Sheila Scott: Record-Setting Pilot

Sheila Scott (27 April 1922 – 20 October 1988) was an amazing pilot who broke over 100 aviation records during her career, and was the first person to fly over the North Pole in a small aircraft as part of her "world and a half" flight in 1971 where she flew 34,000-miles (55,000 kms). A harrowing flight that was completed despite mechanical failures that would have made other pilots turn back.

But her adventurous life began even before she climbed into the cockpit. During World War II she served as a nurse in a naval hospital, while also working as an actor.

But when she took up flying, she dedicated herself to it completely. She learned to fly in 1958, and by the 1960s she was setting world records. She was the founder and first governor of the British branch of the Ninety-Nines, the association of women pilots created by Amelia Earhart and 98 other women in 1929.

In 1966, she completed her first solo flight around the world, starting on 18 May in London, and returning on 20 June, after covering approximately 31,000 miles. Then, three years later, she did it again.

In 1967, she was awarded a Harmon International Aviation Trophy for setting a new light plane speed record.

She was inducted into the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame in 2014. 

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Edith Quimby - pioneering medical physicist

In the early decades of the 20th century scientists around the world were busy looking for ways to use radioactive materials. Following its groundbreaking discovery by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, and then the isolation of radium as a pure metal by Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne in 1910, radium seemed to hold the most promise. The two most common applications were in luminescent paint applied to clock hands so they glowed in the dark, and in medicine where it was used to treat cancer.

We know from learning the story of the Radium Girls, using radium as a component of paint would have deadly repercussions. By the mid-1920s, countless young woman had died after working painting on the dials of watches and clocks. They'd been instructed to lick their paintbrushes to create a finer point, and thus they ingested radium in unknown quantities before becoming sick.

The field of nuclear medicine was somewhat more promising. There are some horrific stories of radium being used in large quantities to treat cancers where doctors sewed capsules of radium directly to the tumor, as in the case of Henrietta Lacks and the treatment she received for cervical cancer. But it seemed that smaller doses had some positive effects. The question was how much was the right amount?

That answer came from medical physicist Edith Quimby. In 1919, after having earned a bachelor's in mathematics and physics, and completed a master's in physics, Edith set out to find a research position. She accepted a position as assistant physicist at the Memorial Hospital in New York City, working with Gioacchino Failla who had established the first laboratory devoted to researching the medical uses of radiation.

It was her task to determine the precise dosage needed for each patient that would have the fewest side effects. At the time, radiotherapy (where radium-containing needles are directly applied to tumors) was in its infancy. There was no consistency in regards to placement or dosage, and no way to determine if the tumor was receiving the correct exposure needed for proper treatment. It was her research that led to a set of guidelines for the most effective arrangement of needles in 1932. Known as the "Quimby rules" they were the standard used until computer-aided placement techniques became available in the 1980s.

She moved to Columbia University in 1942 where she taught radiology and medical physics while conducting research using the new kinds of radioactive materials being created by accelerators and nuclear reactors. She was named as a full professor there in 1954. It was here where she taught future Nobel Laureate Rosalyn Yalow.

Her research also included quantifying the amounts of different kinds of radiation needed to have the same effect, which laid the foundation for future studies to understand how cumulative exposures of each would affect a body. This calculation could not only help inform the doctors about a patient's long-term side effects, but would also help radiation technicians protect their own health by reducing risks of repeated exposure. She created a "film badge" system where X-ray film strips were covered with black paper and distributed to laboratory personnel to measure incidental exposure.

Also in 1954, she became the first woman and first physicist to be named president of the American Radium Society. In her acceptance speech, she outlined the need for an organization of medical physicists in the US. And thus, because of her call to action, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine was founded in 1958.

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For more information:

Her New York Times obituary: "Edith Quimby Dies; Radiation Expert"

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons: "Edith Quimby: First Woman Medical Physicist"

Photo source: Whitman College Archives

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Louise Pearce - medical trailblazer

A medical pathologist, Louise Pearce (March 5, 1885 – August 10, 1959) was the first female scientists hired at the Rockefeller Institute, where she studied treatments for African sleeping sickness. She traveled to the Belgian Congo in 1920 to carry out trials of the drug she helped develop, which had an impressive 80% cure rate. Her research involved studying disease in rabbit colonies over several generations, where she was able to isolate diseases to study their transmission and immunology.

Education was important in her family. When she was still quite small, her family moved from Winchester, Massachusetts, to southern California. When it was time for her to attend school, she studied at the Girls Collegiate School in Los Angeles, where she took classes in a wide range of academic studies. In 1907, she graduated from Stanford University with a degree in physiology and histology, the study of microscopic anatomy of plant cells and tissues. She continued her studies at Boston University and earned her MD from Johns Hopkins, where she graduated third in her class.

Her attention to detail and dedication to her research made her an ideal pathologist, and in 1913 she was hired as a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. She was the first woman hired there, and she remained there for her entire career. It was here where she began her important research on treatment for sleeping sickness, an epidemic that was devastating entire regions across Africa.

After performing numerous animal trials her team found that the drug tryparsamide was quite successful in treating the disease in rabbits, the closest animal model to the human course of the disease. They published their results in 1919. In 1920, she traveled to the Belgian Congo, at considerable risk to herself, in order to carry out human trials to determine the drug's safety, effectiveness, and appropriate dosage. At the time, the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a colony of Belgium, and was controlled through state violence against the native populations who were often conscripted into working to help deplete the natural resources. At the time of her arrival, post-World War I, efforts were underway to improve the country's economic infrastructure to support private companies. The horrific brutality of the Belgium regime of Leopold II is well documented now, but it is unclear if Louise Pearce was aware of it before she agreed to travel, or what her motivations were aside from a humanitarian need.

