Mary Fields: A Fighter

Mary Fields (a.k.a.  “Black Mary”), a former Tennessee slave, was independent, belligerent, six-feet tall, and a fighter.

She moved to Cascade, Montana, when she was in her fifties and there she made her name.  Mary was the second woman ever to…

Hine-Nui-Te-Po: Great Lady of the Night

According to Maori mythology, you can see her green eyes staring at you in the night when your time to die has come.

Hine-Nui-Te-Po, the goddess of death and decay, is black as the darkness of the earth.  A dying person…

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Elizabeth Custer: Survived the Battle of the Little Big Horn

General George Custer perished during the Battle of the Little Big Horn, but his wife, the spirited and courageous “Libbie” Custer, who often rode with him, survived to ride again.

Libbie was out of the fort, riding with her sister, during…

Barbara Mikulski: “Dean of Senate Women”

Barbara Mikulski, elected to the US Senate in 1985, was the first Democratic woman to hold a Senate seat not previously held by a husband.

She is also the first Democratic woman to serve in both houses of Congress, the first…

Albanian “Sworn Virgins”: Women Who Become Men

In certain remote regions of Albania live “sworn virgins,” women who have elected to dress and act as men in order to live lives that are freer and less regimented than that of ordinary women.

Sworn virgins dress as men, crop…

Julieanne Krone: Female Jockey

Julieanne Krone was the first woman in the world to win a top-ranked thoroughbred horse race.

This groundbreaking woman was 30 years old in 1993 (It took that long!)  when she rode her horse, Colonial Affair, to victory in the Belmont…

Atalanta: Would-Be Spinster from Ancient Greece

Atalanta was a very different sort of woman for her time period.  This mythical Greek heroine was athletic, independent, and skilled in boar hunting and other male sports.

When the time came for her to marry, she told her father that…

Rosa Parks: Civil Rights Crusader

Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.  That simple action ignited a national controversy, including a bus boycott, and eventually resulted in a court ruling that said segregated seating was unconstitutional.

Rosa, returning home from…

Nancy Drew: Teen Sleuth

By today’s standards, Nancy Drew may not seem all that amazing.

But for several generations of young girls, this teen sleuth, who fearlessly solved every mystery that came her way (quite a few!)  was a feminist role model.

The Nancy Drew series…

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Sofya Kovalevsky: She Proves Girls Like Math

Russian-born Sofya Kovalevsky liked math.

Unfortunately, liking math was not a thing that her nineteenth century parents found appealing in their daughter.  They forbid her to study the subject and she had to surreptitiously work her math equations on the back…

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