14 May | Herstorical.Reflections

Minerva Parker Nichols (14 May 1862 – 17 Nov 1949 | Peoria IL – Westport CT) architect, first US female architect to establish independent professional practice.


Mathilde Georgine Schley (14 May 1864 – 20 Mar 1941 | Horicon WI – Milwaukee WI) artist, landscape painter, member Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors.


Alice Boughton (14 May 1866 – 21 Jun 1943 | Brooklyn NY – Brookhaven NY) Photo-Secessionist, portrait photographer, photography-as-art innovator.


Marian Osborne (14 May 1871 – 05 Sep 1931 | Montreal QC – Toronto ON) poet, author, dramatist.


Elizabeth [Lizzie] Beatrice Cooke Fouse (14 May 1875 – 22 Oct 1952 | Lexington KY – Lexington KY) teacher, African-American women’s rights activist, member National Association of Colored Women [NACW] and Kentucky Association of Colored Women [KACW].

05 May | Herstorical.Reflections

Judith Sargent Murray (05 May 1751 – 09 Jun 1820 | Gloucester MA – Natchez MS) poet, essayist, feminist, playwright, letter writer, pioneering women’s rights advocate.


Ella Sterling Mighels (05 May 1853 – 10 Dec 1934 | Mormon Island CA – San Francisco CA) author, California pioneer, literary historian, pen name: Aurora Esmerelda.


Mary Virginia McCormick (05 May 1861 – 24 May 1941 | Chicago IL – Pacific Palisades CA) heiress, traveler, millionaire recluse, declared mentally incompetent at age 19, daughter of industrialist Cyrus McCormick.


Adelaide Florence Chase (05 May 1862 – 23 Feb 1900 | Fitchburg MA – Boston MA) author, editor, historian, publisher, member of US Women’s Relief Corps.


Elizabeth Cochran Seaman (05 May 1864 – 27 Jan 1922 | Cochran’s Mills PA – New York NY) inventor, novelist, industrialist, charity worker, pen name Nellie Bly, pioneering investigative journalist.

27 Apr | Herstorical.Reflections

Mary Upton Ferrin (27 Apr 1810 – 11 Apr 1881 | South Danvers MA – Marblehead MA) pioneering suffragist, pamphleteer, public speaker.


Mary Elizabeth Croghan Schenley (27 Apr 1826 – 01 Nov 1903 | Louisville KY – London UK) heiress, Pittsburgh philanthropist, romantic scandal heroine.


Alice Morse Earle (27 Apr 1851 – 16 Feb 1911 | Worcester MA – Hempstead NY) author, pioneering social historian.


Alice Sarah Tyler (27 Apr 1859 – 18 Apr 1944 | Decatur IL – Decatur IL) editor, author, club woman, librarian, Carnegie library activist.


Mary Elliott Flanery (27 Apr 1867 – 19 Jul 1933 | Carter County KY – Cattlettsburg KY) suffragist, politician, journalist, columnist, social reformer, Daughters of Confederacy co-founder, women’s rights activist, first female elected to KY General Assembly and State legislature south of Mason–Dixon line.

24 Apr | Herstorical.Reflections

Annis Bertha Ford Eastman (24 Apr 1852 – 22 Oct 1910 | Peoria IL – Elmira NY) author, lecturer, suffragist, theologian, philosopher, first NY State ordained female minister.


Virna Sheard (24 Apr 1862 – 22 Feb 1944 | Cobourg ON – Toronto ON) poet, novelist, pen name Stanton Sheard.


Gemma La Guardia Gluck (24 Apr 1881 – 01 Nov 1962 | New York NY – New York NY) memoirist, Italian-Jewish-American, Holocaust survivor, citizen of US and Hungary, sister of Fiorello La Guardia [first Italian-American Mayor of NYC].


Rowena Meeks Abdy (24 Apr 1887 – 18 Aug 1945 | Vienna AT – San Francisco CA) plein-air painter.


Sara Campbell (24 Apr 1890 – 18 Nov 1965 | Dover TN – Paducah KY) poet, author, flag designer, aka The Betsy Ross of Paducah.

22 Apr | Herstorical.Reflections

Olive Logan (22 Apr 1839 – 27 Apr 1909 | Elmira NY – Banstead UK) author, actress, lecturer, suffragist | Women.Bourne.Works © Susan.Powers.Bourne


Ursula Newell Gestefeld (22 Apr 1845 – 22 Oct 1921 | Augusta ME – Chicago IL) Christian Scientist, New Thought author, women’s press founder.


Henrietta McCormick Goodhart (22 Apr 1857 – 1932 | Chicago IL – Langley Park MD) heiress, memoirist, managed McCormick-Goodhart Mansion on Langley Park Estate.


Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (22 Apr 1873 – 21 Nov 1945 | Richmond VA – Richmond VA) poet, novelist, short story writer, Pulitzer Prize laureate, autobiographical author.


Laura Gilpin (22 Apr 1891 – 30 Nov 1979 | Austin Bluffs CO – Santa Fe NM) Pictorialist, photographer, focus on images of Native Americans [particularly Navajo and Pueblo] and Southwestern landscapes.

20 Apr | Herstorical.Reflections

Cynthia Farrar (20 Apr 1795 – 25 Jan 1862 | Marlborough NH – Ahmednagar IND) educator, pioneering single / unMarried American female foreign missionary in India.