Working closely with a local hospital and laboratory, her research met with immediate success. For a disease that was nearly always fatal, she was able to cure more than 80% of infected patients, even those with late-stage illness. For her life-saving research, she was awarded the Order of the Crown of Belgium, and elected as a member of the Belgian Society of Tropical Medicine.

After returning to the states, she then turned her attention to the treatment of syphilis, using the same drug. Because the two diseased operated in similar ways in humans, she suspected it would be an effective treatment for syphilis of the brain and spinal cord, as well as the chronic form of the disease. It was, and tryparsamide became the standard treatment until the discovery of penicillin in 1950.

Much of her research was performed on rabbits, and it was during this time that she discovered a malignant epithelial tumor that was then transferred to several other rabbits, each showing a variation in malignancy. She began to study these differences in an effort to understand its transmission, growth and remission. This tumor, referred to as the Brown-Pearce tumor, became the standard test material in cancer research. And she spent much of the rest of her career studying the relationship between the basic health of an organism and its probability of developing disease. Her research focused on rabbit subjects, and during her many trials she was able to isolate the rabbit pox virus and study its transmission and immune reactions.

But she did not spend all of her time working in the lab. She was a member of Heterodoxy, a feminist debating group in Greenwich Village. She taught at several prestigious institutions, including Peiping Union Medical College in China, and sat on the board more than 15 medical associations, including the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she also served as president from 1946 to 1952.

She spend the latter part of her life living on a farm in New Jersey with two other women, author I. A. R. Wylie, and public health physician Sara Josephine Baker, who is most well known for having tracked down Mary Mallon (aka "Typhoid Mary), the first person identified as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever. There is some speculation that they were probably romantically involved, perhaps in a polyamorous relationship, but there is no definitive documentation. Wylie and Pearce are buried next to each other at the farm's little cemetery, though, which supports the idea that they were more than simply platonic friends.

Louise Pearce lived her life on her own terms. She was fortunate to have been able to pursue her education at a time when college education for young women was still quite rare. She was both a groundbreaking medical researcher and trailblazer for other women in medical science, dedicated to improving the lives of her patients and opening new doors to women in all fields.

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For more information:

The Rockefeller University: "Louise Pearce – An Extraordinary Woman of Medicine"

AAUW: "AAUW Member Saves Lives: Dr. Louise Pearce"

Al Jazeera: "Unsung Hero: Louise Pearce"

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Katharine "Kay" Way - nuclear scientist

Katharine "Kay" Way (February 20, 1902 – December 9, 1995) was one of the leading female physicists on the Manhattan Project, she did much of her work at the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) in Chicago analyzing neutron flux data as they attempted to create a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. She is best known for the development of the Way-Wigner formula which calculates the beta decay rates of fission products. As a physicist, she spent much of her career working on the Nuclear Data Project, created to standardize the organization and sharing of nuclear data, and which grew out of her work in Chicago where she was collecting and analyzing enormous amounts of data. It was a suggestion she made that sparked the creation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee in 1943.

Her childhood was interrupted by the death of her mother when she was 12. When her father remarried, her new step-mother was an otolaryngologist (an ear, nose and throat doctor), and you can imagine how this career woman influenced Kay's ideas of the possibilities for her own future. In 1920 she began studying at Vassar College, but she had to leave after two years because of illness (likely tuberculosis). After a lengthy recovery, she enrolled in Barnard College, but had to go slowly. She eventually began taking classes at Columbia University where she met Edward Kasner, a renown mathematician. Her fascination with mathematics led her to the study of physics, and she eventually graduated with her bachelor's in 1932.

She earned her Ph.D. in physics at the University of North Carolina, where she focused her attention on nuclear physics -- the field she would dedicate her life to. Thinking she'd find a career as a professor teaching classes and working in the lab, she accepted a position at the University of Tennessee in 1939. But once it became clear the US was headed to war, she looked for ways to become involved. When she heard about the work being done with the Manhattan Project out of Chicago (the same project Leona Woods was involved in), she called her old UNC professor and convinced him to hire her. She performed critical analysis of the deluge of data coming in from early nuclear reactor designs, to help determine whether it would be possible to create a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Her calculations were used to build Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor ever built. It set the foundation for the work of other scientists at Los Alamos building the first atomic bomb.

When many of the nuclear scientists involved in the Met Lab project realized the implications of their work being used to build atomic weapons, they took an important, but ultimately unsuccessful stand by signing the Szilard Petition of July 17, 1945, which was sent to President Truman and the Secretary of War, calling for them to reconsider the use of the atomic bomb against the people of Japan. As a response to the bombings, in 1946 many of these same scientists wrote important essays highlighting their concerns about nuclear weapons, which were gathered in a book she co-edited, One World or None: A Report to the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb.

Her activism wasn't limited to anti-nuclear writings. She was a strong advocate for bringing the work of these important scientists to universities in the Southeast, likely influenced by her time teaching at the University of Tennessee before the war. In 1943, as a direct response to a comment she made about ensuring students and faculty at these institutions had access to the researching being done at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Because of her suggestion, the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (ORINS), now known as Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), opened up research opportunities and has been a major influence on the development of science and technology in the Southeast.

After the war, she took a position at the National Bureau of Standards (where Chien-Shiung Wu and Charlotte Moore Sitterly, two other important women in physics were also working in their respective fields). By 1953, there was a massive amount of data about nuclear physics being recorded, but it was nearly impossible for scientists to tap into what they needed. During her years of analyzing large amounts of raw information while working in Chicago, she had come up with methods for collating and sorting incoming data in order to find what she needed. From this, she created the Nuclear Data Project (NDP) in 1953 as a way to organize and share this information in sheets and tables making it easy to cross reference, setting the standard for how data is gathered, evaluated and presented in the field of nuclear physics.

