19 Mar | Herstorical.Reflections

Cornelia Grinnell Willis (19 Mar 1825 – 24 Mar 1904 | New Bedford MA – Washington DC) abolitionist, women’s rights advocate, columnist for New York Ledger, protected and purchased freedom for Harriet Jacobs, founding member of first US Woman’s Club, founded school for young women at the Willis Idlewild Estate.


Alice French (19 Mar 1850 – 09 Jan 1934 | Andover MA – Davenport IA) novelist, aka Octave Thanet.


Ellen Gates Starr (19 Mar 1859 – 10 Feb 1940 | Laona IL – Suffern NY) author, teacher, lecturer, bookbinder, child labor activist, anti-industrialist, co-founder of Hull-House, social / political reformer, Arts and Crafts Movement practitioner.


Senda Berenson Abbott (19 Mar 1868 – 16 Feb 1954 | Vilnius LT – Santa Barbara CA ) author, wrote first guide / rule book for women’s basketball, Instructor of Physical Culture at Smith College, aka The Mother of Women’s Basketball.


Edith Nourse Rogers (19 Mar 1881 – 10 Sep 1960 | Saco ME – Boston MA) aviator, politician, social welfare activist, created US GI Bill, veterans advocate, Women’s Army Corps founder, longest tenured US State Representative.

18 Mar | Herstorical.Reflections

Mary Ann Harris Gay (18 Mar 1828 – 06 Nov 1918 | Jones County GA – Decatur GA) poet, author, diarist, memoirist, American Confederate heroine.


Marilla Marks Young Ricker (18 Mar 1840 – 12 Nov 1920 | New Durham NH – Dover NH) author, attorney, suffragist, free-thinker, humanitarian, women’s rights activist.


Sally Berkeley Nelson Robins (18 Mar 1855 – 04 Feb 1925 | Gloucester County VA – Richmond VA) author, suffragist, genealogist, essayist, historian.


Jennie Harris Oliver (18 Mar 1864 – 03 Jun 1942 | Lowell MI – Oklahoma City OK) poet, Poet Laureate of Oklahoma.


Alice Cushing Donaldson Riley (18 Mar 1867 – 09 Aug 1955 | Morrison IL – Pasadena CA) children’s songs /operas / poetry / lullabies author, Drama League of America innovator.

10 Mar | Herstorical.Reflections

Sarah Walter Chandler Coates (10 Mar 1829 – 24 Jul 1897 | Kennett Square PA – Kansas City MO) Quaker, suffragist, social / political activist, women’s club founder / leader, aka The Queen of Quality Hill.


Sarah Malinda [Sam] Pritchard Blalock (10 Mar 1839 – 09 Mar 1901 | Avery County NC – Watauga County NC) US Civil War female soldier, fought for both North and South.


Josephine [Ina] Donna Coolbrith (10 Mar 1841 – 29 Feb 1928 | Nauvoo IL – Berkeley CA) poet, writer, librarian, first-ever US State Poet Laureate.


Hallie Quinn Brown (10 Mar 1850 – 16 Sep 1949 | Pittsburgh PA – Wilberforce OH) writer, activist, educator, abolitionist, elocutionist, humanitarian, African-American, women’s rights activist.


Mary Mills Patrick (10 Mar 1850 – 25 Feb 1940 | Canterbury NH – Palo Alto CA) author, scholar, college president, autobiographer, earned PhD at Universitiy of Bern.

08 Mar | Herstorical.Reflections

Hannah Hoes Van Buren (08 Mar 1783 – 05 Feb 1819 | Kinderhook NY – Albany NY) US Presidential First Lady.


Orra White Hitchcock (08 Mar 1796 – 26 May 1863 | South Amherst MA – Amherst MA) artist, teacher, watercolorist, classroom chart muralist, early female botanical / scientific / geological / landscape illustrator.


Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (08 Mar 1828 – 04 Apr 1887 | New York NY – New York NY) art collector, philanthropist.


Agnes Harrington D’Arcambal (08 Mar 1829 – 14 Feb 1899 | Burlington VT – Detroit MI) social activist, prison reformer, humanitarian, founded D’Arcambal Home of Industry for discharged prisoners.


Josephine Garis-Cochran [later Cochrane] (08 Mar 1839 – 03 Aug 1913 | Ashtabula County OH – Chicago IL) American inventor, invented first successful hand-powered dishwasher, founded Garis-Cochrane Manufacturing Company, renamed 1897 as Cochran’s Crescent Washing Machine Company, posthumously inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame [2006].


Eliza Poor Donner Houghton (08 Mar 1843 – 19 Feb 1922 | Springfield IL – Los Angeles CA) memoirist, massacre survivor.

08 Feb | Herstorical.Reflections

Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson (08 Feb 1825 – 22 Dec 1911 | Boston MA – Malden MA) poet, author, mill girl, bobbin doffer, social activist, suffragist leader.


Cornelia Hancock (08 Feb 1840 – 31 Dec 1927 | Hancock’s Bridge NJ – Atlantic City NJ) author, memoirist, social activist, Civil War Union nurse, educator, school founder.


Katherine [Kate] O’Flaherty Chopin (08 Feb 1850 – 22 Aug 1904 | St Louis MO – St Louis MO) novelist, feminist, short story writer.


Kate Thomson Cory (08 Feb 1861 – 12 Jun 1958 | Waukegan IL – Prescott AZ) painter, photographer, lived in / focused on Hopi villages in Southwest USA.


Maud Slye (08 Feb 1869 – 17 Sep 1954 | Minneapolis MN – Chicago IL) poet, musician, pathologist, cancer researcher, 1923 Nobel Laureate.

