Looking at women's history, when you are Black, needs an extra layer of research so that you can contextualize when someone lived and the social forces that influenced their lives.

1. # Women Race Time Description African-AmericanHistoryi
1
German
Hrostsvitha
White 935AD-1002
Born in Gandersheim to Saxon nobles Hrotsvitha was a German
secular canoness, who wrote dramas and poems during the rule of
the Ottonian dynasty. Hrotsvitha lived at Gandersheim Abbey.
It is commonlysaidthat"Columbus discovered America."It would bemoreaccurate,perhaps,
to say that heintroducedtheAmericas toWestern Europeduring his four voyages to theregion
between1492and1502.
2
Harriet
Tubman
Black unknown-1913
Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist.
Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some
13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including
family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and
safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.
1 . Founded at Jamestown in 1 607, the Virginia Colony was home to about 7 0 0 people by
1 6 1 9 . The first enslaved Africans to arrive there dis embarked at Point Comfort, in
what is today known as H ampton Roads. Most of their names, as well as the exact
number who remained at Point Comfort, have been lost to history, but much is known
about their journey.ii
2 . Slavery officially ended in America with the ratificationof the 13th Amendment in 1865.iii
3 . Slavery Abolition Act, (1833), in Britishhistory, act ofParliament that abolishedslavery in most British
colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean andSouth Africa as well as a
small number in Canada. It received Royal Assent onAugust 28, 1833, and took effect onAugust 1,
1834.iv
4 . LAW: The 1793 law enforced Article IV, Section 2, ofthe U.S. Constitution in authorizing any federal
district judge or circuit court judge, or any state magistrate, to decide finally and without a jury trial the
status of an alleged fugitive slave.v
5 . LAW: As early as 1810 individual dissatisfactionwith the law of 1793 had taken the formof systematic
assistance rendered to black slaves escaping from the Southto New England or Canada—via
the Underground Railroad.
6 . Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known ofall the UndergroundRailroad's "conductors." During
a ten-year span she made 19 trips intothe Southand escortedover 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she
once proudly pointed out toFrederick Douglass, in all ofher journeys she "never lost a single
passenger."vi
7 . Ada Lovelace was an aristocratic girl in the mid-1800s. In 1835, Ada married William King, who became
the Earl of Lovelace three years later. She then took the title ofCountess of Lovelace. They shared a love
of horses and had three children together. vii
8. From 1854 to1857 Clara Barton was employed as a clerk in the Patent Office until her anti-
slavery opinions made her toocontroversial.viii
9 . Susan B. Anthony was born in1820 into a Quaker family full of activist traditions. According tothe Susan
B. Anthony House, in 1845, after moving to Rochester the family became very active in the anti-slavery
movement. Ignoring oppositionandabuse, she traveled and campaigned for the abolitionofslavery and
women's rights to their own property andearnings. She alsocampaigned for women's labor
organizations fromthe 1840s until her death in 1906.ix
10 . Ada Kepley: The family were intense haters of the institutionofslavery. William Temple Coles, sr.,
even refused to have a slave in his house, and brought over white servants from England.x
11 . LAW: The demand from the South for more effective legislationresulted in enactment ofa second
Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Under this law fugitives could not testify ontheir own behalf, nor were they
permitted a trial by jury. Heavy penalties were imposed upon federal marshals who refusedto enforce
the law or from whom a fugitive escaped; penalties were also imposed on individuals who helped slaves
to escape.
12 . Kate Chopin’s family were slave holders and supported the South. In1870, she married Oscar Chopin,
the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. When her husbanddied Kate tookover the
running of his general store andplantationfor over a year.xi
13 . Born into slavery in Mississippi, Ida B Wells was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the
American Civil War. She used her skills as a journalist toshed light on the conditions ofAfrican
Americans throughout the South.xii
3
Ada
Lovelace
White 1815-1852
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was an English
mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles
Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the
Analytical Engine.
4
Susan B.
Anthony
White 1820-1906
Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women's
rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage
movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality,
she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17.
5 Clara Barton White 1821-1912
Clarissa Harlowe Barton was a pioneering American nurse who
founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the
American Civil War, a teacher, and patent clerk. Nursing education
was not very formalized at that time and she did not attend
nursing school, so she provided self-taught nursing care.