For more reading:

"Historically Speaking: Katherine Way and her influence on Oak Ridge"

Atomic Heritage Foundation biography: "Katharine Way"

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Mary Leakey - ground-breaking paleoathropologist

"Basically, I have been compelled by curiosity." Mary Leakey

Mary Leakey (February 6, 1913 – December 9, 1996) was a prominent paleoanthropologist, whose discoveries of important skulls and other fossils, including stone tools and even footprints, of ancient human predecessors and other primates, brought international attention to the scientific search for humanity's origins.

Her interest in ancient peoples was first sparked on a family vacation to France in 1925. French archaeologist Elie Peyrony was excavating a cave there, and 12-year-old Mary was invited visit the site. She was allowed to take home some artifacts that had been discovered there -- scrapers, blades, and points -- and she used them to create her first system of classification.

"For me it was the sheer instinctive joy of collecting, or indeed one could say treasure hunting: it seemed that this whole area abounded in objects of beauty and great intrinsic interest that could be taken from the ground."

Her father took her to visit other caves, where they could view some of the prehistoric cave paintings, further inspiring her curiosity in ancient peoples and their artwork. Tragically, her father died while she was still quite young, but she found other mentors who encouraged her to learn more about anthropology and archeology.

Her interests in art and archeology continued to grow, but her predisposition to learning on her own -- even when it meant blowing up a school science lab, twice, -- as well as her general disinterest in studying for exams meant her school performance precluded attending college in the traditional manner. Instead, she attended lectures in archeology, prehistory and geology as a non-student, and even worked at the London Museum, where she was invited to participate in summer excavations throughout Europe.

Louis Leakey who hired her to illustrate his book Adam's Ancestors, and the two hit it off both professionally and romantically. They traveled the world working on research projects as long as their donated funds would allow. Eventually, they attracted the attention of the National Geographic Society, who gave them enough money to focus their attention on research full time.

Louis and Mary published most of their findings as a team, although professionally he received credit for many of her contributions. After his death in 1972, Mary continued to work solo, earning a reputation as a preeminent paleoanthropologist in her own stead.

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Sarah Loguen Fraser - trailblazing doctor

"My home and family have been a beacon to light the way for the poor, oppressed, and hunted of my race. The time has passed for the need of shelter, but God knows, we need to build strong and healthy bodies. To have those of my race come to me for aid—and for me to be able to give it—will be all the Heaven I want."

Sarah Loguen Fraser (January 29, 1850 – April 9, 1933) was the first woman to earn a medical degree from Syracuse University, in 1876, and the fourth African American woman to become a licensed physician in the United States. When she moved to the Dominican Republic with her husband, a pharmacist, she was that country's first female doctor.

As the story goes, her decision to pursue a career in medicine began on a fateful day in 1872 when she witnessed a terrible accident, and her inability to help. She'd been waiting for a train when she heard a scream. A cart loaded with goods had rolled over the leg of a small boy, pinning him underneath. She ran to his side, calling out for a doctor, but one never arrived.

She was in shock, and as she boarded her train she was mumbling about becoming a doctor herself. As it turns out, when she was finally able to notice the world around her again, she saw in the seat across from hers her own family's doctor. He agreed to mentor her, and the very next year she enrolled in Syracuse University's medical program -- one of four women in a class of 17, and the only African American.

When compared to the lives of the average woman of the era, and especially the average African American woman, Sarah Loguen determination to become a doctor would be exceptional. But considering her remarkable background, it may have been a natural, if still somewhat difficult and ambitious, course of action.

Her father, Jermain Wesley Loguen, had been born into slavery on a plantation in Tennessee, the son of a female slave -- who herself had been born free and kidnapped and sold into slavery as a child -- and the white master. At the age of 21, he rode his master's mare off the plantation and followed the Underground Railroad to freedom. After studying at the Oneida Institute, he eventually settled in Syracuse, New York, where he became a preacher and teacher in the flourishing black community there. He married the daughter of abolitionists, and together they raised a family and worked to address the needs of their community. One of the most important services they offered was to turn their home into a stop along the Underground Railroad, taking in over 1500 escaped slaves. The Loguen family was good friends with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, among others prominent abolitionists. Her father was so well-known and well-respected with in the abolitionist movement for his work helping escaped slaves, he was referred to as the "King of the Underground Railroad."

So it shouldn't be much of a surprise to learn that their children, who grew up in a home that often harbored fugitive slaves, and with a father who was himself a former slave who often met with other escaped slaves now serving as leaders in the anti-slavery movement, went on to do great things to improve the lives of African Americans. For Sarah, medicine may have simply been an extension of the times she worked alongside her mother and local Native American women as they tended to the injuries and illnesses of those they harbored.

Perhaps this kind of greatness was to be expected from Sarah and her siblings. When she graduated in 1876, she was the first African American woman to earn a medical degree from Syracuse, and only the fourth to become a doctor in the entire country. In fact, until this point, all other women doctors had graduated from women's only institutions. Sarah was the first to attend a co-ed program. She interned at the Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she studied pediatrics, and later at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston -- two of the leading teaching hospitals for women in medicine during this era.

Once she was ready to hang out her own shingle, she moved to Washington, DC, to care for the growing African American community there. Although technically she didn't actually hang her own shingle -- Frederick Douglass did the honors. It was through the Douglass family that she was introduced to the man who would eventually become her husband, Dr. Charles Fraser, a chemist who ran a pharmacy in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. When she moved there, she became the country's first female doctor, where she offered free treatment to poor women and children, earning the nickname "Miss Doc."