05 Feb | Herstorical.Reflections

Lucy Wright (05 Feb 1760 – 07 Feb 1821 | Pittsfield MA – Watervliet NY) minister, preacher, aka Mother Lucy, Shaker dance form innovator, pioneering female Shaker leader.


Nancy Hanks Lincoln (05 Feb 1784 – 05 Oct 1818 | Hampshire County VA – Spencer County IN) pioneer, seamstress, American folk figure.


Sarah Goodridge (05 Feb 1788 – 28 Dec 1853 | Templeton MA – Boston MA) miniature portrait painter.


Katharine Caroline Bushnell (05 Feb 1856 – 25 Jan 1946 | Peru IL – Piedmont CA) author, scholar, feminist theologian, women’s religious rights activist, American Methodist missionary, member of WCTU [Women’s Christian Temperance Union], authored Bible re-translation called God’s Word to Women.


Maxine Elliott (05 Feb 1868 – 05 Mar 1940 | Rockland ME – Cannes FR) born Jessie Dermott, film / stage actress, theater founder / owner / manager.

02 Feb | Herstorical.Reflections

Delia Salter Bacon (02 Feb 1811 – 02 Sep 1859 | Tallmadge OH – Hartford CT) poet, playwright, literary scholar, short story writer, Shakespearean theorist / researcher.


Sarah Marshall Boone (02 Feb 1832 – 1904 | near New Burn NC – New Haven CT) inventor, dressmaker, seamstress, patented wooden ironing board.


Sarah Ann Hackett Stevenson (02 Feb 1841 – 14 Aug 1909 | Buffalo Grove IL – Chicago IL) author, educator, physician, humanitarian, first female American Medical Association member, co-founded Illinois Training School for Nurses.


Effie Brooks [Theodate] Pope Riddle (02 Feb 1867 – 30 Aug 1946 | Salem OH – Farmington CT) one of first registered US female architects, survivor of the sinking of RMS Lusitania, founded / designed Avon Old Farms School, member of American Society for Psychical Research.


Anne Bauchens (02 Feb 1882 – 07 May 1967 | St Louis MO – Woodland Hills CA) film editor, Academy Award for Film Editing, first woman to win an Oscar for film editing.

18 Jan | Herstorical.Reflections

Virginia Penny (18 Jan 1826 – 04 Apr 1913 | Louisville KY – Wards Island NY) author, economist, suffragist, social reformer, owned employment agency for women, first to study women’s labor markets.


Sarah Blakeslee Chase (18 Jan 1837 – 01 Apr 1914 | New Richmond OH – Toledo OH) birth control activist, homeopathic gynecologist, first female admitted to Medical Society of Cleveland and Homœopathic Association of Ohio.


Alice H. Putnam (18 Jan 1841 – 19 Jan 1919 | Chicago IL – Chicago IL) author, educator, pioneer in Chicago kindergarten education, opened and directed first private kindergarten in Chicago.


Emma Bertha Delany (18 Jan 1871 – 07 Oct 1922 | Fernandina Beach FL – Fernandina Beach FL) African-American missionary fundraiser, first Baptist missionary to Malawai and Liberia in Africa, co-founded Providence Industrial Mission [Malawi] and Suehn Industrial Mission [Liberia].


Irene Osgood Andrews (18 Jan 1879 – 01 Feb 1963 | Big Rapids MI – New York NY) writer, author, relief worker, factory inspector, focus on challenges facing women in American industries.

15 Jan | Herstorical.Reflections

Abigail [Abby] Kelley Foster (15 Jan 1811 – 14 Jan 1887 | Pelham MA – Worcester MA) suffragist, speaker, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, radical social reformer.


Constance Faunt Le Roy Runcie (15 Jan 1836 – 17 May 1911 | Indianapolis IN – Winnetka MO) poet, artist, author, pianist, composer, short story writer.


Katharine Bement Davis (15 Jan 1860 – 10 Dec 1935 | Buffalo NY – Pacific Grove CA) author, criminologist, progressive era social reformer, first female NYC Correction Commissioner, science-based prison reformer, groundbreaking female sexuality researcher, first US female PhD in economics and political science.


Loïe Fuller (15 Jan 1862 – 01 Jan 1928 | Fullersburg IL – Paris FR) dancer, memoirist, choreographer, free dance practitioner, stage lighting artist / inventor / patent holder.


Frances Benjamin Johnston (15 Jan 1864 – 16 May 1952 | Grafton WV – New Orleans LA) pioneering photographer, early female photojournalist.

04 Jan | Herstorical.Reflections

Helen Kendrick Johnson (04 Jan 1844 – 03 Jan 1917 | Hamilton NY – Rochester NY) poet, activist, travel writer, children’s author.


Esther B. Singleton (04 Jan 1865 – 02 Jul 1930 | Baltimore MD – Stonington CT) prolific author, journalist, Shakespeare researcher.


Frances Hammell Gearhart (04 Jan 1869 – 04 Apr 1959 | Sagetown IL – Pasadena CA) teacher, landscape artist, watercolorist, lino / woodcut printmaker, pioneer American fine art color printmaker.


Selena Sloan Butler (04 Jan 1872 – 09 Oct 1964 | Thomasville GA – Los Angeles CA) African-American, organized first black women’s Red Cross chapter, founder / first president National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers Association [NCCPT].


Allie Mae Carpenter (04 Jan 1887 – 02 Jul 1978 | Prairie Home MO – Denver CO) artist, etcher, oil painter, pastellist, printmaker, tapestry artist, watercolorist, china painter, art educator, aka A.M. Carpenter, interior designer / decorator.