In honor of Women’s History Month, let’s talk about the women you didn’t get to learn about in history class, but should have.
Clara Brown was known as the “Angel of the Rockies”.
Born into slavery in Virginia, Clara was owned by Ambrose Smith. Her husband and 4 children were also owned by Smith until 1835. Clara was separated from the rest of her family, sold to George Brown, from whom she gets her surname. Clara was finally freed by George Brown’s heirs in 1857. She then set off to journey to the west, where she had heard her daughter Eliza, might be.
Clara settled in Central City, Colorado, a mining town just west of Denver. She founded the state’s first communal laundry business. She also became a popular public figure as she would sell meals to Gold Rush settlers. She recognized the importance of community and was also known as “Aunt Clara”. She helped miners, the injured, and served as a free midwife. Clara has a business knack, using her profits to invest in real estate and mines in the community. Earnings from her investment were, in turn, used to help formerly enslaved people move out West. It’s estimated that she had $10,000 by 1865 (which is the end of the Civil War). Clara would go on to become the first woman invited to join the Colorado Pioneer Association.
Clara devoted herself to her community and service. She was finally reunited with her daughter, Eliza, just three years before her death. Her funeral was attended by the Colorado governor, and was fully funded by the Pioneer Association.
Inez Milholland was a suffragette, lawyer, and peace activist.
Inez was born into a wealthy family, but was raised among progressive views. She was known to be an “active radical” who was once suspended during her time at Vassar for organizing a women’s rights meeting. Inez was often referred to as the “most beautiful suffragette,” which could overshadow the perception of her work. She was very interested in women’s right to vote, prison reform, world peace, equality for African Americans member of NAACP), and child labor reforms. She worked as a criminal and divorce lawyer for the New York law firm.
Inez led the National Women Suffrage Association parade of 1913, riding a white horse dressed in a white cape! She was someone who knew how to make a statement. Inez completed all this before the age of 30. She died while on the Women’s Suffrage Tour of 1915, where she collapsed during an event.
María de López was a Los Angeles suffragist and educator.
María was a prominent figure in the women’s suffrage movement in California. She campaigned in women’s marches and translated at rallies. She and her team distributed pamphlets in Spanish. This helped institute the campaign among Spaniards and Mexicans. María is often cited as the first person to deliver suffrage speeches in Spanish. She helped bridge language divides among the suffrage movement, helping diversify the movement.
María’s work doesn’t stop at the suffrage movement! While this is what she is most known for, María was also an ambulance driver in WWI. María was in France during the war, carrying injured soldiers to safety and often in the heat of battle. Back home in LA, she and her sister taught Spanish out of their house.
Rebecca was an educator in Idaho during the 1800s.
Rebecca was born in Illinois and was active in her church. She moved to Idaho Falls as a missionary. She found an undeveloped town and set off to bring education to Idaho Falls. She converted an abandoned saloon into a school that taught the town’s children to read and write. She also offered Sunday School classes. She would later go on to establish the first school in Idaho Falls.
Besides her educational pursuits, Rebecca helped lead the suffragette movement in Idaho. Her efforts to change Idaho legislation led to Idaho women gaining the right to vote in 1896. That’s 24 years before the national ratification of the 19th Amendment!
Enheduanna is the first author named in recorded history.
Enheduanna was a Mesopotamian priestess and poet. This means that her writings are dated hundreds of years before Homer, Sappho, and Aristotle, who are often considered the fathers of rhetorical authorship. She was a high priestess of the moon deity, Nanna-Suen. Edheduanna penned 42 temple hymns as well as three standalone poems. Her works were widely unknown until 1927, when a site containing her writings was excavated.
Zheng Yi Sao is considered China’s most successful pirate queen.
Zheng Yi Sao was introduced to piracy by her husband, where she gets the name Zheng Yi, who was a pirate and pirvatter under the Vietnamese Tây Sơn dynasty. After her husband’s death, Zheng Yi Sao took control of the pirate fleet with her husband’s cousin. They would raid nearby towns, many in Vietnam, before heading back to China.
In 1805, Zheng Yi Sao united local pirates under the Guangdong Pirate Confederation, helping soothe pirate dynamics amongst each other. After years of pressure from the military, she surrenders. She has very good negotiation skills. And was able to live the rest of her life as a free woman. She went on to run a gambling house in Canton until her death.
Gladys Bentley was an African American blues pianist, singer, performer, and drag king during the Harlem Renaissance.
Gladys was known for her growly voice, raunchy lyrics, and being an open lebsian during her early career. She is notorious for playing the Harry Hansberry Clam House and the Cotton Club. Gladys was able to find acceptance in Harlem, which historian Henry Louis Gates Jr describes as “surely as gay as it was black”. Gladys was an openly queer entertainer in the 1920s, and should be recognized for taking risks in a time when people of color, regardless of sexual orientation, were under near constant scrutiny.
Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man to fight in the American Revolution.
Deborah was a self-educated woman who also worked as a teacher. But in 1782, she decided to disguise herself as a man to join the Continental Army to fight for independence during the American Revolution. Deborah took on the persona of Robert Shurtleff in the fourth Massachusetts regiment. She worked a dangerous job, where she was in charge of scouting neural territory to assess the British army build-up, usually putting herself in the line of fire. For nearly two years, her gender was unrealized. She has a few close calls, but was always very careful to keep it a secret. She even went so far as to extract a pistol ball from her own leg to not risk a doctor revealing her gender. After falling ill and unconscious, her gender was finally revealed, and she was honorably discharged in October 1783.
She was the only woman to receive a full military pension in the Revolutionary War, something her husband fought for after Deborah’s death.
Mary Seacole was a nurse known for her efforts during the Crimean War.
Mary was born in Jamaica, where she learned nursing skills from her mother. At a young age, she started travelling. She visited England, where she learned modern European medicine, techniques she used to supplement her transnational Caribbean knowledge. She also visited Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas.
In 1850, Mary nursed victims of the Kingston Cholera outbreak. She is the same in Cruces, before traveling back to Kingston to treat the yellow fever epidemic in 1853. That same year, the Crimean War broke out. Mary asked the British War Office to send her as an army nurse. They refused. Did Mary just give up? Of course not, she funded her own trip. She went on to establish the British Hotel to give sick and hurt soldiers a place to rest.
Similar to other women on this list, after Mary’s death in London, she was lost in history. She was rediscovered by nurses from the Caribbean when they found her grave in England, and began to share her story.
Edmonia Lewis, also known as Wildfire, was the first BIPOC sculptor to achieve international recognition.
Edmoinia was mixed, born to a black father and a Chippewa mother. She was orphaned young and grew up with her mother’s tribe, learning to make and sell crafts. She went on to attend Oberlin College (one of the early acceptors of female and black students), where she developed her interest in fine arts. After moving to Boston, Edmonia studied under a local sculptor who was creating portraits of antislavery heroes.
As she grew in her skills, she went to Rome in 1865 to work with marble. She was known to scale biblical scenes and figural works dealing with her native American and black heritage. One of her most significant works is “The Death of Cleopatra,” which is now held by the Smithsonian.
Go out and find ways to read and research women who get left out of the major history books! I highly recommend Sharon McMahon’s book The Small and The Mighty, which focuses on untold American stories. She discussed several of the American women on this list and is a great way to dive in deeper to their stories!
Women are not underrepresented in history classes due to a lack of involvement. Women have been making moves, changes, and acting as influences since the dawn of time– they simply go unrecognized. Go find the stories of the women who shaped our world!