When she returned to the United States after her husband's death in 1894, she was shocked to find that things had changed so dramatically after the end of Reconstruction. Laws and policies put into place during Reconstruction had opened doors for African Americans, creating opportunities in society and politics. Its abrupt end meant a return to discrimination and segregation. Sarah, unable to open a private practice, and no longer able to enroll her daughter Gregoria in the school of her choice, decided to move to Paris for a few years. When Gregoria was old enough to attend college, the two moved back to Syracuse, where Gregoria enrolled in Syracuse University, and Sarah practiced pediatric medicine and trained midwives out of her home.

She continued to practice medicine throughout the rest of her life, although with more and more obstacles placed in front of her as time went on. Regardless, she continued to use her skills to serve women and children in the African American community.

For more reading:

Upstate Medical University in Syracuse's brochure: "Dr. Sarah Loguen's Dominican Republic"

Journal of the National Medical Association biography, published in 2000: "Sarah Loguen Fraser, MD (1850 to 1933): the fourth African-American woman physician"

Hobart and William Smith Colleges student project from 2012: "Celebrating the Life of Sarah Loguen Fraser"

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Policarpa Salavarrieta - revolutionary heroine

Policarpa Salavarrieta (c. January 26, 1795 – November 14, 1817) was a spy for the anti-Spanish revolutionary movement in the early 1800s. Working as a seamstress in the homes of Loyalists, she was able to gather information for the insurgency. After evidence of her espionage was discovered on captured rebels she was executed for treason. Each year Colombia celebrates November 14  as the "Day of the Colombian Woman" in honor of this "heroína de la Independencia."

In 1817, the royalist elite in Nueva Granada (now Colombia) were desperately trying to hold on to their power and deploying troops to quash the insurgencies popping up around the country. Of course, they did this while holding tightly to their colonial lifestyle, with all the trappings of wealth -- beautiful homes, good food, and fine clothing. To maintain this level of decadence required staff. And, in the end, it would be the staff who would be their undoing.

An unassuming seamstress could easily overhear important discussions, watch the coming and going of visitors, and sneak undetected about the house in order to steal maps and other important documents, all under the guise of mending the family's clothing and linens. And that's exactly what Policarpa Salavarrieta did.

Her true name is unknown, but by the time she was spying for the revolution she went by Policarpa, or "La Pola," to hide her identity from the Spanish forces. As a child La Pola had been trained as a seamstress, and she used that to gain access to the homes of important members of the Spanish elite.

While the housewives who hired her may have thought of her as quiet and compliant, she was anything but. Like other household spies throughout history, she maintained a facade of discretion, when in reality she was making lists of names of major royalists, and documenting their plans. After work, she would deliver these lists to leaders in the rebellion.

When she wasn't mending laundry and spying on her employers, she was actively working for the revolution by passing messages between rebel groups, helping them buy weapons, and recruiting more support for their cause, often encouraging soldiers in the Royal Army to desert their posts and join the revolution.

La Pola knew the risks of what she was doing. Her devotion to the resistance was stronger than her fear of death. When her name was discovered on documents taken from captured rebels, she was charged with treason, and sentenced to stand before a firing squad. Even as she was being led to her execution, she refused to be silent, yelling her hatred for royalist rule and calling for the crowd of onlookers to avenge her.

In the end, the rebellion succeeded and Spanish rule ended. And Policarpa, a fighter who captured the heart of the people, became a celebrated heroine of the independence of Colombia. News of her death spread across the country, inspiring more to join the revolution. In 1967, the Congress of Colombia designated November 14, the date of her execution, as the Day of the Colombian Woman in honor of her bravery in the fight for independence.

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Florence Mills - Queen of Happiness

Often referred to as the "Queen of Happiness," Florence Mills (January 25, 1896 – November 1, 1927) was an African-American singer, dancer, and comedian of the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance, who captivated the world with her talent, beauty and dedication to racial equality.

Born into a tragically poor family in Washington, DC, her talent for singing and dancing quickly won her recognition and offered her family an opportunity to escape grinding poverty. She started appearing in amateur hour events at the age of three, and by the time she was seven she'd grown accustomed to appearing before wealthy crowds as party entertainment, and had even traveled with a road show production with several other prominent black performers. By this point, she was a integral source of income for her family, so when she was offered the chance to travel as part of a traveling white vaudeville show, she took it, even though it meant she was expected to perform degrading racist stereotypical "shucking and jiving."

This entry into vaudeville enabled her to bring more of the family into show business. The Mills Sisters -- Florence, Maude and Olivia -- traveled the East Coast playing to black audiences. The pay wasn't great, and traveling as an African American was perpetually degrading as hotels and restaurants wouldn't serve African Americans, and they were often required to ride second class on trains between cities.

So when she found an opportunity to perform in a cabaret in the South Side of Chicago, she took it. The timing was perfect, as the African American community in Chicago was booming with recent arrivals from the South. It was a precursor to the coming Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Jazz was heard everywhere, and many jazz clubs were attracting both black and white patrons.

Florence's big break came a few years later, in 1921, when she was hired as the lead in the off-Broadway production of Shuffle Along, and instantaneous hit that Langston Hughes claimed kicked off the Harlem Renaissance. The show brought her national attention, and she was on her way. She performed in various prestigious Broadway cabarets and traveled to England to perform for welcoming audiences there.

