless French Mary, wounded / survived war but died by suicide years later.

Laura Drake Gill (24 Aug 1860 – 03 Feb 1926 | Chesterville ME – Berea KY) professor, administrator, college president, educational reformer.

Mary Arizona [Zonia] Baber (24 Aug 1862 – 10 Jan 1956 | Clark IL – Chicago IL) geologist, feminist, anti-racist, geographer, anti-imperialist, textbook author, desk designer, geography instruction innovator, peace monument historian, co-founded Geography Society of Chicago, member of WILPF [Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

23 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Moody Emerson (23 Aug 1774 – 01 May 1863 | Concord MA – Concord MA) poet, author, literary family member, mentor to her nephew Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit (23 Aug 1843 – 22 Jul 1929 | Mobile AL – San Francisco CA) folk figure, aka Firebell Lil, philanthropist, cookbook author, Coit Tower benefactor, San Francisco Volunteer Firefighters patroness, born Elizabeth Wyche Hitchcock.

Sarah Frances Whiting (23 Aug 1847 – 12 Sep 1927 | Wyoming NY – Wilbraham MA) author, essayist, physicist, astronomer, first professor of physics at Wellesley College, funded Whiting Observatory at Wellesley.

Amelie Louise Rives Troubetzkoy (23 Aug 1863 – 15 Jun 1945 | Richmond VA – Cismont VA) poet, novelist, playwright.

Edith Lake Wilkinson (23 Aug 1868 – 19 Jul 1957 | Wheeling WV – Huntington WV) lesbian, studied at Arts Student League of New York, degree from Columbia Teacher’s College [1905], Provincetown MA artist / printmaker, committed to mental hospitals [from 1924 till her death] [Note: middle image from HBO documentary © 2022 Greenie Films and Little Mama, Inc.].

22 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Lewis Kinnan (22 Aug 1763 – 12 Mar 1848 | Basking Ridge NJ – Basking Ridge NJ) pioneer, survivor, memoirist, Shawnee captive, sold to Delaware natives, rescued after three years’ captivity.

Emily Chubbuck Judson (22 Aug 1817 – 01 Jun 1854 | Eaton NY – Hamilton NY) poet, writer, memoirist, missionary, aka Fanny Forester.

Helen Mar Kimball Whitney (22 Aug 1828 – 13 Nov 1896 | Mendon NY – Salt Lake City UT) diarist, pioneer, survivor, one of Latter Day Saints founder’s wives.

Anna Elizabeth Klumpke (22 Aug 1856 – 09 Feb 1942 | San Francisco CA – San Francisco CA) artist, biographer, memoirist, portrait painter, autobiographical author.

Georgia Eva Cayvan (22 Aug 1857 – 19 Nov 1906 | Bath ME – Flushing NY) fortune-teller, stage actress, women’s rights activist, stage theatre company founder, one of first women to wear a glass dress.

21 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Lizzie Macomber (21 Aug 1861 – 04 Feb 1916 | Fall River MA – Boston MA) Pre-Raphaelite painter.

Alice Schille (21 Aug 1869 – 06 Nov 1955 | Columbus OH – Columbus OH) painter, watercolorist, art teacher.

Winnifred Eaton (21 Aug 1875 – 08 Apr 1954 | Montreal QC – Butte MT) novelist, screenwriter, pen name: Onoto Watanna.

Queena Mario (21 Aug 1896 – 28 May 1951 | Akron OH – New York NY) operatic soprano, opera professor, newspaper columnist, opera-themed mystery novelist, pen name: Florence Bryant, born Queena Mariana Tillotson.

Constance McLaughlin Winsor Green (21 Aug 1897 – 05 Dec 1975 | Ann Arbor MI – Annapolis MD) author, historian, Laureate for Pulitzer Prize in History [1963].

20 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Maria Louise Pool (20 Aug 1841 – 18 May 1898 | Rockland MA – Rockland MA) author, social novelist, magazine writer.

Margaret Clay Ferguson (20 Aug 1863 – 28 Aug 1951 | Orleans NY – San Diego CA) author, botanist, first woman president Botanical Society of America.

Ellen Crosby Roosevelt (20 Aug 20 1868 – 26 Sep 1954 | Rosedale NY – Hyde Park NY) American tennis player, first cousin to FDR, posthumously inducted into International Tennis Hall of Fame [1975].

Caroline Risque Janis (20 Aug 1883 – 09 Apr 1952 | St Louis MO – St Louis MO) painter, sculptor, member of The Potters’ Wheel group of artists and writers.

Rose Hum Lee (20 Aug 1904 – 24 Mar 1964 | Butte MT – Phoenix AZ) author, sociologist, researcher, short story writer, first female Chinese-American sociology department head.

19 Aug | Women’s Words & Works

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Mary Ellen Pleasant (19 Aug 1817 – 04 Jan 1904 | Philadelphia PA – San Francisco CA) abolitionist, social activist, entrepreneur, philanthropist, aka Mammy Pleasant, Mother of Human Rights in California.

Antoinette B. Hollister (19 Aug 1863 – 13 Jun 1943 | Chicago IL – Tarpon Springs FL) painter, professor, writer / lecturer about art for children.

Elsie Ferguson (19 Aug 1883 – 15 Nov 1961 | New York NY – New London CT) author, actress, aka The Aristocrat of the Silent Screen.

Grace Hutchins (19 Aug 1885 – 15 Jul 1969 | Boston MA – New York NY) author, activist, communist, pamphleteer, radical labor economist.

Maija Grotell (19 Aug 1899 – 06 Dec 1973 | Helsinki FI – Pontiac MI) author, ceramicist, ceramics teacher, aka The Mother of American Ceramics.