20 Sep | Herstorical.Reflections

Lidian Jackson Emerson (20 Sep 1802 – 13 Nov 1892 | Plymouth MA – Concord MA) intellectual, literary figure / hostess, abolitionist, animal welfare activist, women’s / Native American rights advocate.


Elizabeth [Libby] Smith Miller (20 Sep 1822 – 22 May 1911 | Peterboro NY – Geneva NY) author, suffragist, biographer, women’s dress code reformer, women’s movement financial supporter.


Kate Harrington (20 Sep 1831 – 29 Sep 1917 | Allegheny City PA – Fort Madison IA) poet, teacher, children’s author, primer and speller writer, born Rebecca Harrington Smith, aka Rebecca Smith Pollard, pioneered / produced first sequential reading program of intensive synthetic phonics for children used in American public schools [till 1937].


Alice Rollit Coe (20 Sep 1858 – 08 Dec 1940 | Rawdon QC – Seattle WA) poet, author, immigrant, pen name: May B. Knott.


Edith Guerrier (20 Sep 1870 – 1958 | New Bedford MA – Boston MA) author, librarian, progressive library program activist, founded Paul Revere Pottery and Saturday Night Girls groups in Boston’s North End.

17 Sep | Herstorical.Reflections

Mercy Ruggles Bisbee Jackson (17 Sep 1802 – 13 Dec 1877 | Hardwick MA – Boston MA) writer, lecturer, suffragist, physician, homeopath, school teacher, temperance activist, mother of eleven children, advocate for women’s medical education, professor of children’s diseases at newly-opened Boston University School of Medicine, applied / denied access to medical training for 10 years because she was a woman.


Cora Frances Stoddard (17 Sep 1872 – 13 May 1936 | Irvington NE – Dorchester MA) author, temperance activist, The Scientific Temperance Federation secretary / active member.


Emily Vanderbilt Sloane Hammond (17 Sep 1874 – 22 Feb 1970 | Manhattan NY – Manhattan NY) author, heiress, musician, socialite, philanthropist, charities activist, founder of Parents’ League of New York.


Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (17 Sep 1880 – 01 Jan 1980 | Philadelphia PA – Waterbury CT) figurative sculptor.


Katharine Sergeant Angell White (17 Sep 1892 – 20 Jul 1977 | Winchester MA – Blue Hill ME) author, gardener, New Yorker fiction editor.

12 Sep | Herstorical.Reflections

Amy Morris Bradley (12 Sep 1823 – 15 Apr 1904 | East Vassalboro ME – Wilmington NC) teacher, translator, Unitarian, aka Our School Mother, Civil War Union nurse / administrator, founded free schools in Wilmington NC, established first English-language school in Central America.


Celestia Susannah Parrish (12 Sep 1853 – 07 Sep 1917 | Pittsylvania VA – Clayton GA) author, educator, child psychologist, university professor, aka Georgia’s Greatest Woman.


Florence Kelley (12 Sep 1859 – 17 Feb 1932 | Philadelphia PA – Philadelphia PA) author, factory inspector, co-founder NAACP, autobiographical author, consumer’s advocate, social / political reformer, children’s labor rights activist, pioneered use of term ‘wage abolitionism’.


Ethel Atwood (12 Sep 1866 – 09 Apr 1948 | Fairfield ME – Los Angeles CA) violinist, sole professional US female prompter, leader / co-founder of Fadette Ladies’ Orchestra aka The Fadettes of Boston.


Grace Harriet Macurdy (12 Sep 1866 – 23 Oct 1946 | Robbinston ME – Poughkeepsie NY) author, historian, professor, first US female to earn PhD from Columbia University, focus on royal women during Hellenistic period.

11 Sep | Herstorical.Reflections

Sarah [Sally] Franklin Bache (11 Sep 1743 – 05 Oct 1808 | Philadelphia Province – Philadelphia PA) women’s pro-independence activist, political hostess for father Benjamin Franklin, American Revolutionary War relief work leader.


Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie (11 Sep 1806 – 15 Sep 1870 | Middletown CT – Amagansett NY) author, memoirist, Middle Western pioneer and historian.