But things at home weren't nearly as welcoming. When she was asked to join the Greenwich Village Follies -- the first time a black woman was offered a part in a major white production -- the all white cast threatened to walk out. Regardless, Florence continued performing and winning over audiences. She was even offered a contract to join the Ziegfeld Follies, but she turned it down, saying she didn't want to be the only black performer. Instead, she dreamed of creating an all black review of her own.

Johnny Hudgins, Florence Mills Rehearsing on Pavillon Theatre Roof, 1926

She continued to perform in wildly successful black musical productions, including From Dixie to Broadway, as well as headlining at prestigious Broadway venues. Finally, in 1926, her dream come true when Blackbirds opened at the Alhambra Theatre in Harlem. After a successful run in Harlem and Paris, Blackbirds opened in London where it lasted for 276 performances before taking off to tour the British provinces. It is said Florences Mills was as beloved in London as Josephine Baker was in Paris. It's even been suggested that while she was there she had an affair with the young and handsome Prince George.

Tragically, all this touring and performing took its toll on her health. She tried to rest, but her drive to show the world the talents of black performers kept pushing her to do more. Finally, in 1927, just a year after her London success, she left Blackbirds and sailed home to New York to get medical help. Sadly, because her mother was ill when she arrived, she put off her own treatment a little longer. In late October, when she finally entered the hospital she learned her condition was too far gone. Knowing she was going to die she still used her voice to cheer those around her, often singing to keep the nurses from crying. Her goal in life had always been to bring joy to those around her. True to form, her final words were "I don't want anyone to cry when I die. I just want to make people happy, always."

She saw herself as a spokesperson for the African American community. She used her fame to try to improve relations between whites and blacks both in the the US and abroad. She refused to degrade herself for the amusement of white audiences, and instead won them over with her incredible talent. Her signature song "I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird" was more than simply a sentimental song of a woman looking for love. It was also about the African American community's struggle for equality -- something Florence Mills spent her short, but incredibly vibrant, life working toward.

For more reading:

Notable Black American Women, "Florence Mills" by Richard Newman

Author Bill Egan has written extensively about the Jazz Era and in particular about Florence Mills

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You may also be interested in:

Harlem's Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills
Harlem's Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills earns the Self-Rescuing Princess Society seal of approval for telling the story of a brave woman who was determined to improve the lives of others. Her courage and certainty that she was on the right side of the issue is an inspiration to us all. It touches on issues around racism and shows how Florence fought against them at every turn in a way that even younger children can understand.

Josephine Baker - World War II Spy
Josephine Baker was so much more than simply a dancer. Later in her life she would become a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement, refusing to perform in front of segregated audiences in the US, and writing articles about discrimination. But before this period of public acts of resistance, though, she had an even more exciting but covert period -- she was a spy.

Happy birthday, Augusta Savage
While she was at Cooper Union, she applied for a program to study sculpture abroad in France, but was denied solely because of her race. Instead of taking it lightly, she raised a fuss, wrote letters to the media, bringing attention to the racists practices of the program. The program still refused to accept her, but her life was changed, and she became quite active in the civil rights fight.

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Oveta Culp Hobby - military trailblazer

During World War II, like the other branches of the military, the US Army started a program to recruit women into non-combat positions to free up more (white) men for the front lines. Houston newspaper editor and philanthropist Oveta Culp Hobby (January 19, 1905 – August 16, 1995) was tapped to be the first director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women's Army Corps, or WACs), a position she used to promote the right of all women to serve their country during its time of need.

Prior to the war, she'd studied law, served as a clerk for the Texas Legislature's judiciary committee, and helped plan the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston. She eventually married the former governor of Texas and owner of the Houston Post-Dispatch, where she took a position on the editorial board and used her position to make changes in how the newspaper covered stories important to women and minorities. She also wrote a couple of books about her time working in state government, and was quite active in state and federal activities.

In 1941, while she was visiting Washington, D.C., she was asked to head a section on women's activities for the army. While the US had not officially entered the war yet, the army was actively drafting men into its ranks, and many women were also eager to find a way to serve. She studied the women's branches of the French and British armies and used their successes and failures as a guide for creating something similar for the US Army.

The women who served in the WAC were the first women other than nurses to wear U.S. Army uniforms and, thanks to her tireless work to integrate them within the military, they were the first women to receive military benefits through the GI Bill. She used her extensive knowledge of publicity and organization to promote and protect the importance of the women serving to the overall military goals.

Unlike the WAVES (the Navy's women's branch), the WAAC/WAC was integrated from the outset, although only at 10% representation of African American women (supposedly to match the level of representation in the overall population). Not only did Oveta Culp Hobby insist that black women be included in the corps, but she worked to make sure they were also invited to be part of the first class of officers.

She served as director for the duration of the war, ultimately achieving the rank of colonel, and was the first woman in the Army awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for efforts.

After the war, she returned to Houston and to her work with the newspaper and her philanthropic and political pursuits, continuing her support of civil rights issues as well as improving the lives of women across Texas.

You can listen to an interview with her from January 16, 1944 (starts at 10:00). It's interesting to note how important it is for her to address the fitness, the safety, and the domesticity of the WACs. Clearly she knew these were concerns many Americans had when thinking about women serving in the military, and they generally echo the same types of issues brought up in other areas such as women work in shipyards and munitions plants, and how women were treated during and after the war.

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Abby Kelley Foster - radical woman

Abby Kelley Foster (January 15, 1811 – January 14, 1887) was an "ultra" abolitionist and feminist who withstood all manner of abuse in order to continue speaking out against injustice, and out-agitated many of the men and women we herald as leaders of the era.

