16 Jan | Women.Words.Work

Virginia Caroline Tunstall Clay-Clopton (16 Jan 1825 – 23 Jan 1915 | Nash County NC – Gurley AL) author, memoirist, political wife, suffragist, United Daughters of the Confederacy member.


Ellen Russell Emerson (16 Jan 1837 – 12 Jun 1907 | New Sharon ME – Cambridge MA) author, sketcher, ethnologist.


Sarah Rosetta Wakeman (16 Jan 1843 – 19 Jun 1864 | Afton NY – New Orleans LA) US folk figure, aka Lyons Wakeman, letter correspondent, disguised Civil War Union soldier.


Ella Flagg Young (16 Jan 1844 – 26 Oct 1918 | Buffalo NY – Washington DC) author, essayist, theorist, educator, first female superintendent of major school district, first female president of National Education Association [NEA].


Margaret Wilhelmina Wilson (16 Jan 1882 – 06 Oct 1973 | Traer IA – Droitwich UK) novelist, aka G.D. Turner, 1924 Pulitzer Prize for The Able McLaughlins.

14 Oct | Women.Words.Work

Laura Askew Haygood (14 Oct 1845 – 29 Apr 1900 | Watkinsville GA – Shanghai CN) educator, missionary, memoirist, letter correspondent.


Mary Theodora [Dora] Starbuck Ebert (14 Oct 1856 – 29 Feb 1924 | Winston NC – Old Richmond NC) boarding house owner / operator, Moravian church and settlement family member.


Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (14 Oct 1856 – 03 Nov 1928 | Clinton IA – Geneva CH) writer, geographer, photographer, Washington DC cherry-tree-planting advocate, first female board member of National Geographic Society.


Winifred Sweet Black Bonfils (14 Oct 1863 – 25 May 1936 | Chilton WI – San Francisco CA) reporter, journalist, columnist, pen names Annie Laurie and Winifred Black.

27 Sep | Women.Words.Work

Martha [Patsy] Jefferson Randolph (27 Sep 1772 – 10 Oct 1836 | Monticello, Virginia, British America – Albemarle County VA) US Presidential daughter, Acting US First Lady, inherited Monticello from father Thomas Jefferson.


Anna McNeill Whistler (27 Sep 1804 – 03 Jan 1881 | Wilmington NC – Hastings UK) folk figure, artist’s model, letter correspondent, aka Whistler’s Mother.


Lucretia Maria Davidson (27 Sep 1808 – 27 Aug 1825 | Plattsburgh NY – Plattsburgh NY) short-lived poet.


Aubertine Woodward Moore (27 Sep 1841 – 23 Sep 1929 | Philadelphia PA – Philadelphia PA) author, music critic, professor, translator, short story writer, focus on Scandinavian literature, pen name: Auber Forestier.


Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (27 Sep 1861 – 17 Feb 1933 | New York NY – New York NY) poet, author, lecturer, public speaker, political family member.

10 Sep | Women.Words.Work

Hannah Webster Foster (10 Sep 1758 – 17 Apr 1840 | Salisbury MA – Montreal QC) epistolary novelist, newspaper columnist.


Marie Catherine Laveau (10 Sep 1801 – 15 Jun 1881 | New Orleans LA – New Orleans LA) nurse, midwife, occultist, Louisiana Creole Voodoo practitioner, aka Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, ongoing artistic / literary inspirational character.


Catherine White Coffin (10 Sep 1803 – 22 May 1881 | Guilford NC – Avondale OH) Quaker, Underground Railroad activist.


Nellie Verrill Mighels Davis (10 Sep 1844 – 24 Jun 1945 | Greenwood ME – Carson City NV) editor, journalist, publisher, civic leader, organizer / first State President of American Red Cross in Nevada.


Alice Brown Davis (10 Sep 1852 – 21 Jun 1935 | Park Hill, Indian Territory – Wewoka OK) educator, postmistress, cultural leader, first female Seminole Chief.

27 Aug | Women.Words.Work

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.