Matilda Vanderpoel (20 Apr 1862 – 21 Oct 1950 | Haarlemmermeer NL – Chicago IL) artist, social activist, portrait / landscape painter, Dutch-born American, teacher at Colorado Chautauqua, co-founded Blue Bird Cottage / Blue Bird Lodge / Holiday House Association ‘to conserve the health of tired working women’.


Helen Dortch Longstreet (20 Apr 1863 – 03 May 1963 | Carnesville GA – Milledgeville GA) postmistress, aka The Fighting Lady, Confederate memorialist, civil rights activist, environmental preservationist.


Mary Agnes Meara Chase (20 Apr 1869 – 24 Sep 1963 | Iroquois County IL – Bethesda MD) author, botanist, feminist, typesetter, illustrator, proofreader, grasses specialist, women’s activist.


Carmelita Chase Hinton (20 Apr 1890 – 16 Jan 1983 | Omaha NE – Concord MA) farmer, gardener, visionary, adventurer, progressive educator, founding director of The Putney School in Putney, Vermont.

02 Apr | Herstorical.Reflections

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews (02 Apr 1860 – 02 Aug 1936 | Mobile AL – Syracuse NY) novelist, short story writer.


Clara Pierce Wolcott Driscoll (02 Apr 1861 – 06 Nov 1944 | Tallmadge OH – Tallmadge OH) director of Tiffany Girls, stained glass crafter / designer / innovator.


Clara Driscoll (02 Apr 1881 – 17 Jul 1945 | St Mary’s of Aransas TX – Corpus Christi TX) novelist, politician, comic opera writer, philanthropist, historic preservationist, multilinguist.


Helen Barten Brewster Owens (02 Apr 1881 – 06 Jun 1968 | Pleasanton KS – Martinsburg WV) suffragist, mathematician, women’s activist, professor of mathematics at Cornell University.


Verna Willis (02 Apr 1887 – 11 Dec 1966 | Iversdale IL – Los Angeles CA) film editor, film works credited and uncredited.

28 Mar | Herstorical.Reflections

Rhoda Holmes Nicholls (28 Mar 1854 – 07 Sep 1930 | Coventry UK – Stamford CT) English-American, artist, writer, art instructor, oil / watercolor painter.


Minnie Mancelona [Tip] Andress Pratt (28 Mar 1869 – 12 Nov 1962 | Missouri US – Petoskey MI) teacher, namesake of Mancelona MI, early pioneer settler family member.


Grace Gassette (28 Mar 1871 – 1955 | Chicago IL – Woodstock VT) painter, author, sculptor, WWI Honoree, amputee prosthetic / surgical tool inventor, Chicago Women’s Athletic Club founder, aka The Woman Who Remakes Broken Soldiers, American Ambulance Hospital in Paris surgical department organizer.


Anne Douglas Sedgwick (28 Mar 1873 – 19 Jul 1935 | Englewood NJ – Hampstead UK) American-British novelist.


Clara Lemlich Shavelson (28 Mar 1886 – 12 Jul 1982 | Gorodok UA – Los Angeles CA) suffragist, Communist, revolutionary, garment worker, labor organizer, peace / community activist, co-founded ILGWU [International Ladies Garment Workers Union], co-founded UCWW [United Council of Working-Class Women, which became Progressive Women’s Council].

25 Mar | Herstorical.Reflections

Jennie Carter Benedict (25 Mar 1860 – 24 Jul 1928 | Louisville KY – Louisville KY) cook, columnist, cookbook author, restaurateur, autobiographical author.


Florence Elizabeth Smith Knapp (25 Mar 1875 – 26 Oct 1949 | Syracuse NY – Marcy NY) author, politician, Secretary of State of New York, Dean of College of Home Economics at Syracuse University, accused of maladministration / convicted of grand larceny, only woman elected to statewide office in New York [1924 – 1974].


Frances Glessner Lee (25 Mar 1878 – 27 Jan 1962 | Chicago IL – Bethlehem NH) artist, heiress, dollhouse expert, aka Mother of Forensic Science, created The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, founded The Nutshell Laboratories in Littleton NH, endowed first Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard University.


Bella Cohen Spewack (25 Mar 1899 – 29 Apr 1990 | Transylvania RO – Manhattan NY) diarist, reporter, lyricist, memoirist, screenwriter.


Ruth Winifred Howard Beckham (25 Mar 1900 – 12 Feb 1997 | Washington DC – Washington DC) social worker, child psychologist, pioneering African-American female PhD in psychology.

24 Mar | Herstorical.Reflections

Margaret A. E. Parkinson McLure (24 Mar 1811 – 31 Jan 1902 | Parkersburg WV – St Louis MO) aka Mother McLure, American Civil War Confederate sympathizer, founded Missouri Confederate Home, co-founded Daughters of the Confederacy.


Frances Jane [Fanny] Crosby van Alstyne (24 Mar 1820 – 12 Feb 1915 | Brewster NY – Bridgeport CT) poet, lyricist, composer, blind activist, mission worker, autobiographical author.


Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage (24 Mar 1826 – 18 Mar 1898 | Cicero NY – Chicago IL) artist, editor, author, suffragist, Theosophist, freethinker, Native American activist.


Candace Thurber Wheeler (24 Mar 1827 – 05 Aug 1923 | Delhi NY – New York NY) textile / interior designer, women’s arts supporter, aka Mother of Interior Design.


Bertha Hedges Spafford Vester (24 Mar 1878 – 27 Jun 1968 | Chicago IL – Jerusalem ISR) social service activist for girls / women, leader / member of The American Colony in Jerusalem [founded by her parents].