"All the great family of mankind are bound up in one bundle. When we aim a blow at our neighbor’s rights our own are by the same blow destroyed. Can we look upon the wrongs of millions—can we see their flow of tears and grief and blood, and not feel our hearts drawn out in sympathy?"

Abby Kelley was born to Quaker farmers, but even from an early age she was aware of the inequality in how she was treated when compared to the boys she grew up with. As a young adult, she expanded her radial beliefs when she heard prominent anti-slavery advocate William Lloyd Garrison speak. She quit her position as a teach and immediately joined the Female Anti-Slavery Society, where she quickly earned herself the respect of many of her companions. She was elected to serve on a committee whose duty was to circulate petitions to gather support before they were to be sent to the federal government. In short order, she'd gained the support, and signatures, of half the women in town.

But she wasn't content to simply gather signatures. She was called to speak, even though there were strong social prohibitions against women speaking in public. Undaunted, she braved a torrent of abuse in order to make herself heard. She was routinely castigated in the press for her behavior, was at least once forcibly removed from a meeting of Orthodox Quakers because she refused to stop speaking, was regularly pelted with eggs and rotten produce (and worse), and was often forced to give her speeches in the outdoors because she was barred from speaking at organized events.

No matter. Instead of shutting her up, all that she endured simply worked to make her even more revolutionary in her beliefs. She began advocating for true equality between the races and between the genders. She influenced feminist foremothers like Susan B. Anthony, and then called them out when they refused to support the 15th amendment. Her work in Seneca Falls during the early abolitionist meetings set the foundation for the women's rights conventions that came afterward.

Her radicalism was applied to all aspects of her life. She was a strong proponent of "come-outerism" -- the idea that abolitionists could not stay in churches that did not condemn slavery. She encouraged anti-slavery activists to call out their churches and confront any clergy who did not forcefully stand on the side of abolition, and in every town where she spoke, she made it a point to publicly question their church leaders.

She married another radical abolitionist, Stephen Foster, and when they weren't busy traveling the country together speaking on the abolitionist and feminist speaking circuit, they worked on the farm they purchased, which they named "Liberty Farm." It was here where they raised their daughter Paulina, although Abby only took a few years off from organizing and speaking engagements. Contrary to the domestic ideal being pushed on middle class white women of the era, she was adamant that women could be mothers and wives and still have an active life outside the home.

Frederick Douglass wrote of Abby, "Her youth and simple Quaker beauty, combined with her wonderful earnestness, her large knowledge and great logical power bore down all opposition wherever she spoke, though she was pelted with foul eggs and no less foul words from the noisy mobs which attended us."

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For further reading:

National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum: Abby Kelly Foster bio

Civil War Women: Abby Kelley post

New England Historical Society: "Abby Kelley Shakes Up Seneca Falls"

Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery by Dorothy Sterling (Amazon)

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Marianne Grunberg-Manago - biochemist

Marianne Grunberg-Manago (January 6, 1921 – January 3, 2013)

Marianne Grunberg-Manago was a biochemist, born in the USSR, but moved to France as a child. Her discovery of the first nucleic-acid-synthesizing enzyme in 1955 was the first important step in cracking the genetic code.

Grunberg-Manago was the first woman to direct the International Union of Biochemistry, and she was also the first woman to preside the French Academy of Sciences from 1995 to 1996.

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Florence Chadwick - record-setting open water swimmer

Florence Chadwick (November 9, 1918 – March 15, 1995) was an American long-distance open water swimmer who became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in both directions, as well as crossing the Catalina Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Bosporus, and the Dardanelles.

She'd always loved swimming, and was extremely competitive. From the age of six on, she was determined to swim in and win as many competitions as possible. Her childhood heroine was Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, and what little Florence wanted most was to follow in her wake by completing her own channel swim. When she was 10 she became the youngest person to swim across the mouth of San Diego Bay, setting a precedence that would eventually guide her swimming career.

She trained with several internationally known swim coaches, and winning cups and titles in both open water and pool events. While in high school, she traveled from San Diego to Los Angeles to swim with the LA Athletic Club swim team, where one of her teammates was Esther William. Florence cut her amateur swimming career short in order to appear in one of Esther William's films, although she didn't enjoy synchronized swimming. She preferred open water competitions.

After graduation, she attended night classes studying law while working in her family's restaurant business during the day, teaching swimming classes, and training as often as possible. Her first marriage ended when her husband became jealous of the time she spent swimming. Her second ended when she discovered her husband with another woman. Unhappy, she knew she needed to make a change. She quit night school, and began looking for a way out of the family business. In 1948, she was sure she'd finally found a way to pursue her lifelong dream to swim the English Channel when she read an article about a woman making a great deal of money working for an oil company in Saudi Arabia.

Florence knew she could train in Saudi Arabia while also making enough money to afford the otherwise prohibitively expensive quest to swim the English Channel -- she'd need a crew and boats as well as travel expenses, all of which was impossible on her restaurant salary. After taking a few business exams she was hired, and without telling anyone of her plans, she began to prepare for her new adventure.

In Saudi Arabia, she trained relentlessly while saving money. At the end of her contract, she'd managed to save $5000, which would be just enough to pay for the time spent training and for the crew to help her during her attempt. She arranged to return to the US by way of France. She trained for two months in the cold water off the north of France. She learned about an English Channel swim competition sponsored by the London Daily Mail, but when she tried to enter they gently rebuffed her, telling her the contest was for serious athletes only. Undaunted, she scheduled her attempt two days before their race.

