At my elementary school, fourth-graders were required to do a “Wax Museum” project. We would all pick a historical figure, do a research project on them, and cap off the year by impersonating them by dressing up and reciting a speech for the rest of the school.
There were definitely some standouts, lots of kids were Steve Jobs and Sacagawea. Many fights occurred over who would get to be Shirley Temple and pass out lollipops, leading to five separate girls being Shirley Temple. But fourth grade Emma was determined to find someone that no one else would pick.
After roughly twenty minutes combing the library for a name I didn’t recognize, I finally came up with the perfect option – Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.
But then came the issue that I, a fourth-grader, was unable to pronounce her Russian last name. Not to mention that I was too intimidated to pull off an accurate Russian accent for the entirety of my speech. So instead, I decided to do the first American woman in space.
Sally Ride.
My relationship with Sally Ride was one that lasted far longer than just fourth grade. Although I have never been a STEM kid, Ride was this proof that a woman could be anything she wanted to be, even in a male-dominated institution. She excelled at physics, getting her bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. at Stanford University, where she studied astrophysics and free-electron lasers. However, she continued to hold strong to her passion for English, double majoring in it while in college and writing children’s books in her later years.
She would find employment at NASA, where she was bombarded by questions about her sex, such as if space travel would ruin her chances of having children, or if she thought it was possible to wear makeup in space. However, she still completed two successful missions in 1983 and 1984, before retiring following the Challenger disaster. She spent the rest of her life working to provide space education to children, especially young girls, co-founding Sally Ride Science with her childhood friend, Tam O’Shaughnessy, before passing away from pancreatic cancer in 2012, less than a year before my Wax Museum project about her.
Although everything listed above is incredible on its own, it was what came out following her death that made her an icon for millions of people, not just girls. Her obituary revealed that her partner of twenty-seven years was O’Shaughnessy, which was later confirmed by Ride’s sister. The country was shocked that not only did Ride shatter ceilings as the first American woman in space, but she also holds the title of the first LGBTQ+ person to be in space.
In 2022, she will be featured in the US Mint’s American Women’s Quarters Program, along with other notable figures Maya Angelou, Wilma Mankiller, Nina Otero-Warren, and Anna May Wong. She will also become the first LGBTQ+ individual on U.S. currency, still changing the world nearly a decade after her passing.
In hearing this news, I was reminded of how impactful Ride has been in inspiring me since I was 10. Even though none of the elementary school kids knew who I was the day of the Wax Museum, it still made me proud knowing I was honoring such an incredibly strong woman. Though I am still not a STEM kid, I admire her persistence and determination to follow her passions, regardless of who told her it wasn’t possible.
It thrills me that since my project, there have been children’s books written about her, and brands such as Barbie have found ways to honor and teach kids about her so that children now will be more familiar with her. Children who feel isolated and ostracized can believe they are capable of anything and can look up to Sally Ride as the groundbreaking woman she was.
I’m not sure what twist of fate threw Sally Ride and her story into my life, but thank you. Thank you for giving that little fourth grader a strong role model to look up to, and a hero to have for the rest of her life.