12 Aug | Women.Words.Work

Elizabeth Elkins Sanders (12 Aug 1762 – 19 Feb 1851 | Salem MA – Salem MA) essayist, book reviewer, Unitarian, pamphleteer, Native American rights advocate [image note: anonymous 18th c. Massachusetts woman].


Elizabeth Oakes Smith (12 Aug 1806 – 16 Nov 1893 | North Yarmouth ME – Blue Point NY) poet, editor, lecturer, fiction writer, suffragist, women’s rights activist.


Lillie Devereux Blake (12 Aug 1833 – 30 Dec 1913 | Raleigh NC – Englewood NJ) author, suffragist, social reformer, aka Tiger Lily.


Katharine Lee Bates (12 Aug 1859 – 28 Mar 1929 | Falmouth MA – Wellesley MA) poet, author, educator, songwriter, composed ‘America the Beautiful’.


Edith Matilda Thomas (12 Aug 1854 – 13 Sep 1925 | Chatham Center OH – New York NY) poet, editor, author, teacher, typesetter.

25 Jul | Women.Words.Work

Maria Weston Chapman (25 Jul 1806 – 12 Jul 1885 | Weymouth MA – Weymouth MA) editor, hymnist, abolitionist, letter correspondent.


Flora Adams Darling (25 Jul 1840 – 06 Jan 1910 | Lancaster NH – New York NY) author, memoirist, founding president US Daughters of 1812, born Sophronia A. Adams.


Ella R. Starbuck Montague (25 Jul 1859 – 07 Jan 1910 | Winston NC – Winston NC) boarding house owner, Moravian church / settlement family member.


Estelle May Hurll (25 Jul 1863 – 08 May 1924 | New Bedford MA – Wellesley MA) author, art historian, expert in aesthetics, assistant professor at Wellesley College, then full professor / head of Philosophy Department at Mount Holyoke College.


Kathryn Leone Wood (25 Jul 1869 – 12 Mar 1936 | Kalamazoo MI – Los Altos CA) writer, artist, miniaturist, portrait painter. [Note: portrait is one painted by KLW, not necessarily one of herself.]

21 Jul | Women.Words.Work

Mary Anna Morrison Jackson (21 Jul 1831 – 24 Mar 1915 | Lincoln NC – Charlotte NC) author, memoirist, military / political wife, aka Widow of the Confederacy.


Henrietta Maria Morse Chamberlain King (21 Jul 1832 – 31 Mar 1925 | Boonville MO – Kingsville TX) Texas rancher, philanthropist, public school builder.


Mary Foote Henderson (21 Jul 1842 – 16 Jul 1931 | Seneca Falls NY – Bar Harbor ME) author, suffragist, art collector, social activist, community developer, temperance leader.


Myra Horner Camden Atkinson (21 Jul 1844 – 13 Apr 1925 | Lumberport WV – Clarksburg WV) First Lady of Virginia, genealogist / family historian.


Blanche Willis Howard von Teuffel (21 Jul 1847 – 07 Oct 1898 | Bangor ME – Munich DEU) pianist, novelist.

05 Jul | Women.Words.Work

Hannah Clark Johnston Bailey (05 Jul 1839 – 23 Oct 1923 | Cornwall-on-Hudson NY – Portland ME) writer, lecturer, publisher, peace activist, pamphleteer, National Council of Women treasurer, Maine Women’s Suffrage Association president.


Frances Christine Tiernan (05 Jul 1846 – 24 Mar 1920 | Salisbury NC – Salisbury NC) author, novelist, aka Christian Reid.


Mary Augusta Jordan (05 Jul 1855 – 14 Apr 1941 | Ironton OH – New Haven CT) editor, author, lecturer, librarian, professor.


Wanda Landowska (05 Jul 1879 – 16 Aug 1959 | Warsaw PO – Lakeville CT) author, harpsichordist, musicologist, piano pedagogue, performing artist, first person to record Bach’s Goldberg Variations [1933].


Marjorie Stinson (05 Jul 1895 – 15 Apr 1975 | Fort Payne AL – Washington DC) aviation pioneer, aeronautical draftswoman, ninth female licensed US pilot, aviation training school co-owner / instructor, aka The Flying Schoolgirl.