Shortly before 3 am on August 8, 1950, she walked out into the water off the coast of France and began her trip across the channel. Unknown to her at the time, another woman would also attempt to swim across that day. Shirley May France had even brought her own film crew and had arranged for several boats to carrying reporters to record her attempt. While Shirley had to quit because of cramps and nausea, the reporters still had a fantastic story to run when they saw Florence swimming into shore on the English side of the channel, beating Gertrude Ederle's world record from decades earlier.

Overnight she became and international swimming celebrity, launching her professional swimming career. Sponsors were more than happy to finance her training and channel swims. She completed the more difficult crossing of the English Channel by swimming from England to France, becoming the first woman to have swam it in both directions. Over the course of the next few years she completed 16 other long-distance swims, becoming the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel in California, and re-crossing the English Channel twice more, besting her previous records each time.

You can read an excellent biography about her: "Against the Current: Florence Chadwick in and out of the water" published in the San Diego Reader in 1982.

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María de Zayas - pioneering feminist writer

María de Zayas y Sotomayor (1590 – 1661) was a pioneering feminist writer during Spain's Golden Age of literature. She was the first Spanish woman to earn an international reputation as a writer, which lasted nearly 200 years, and used her stories to address feminist issues in Spanish society in the 17th century.

She was born in Madrid in 1590, probably a few days before her baptism which was recorded on September 12. It was the height of the Spanish Inquisition, a period of approximately 350 years of enforced Catholic orthodoxy where those deemed to be heretics were tortured and murdered, and others who fell afoul of the proscribed behavior risked fines or imprisonment. Women were expected to be subservient to their fathers and husbands, and aside from being a nun or a prostitute, their roles were limited to that of wives and mothers. Not surprisingly, this oppressive culture gave their fathers and husbands an inordinate amount of power over them.

As the daughter of an infantry captain, de Zayas was privileged in that she had enough wealth to afford to live somewhat on her own terms, and that provided her access to education and the freedom to write. She used her writing as a means to address the patriarchal system and how it bound women in often dangerous positions. In 1637, de Zayas published her first collection of novellas which told the stories of violence women experienced and illuminating their vulnerability in a society where this kind of brutality is acceptable. It was an instant hit and quickly spread across Spain and throughout Europe. Her second collection was published in 1647 and continued her mission to illustrate the challenges facing strong women.

It has been argued that de Zayas' female characters exist in within an interesting paradox. While they are all strong women, they are powerless to change the system. She was not telling the stories of the average woman, but instead of women with financial and intellectual means who were still unable to break down the societal forces against them and who then turned to using whatever small power they had to change their own circumstances. Certainly she must have realized it would be impossible for any one individual to change the entire social structure, especially with the power of the state and the church supporting it, but within the system each woman could fight for a measure of independence, and each man could address his own tendencies toward violence.

Her two collections remained immensely popular for nearly 200 years, and only fell into obscurity in the late-19th century when women's roles in society began to shift again. More emphasis was on the purity of womanhood, and critics' attitudes toward her work turned sour. Although you or I might think a review calling her work "the filthiest and most immodest that I have ever read" intriguing, readers of the 19th century did not.

It wasn't until the 1970s that her work again began to attract attention as the second wave feminist movement encouraged more interest in women authors of the Golden Age of Spanish literature. Since then there have been several excellent analyses of her work, as well as important study of its changing reception over the past 370 years. I have not read more than a few pages of a recent English translation, but I am certainly intrigued. In many ways her story reminds me of the experiences of Emilia Bessano Lanier, another female writer of that era. I only recently finished a new fictionalized biography of her life, and am beginning my own research into her work, which also addresses the experiences of women. (A review of that book is coming soon!) It would be interesting to compare the lives and works of each woman, and find the ways they may have influenced other women who came after them.

You can read her first collection Novelas Amorosas y Ejemplares online.

[Image: Mary Magdalene by Spanish painter José de Ribera, 1641]

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Euphemia Haynes - trailblazer and educator

Euphemia Haynes (September 11, 1890 – July, 25 1980) was a mathematician and educator, who became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics when she graduated from the Catholic University of America in 1943, at the age of 53.

She was born into a prominent fourth generation black family in Washington, D.C. Her father worked as a dentist and invested in black-owned businesses. She was valedictorian of her graduating class of M Street High School in 1907, and went on to graduate from Washington D.C. Miner Normal School with distinction in 1909 and shortly thereafter began her long career in the Washington, D.C., school system.

While teaching she continued her own education to better serve her students and the larger community. In 1914, she graduated from Smith College with a major in mathematics and minor in psychology. In 1930, she earned her master's degree in education from the University of Chicago, with her thesis, "The Historical Development of Tests in Elementary and Secondary Mathematics." That same year, recognizing the importance of math education, she founded a new department at her alma mater, the Miner's Teachers College, to address the needs of young teachers learning how to teach mathematics: Division of Mathematics and Business Education, where she continued to serve as professor and chair of the department until she retired in 1959.

In addition to her duties to the college, she also taught in the public schools, moving through a variety of positions as she was needed. She taught elementary classes as well as high school mathematics, serving different schools throughout the district. She also occasionally taught part-time at Howard University.

In 1943, she became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics when she graduated from the Catholic University of America. She was 53 years old, and her dedication to mathematics and the students of Washington, D.C., was as strong as ever. Continually frustrated by the lack of opportunities for black students to pursue academics instead of vocational training, she pushed for desegregation of the school system. In 1960, she joined the District of Columbia Board of Education, where she continued her mission to improve conditions for all students. In 1966, she became the first woman to serve as chair of the Board of Education.