Elizabeth Kekaʻaniau Pratt (11 Sep 1834 – 20 Dec 1928 | Waialua HI – Honolulu HI) author, biographer, High Chiefess, full name Elizabeth Kekaʻaniauokalani Kalaninuiohilaukapu Kekaikuihala Laʻanui Pratt.


Mary Anna Palmer Draper (11 Sep 1839 – 08 Dec 1914 | Stonington CT – New York NY) art collector, philanthropist, astronomical photographer, co-founded Mount Wilson Observatory.


Mary Watson Whitney (11 Sep 1847 – 20 Jan 1921 | Waltham MA – Waltham MA) author, essayist, astronomer, head of Vassar Observatory.

09 Sep | Herstorical.Reflections

Sarah Mapps Douglass (09 Sep 1806 – 08 Sep 1882 | Philadelphia PA – Philadelphia PA) African-American artist, author, educator, abolitionist, public lecturer, friendship letter correspondent / illustrator.


Mary Greenhow Lee (09 Sep 1819 – 25 May 1907 | Richmond VA – Baltimore MD) author, Civil War diarist, Confederate activist, known for despising / snubbing Union soldiers and Northerners.


Lucy Jane Rider Meyer (09 Sep 1849 – 16 Mar 1922 | New Haven VT – Chicago IL) writer, editor, hymnist, educator, social worker, philanthropist, Deaconess leader, chemistry professor.


Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin (09 Sep 1850 – 21 Jun 1930 | Brooklyn NY – Nantucket MA) artist, educator, New Woman, philanthropist, first American female MFA, first female student Hague Academy of Fine Arts, founded co-ed trade / crafts school on Nantucket.


Mary Austin (09 Sep 1868 – 13 Aug 1934 | Carlinville IL – Santa Fe NM) feminist, naturalist, mystic, author, “woman of genius,” leading literary figure of her time.

06 Sep | Herstorical.Reflections

Frances [Fanny] Wright (06 Sept 1795 – 13 Dec 1852 | Dundee SCT – Cincinnati OH) Scottish-American author, lecturer, feminist, freethinker, abolitionist, social reformer, utopian commune founder. ____________________________________________________________________

Catharine Esther Beecher (06 Sep 1800 – 12 May 1878 | East Hampton NY – Elmira NY) author, educator, school founder, anti-suffragist, domestic science teacher, educational activist, co-author with sister Harriet Beecher Stowe.


Phebe Cornell Wood (06 Sep 1816 – 30 Jun 1891 | Windmill Farm NY – Albion MI) folk figure, first female US telegraph operator.


Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska (06 Sep 1829 – 12 May 1902 | Berlin DEU – Jamaica Plain MA) feminist, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, pioneering female physician, founded New England Hospital for Women and Children: first hospital in Boston, first hospital with school for nurses, second US hospital run by women physicians / surgeons.


Eleanor Cecilia Donnelly (06 Sep 1838 – 30 Apr 1917 | Philadelphia PA – West Chester PA) poet, Catholic, biographer, short story writer, aka The Poet of the Pure Soul.

27 Aug | Herstorical.Reflections

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.

25 Aug | Herstorical.Reflections

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.

19 Aug | Herstorical.Reflections

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.

17 Aug | Herstorical.Reflections


Charlotte Louise Bridges Forten Grimké (17 Aug 1837 – 23 Jul 1914 | Philadelphia PA – Washington DC) African-American poet, educator, journal writer, anti-slavery activist, volunteer Civil War Union nurse, first black teacher hired in two different US schools.


Laura de Force Gordon (17 Aug 1838 – 05 Apr 1907 | North East PA – Lodi CA) editor, lawyer, Spiritualist, women’s rights activist, second female attorney in California, first woman to run daily US newspaper [Stockton Daily Leader].


Caroline Bartlett Crane (17 Aug 1858 – 24 Mar 1935 | Hudson WI – Kalamazoo MI) educator, suffragist, journalist, civic reformer, Unitarian minister, aka America’s Housekeeper.


Geneva [Gene] Stratton-Porter (17 Aug 1863 – 06 Dec 1924 | Lagro IN – Los Angeles CA) author, naturalist, wildlife photographer, early female movie studio / production company founder.