Throughout her life, her devotion to education was equaled only by her devotion to her religious beliefs. In 1934 she helped found the Catholic Interracial Council of the District of Columbia, an  organization that sought to increase cooperation and understanding between African Americans and whites and advance the cause of social justice and equality for African Americans. She was the first vice-president of the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women, and belonged to and served on the boards of several social welfare and civil rights organizations, including the Executive Committee of the DC Health and Welfare Council, the NAACP, the Urban League, and the AAUW.

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Ola Mildred Rexroat - brave pilot

Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat (August 28, 1917 – June 28, 2017) was born in Argonia, Kansas, in 1917. Her father was a white man who worked as a publisher and editor, and her mother was an Oglala-Lakota Indian who grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. While Millie's family moved from town to town as she was growing up, she spent plenty of time visiting her grandmother on the reservation in South Dakota. In 1932, she graduated from St. Mary's Indian High School for Girls in Springfield, South Dakota, but didn't have much of an idea of what she wanted to do with her life. Over the next few years she bounced around from location to location, and job to job, before finally settling down to complete her bachelor's degree in art from the University of New Mexico in 1939.

When the US finally entered World War II, Millie and her mother and sisters moved to Washington, DC, where they found work at the Army War College. But Millie wasn't content to spend the war working in an office. She wanted to do something more. At first she considered joining the Women's Army Corps (WAC), or maybe the United States Naval Reserve (WAVES), but when she learned of the WASPs, she was sure that was where she belonged.

Millie had no prior flying experience, but that didn't stop her. She found a local flight school that offered a series of lesson for only $8 an hour. After 35 hours of flying, she was qualified to apply. After graduating from training in Sweetwater, Texas, in 1944, she became the only Native American woman to serve in the WASPs. She was stationed at Eagle Pass Army Airfield where she took on the dangerous job of towing aerial gunnery targets to help new recruits learn to operate the big machinery.

"You didn't have time to be frightened or scared or anything like that. I was usually more concerned about my landings."

Sadly for Millie, the WASP program was disbanded later that same year. But she had found her place. Even if she wasn't able to fly, she could still work with other pilots. She joined the Air Force Reserves, where she was called into active duty during the Korean War, and later served for ten years as an air traffic controller.

For more information about her life and career, check out her bio on the Fly Girls series site.

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Hazel Ying Lee - fearless flyer

In 1932, Hazel Ying Lee (August 24, 1912 – November 25, 1944) became one of the first Chinese-American women to earn a pilot's license. It was only months after her first airplane ride, when she'd been so thrilled by the experience she immediately joined the Chinese Flying Club of Portland, Oregon, where she'd lived her entire life. At the time, she was working as an elevator operator at a department store, one of the few jobs a Chinese-American woman could get at the time. Her mother tried to talk her out of flying, but Hazel wasn't having it. She was going to become a pilot and find a way to fly as often as possible.

The very next year, when Japanese forces began to make incursions into China, Hazel traveled all the way to China planning on volunteering for the Chinese Air Force. They turned her away because of her gender, despite their dire need for trained pilots. She stayed in China, working for a private airline. In 1937, when Japan finally invaded China, with large scale bombings, it was Hazel's ability to remain calm in a crisis that likely saved the lives of many of her friends and family, as she was able to locate a safe shelter for them during the attacks. In 1938, she escaped to Hong Kong, and then made her way to New York, where she worked for the Chinese government as a buyer to help them secure materials for their war effort.

When the US joined the war, Hazel looked for opportunities to serve, but there were few openings for women. In 1943, though, with the creation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), she found a job that suited her perfectly. She enlisted as soon as she could, and was in the 4th class of pilots accepted and sent to Sweetwater, Texas, for training. She was then assigned to the third Ferrying Group, based out of Michigan, where the auto factories were now building aircraft for the war. Her group was tasked with flying the planes from the factory to central locations around the country where they would then be shipped to the either the European or Pacific fronts.

Hazel was well respected by her fellow service pilots as well as her superiors. She was often heard saying she'd "take and delivery anything." No risk was too much for her. During her time as a WASP, she had two forced landings -- where she had to land a plane under less than ideal circumstances -- and in both cases it was her cool demeanor that probably saved her life. In one case, she had to set the plane down in a Kansas wheat field, and then fend off an angry farmer who was convinced she was a Japanese invader.

Photo caption: WASPs being briefed in ready-room, Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas, May 1943. Front row, l to r: Group Commander Charles M. Sproul, Irma Cleveland, Faith Buchner, Martha Lundy, Mary Jane Stevens, Anabelle Kekic. Back row, l to r: Ruby Mullins, Hazel Ying Lee, Virginia Harris Mullins. Source: Texas Women's University.

In 1944, she was selected for a prestigious series of intensive training classes at the Pursuit School at Brownsville, Texas, where she and a handful of other women pilots who flew the faster, higher powered fighters.

Unfortunately, her flying career ended entirely too soon. In November 1944 she was sent to upstate New York to pick up a plane to deliver to Montana. As she was approaching the runway for her final landing on this multi-leg journey, there was a mix up in the control tower, and she collided with another plane. Both went up in flames, and while they were able to pull her from the wreck, she died two days later from her burns.

I wonder what would have become of her after the war had she lived? Would she have gone on to become one of the female pilots who continued flying for either private or military projects, like WASP director Jackie Cochran? Would she have traveled the world with her husband, another Chinese-American pilot she'd met in Portland, while he served as a Chinese diplomat? Would she have been the first Asian American selected as a candidate for the Mercury 13 group of possible female astronauts? Who knows?

Even though she died young, she had already established herself as a brave young woman unafraid of taking risks and using her skills for the greater good. It's telling that the one of the first things she decided to do once she'd earned her license was to head off to a war front to serve. And for that, she's definitely a Self-Rescuing Princess Society role model.

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