6
Emily
Warren
Roebling
White 1843-1903
Emily Warren Roebling is known for her contribution to the
completion of the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband Washington
Roebling developed caisson disease. Her husband was a civil
engineer and the chief engineer during the construction of the
Brooklyn Bridgexiii
7 Ada Kepley White 1847-1925
Ada Harriet Miser Kepley was the first American woman to
graduate from law school. She graduated in 1870 with a law
degree, from what is today Northwestern University School of Law.
At that time she was prohibited from legal practice by state law
that denied women licence to the "learned professions".
8 Kate Chopin White 1850-1904
Kate Chopin was born Kate O’Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850
to Eliza and Thomas O’Flaherty. She was the third of five children,
but her sisters died in infancy and her brothers (from her father’s
first marriage) in their early twenties. She was the only child to live
past the age of twenty-five.
9 Ida B Wells Black 1862-1931
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist,
educator, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. She was
one of the founders of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.

2. # Women Race Time Description African-AmericanHistoryi
10
Madam CJ
Walker
Black 1867-1919
Madam C. J. Walker was an Americanentrepreneur,
philanthropist, and politicaland social activist.She is
recordedas thefirst femaleself-mademillionairein
America intheGuinness Book ofWorldRecords.
1. Recons truction (1 8 6 5-1 87 7), the turbulent era following the Civil War, was the
effort to reintegrate Southern s tates from the Confederacy and 4 million newly -
freed s laves into the United States . Under the adminis tration of Pres ident
Andrew Johns on in 1 8 6 5 and 1 8 6 6 , new s outhern s tate leg is latures pas s ed
res trictive “black codes ” to control the labor and behavior of former s laves and
other African Americans .xiv
2. Madam CJ Walker, born Sarah Breedlove was born to two former slaves on a plantation in Delta,
La. Sarah was free. But by 7, she was an orphan toiling in those same cotton fields. Living on
$1.50 a day as a laundress and cook. During the early 1900s, when most Americans lacked indoor
plumbing and electricity, bathing was a luxury. As a result, Sarah and many other women were
going bald because they washed their hair so infrequently, leaving it vulnerable to environmental
hazards such as pollution, bacteria and lice.”xv
11
Eleanor
Roosevelt
White 1884-1962
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an Americanpoliticalfigure,
diplomat and activist.She served as the First Ladyofthe
United States from March4, 1933, toApril12, 1945,
during her husband PresidentFranklin D.Roosevelt’s four
terms in office,making herthelongest-serving First Lady
ofthe United States.
1. Jim Crow (1877-1965) laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the
Southern United States. All were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white
Democratic-dominated state legislatures after the Reconstruction period. The term "Jim Crow"
originally referred to a black character in an old song, and was the name of a popular dance in
the 1820s. Around 1828, Thomas "Daddy" Rice developed a routine in which he blacked his face,
dressed in old clothes, and sang and danced in imitation of an old and decrepit black man. Rice
published the words to the song, "Jump, Jim Crow," in 1830. In 1964, President Lyndon B.
Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which legally ended the segregation that had been
institutionalized by Jim Crow laws. And in 1965, the Voting Rights Act halted efforts to keep
minorities from voting..xvi
2. Eleanor Roosevelt’s support of African American rights was one of the highlights of her activities
as first lady. Her fearless advocacy for justice pulled her into political controversies that were
unprecedented for the wife of a president. Eleanor joined the NAACP during FD R’s firs t
term in 1 9 3 4 and began working with leader Walter White to outlaw lynching.
This work earned her a lot of enemies , as well as s ome death threats . Critics of
her hus band like J. Edgar H oover s pread racis t rumors that s he was mixed race;
and in the 1 9 5 0 s , th e Ku Klux Klan put a $ 2 5 ,0 0 0 bounty on her head. H er work
als o caus ed a rift between her and her hus band, whom s he could never convince
to s upport her caus e.xvii
a. New Deal programs (1933-1939) were channeled away from the poorest people,
including millions of blacks, who lived in the South.xviii
3. Alice Ball was an African American chemist who discovered the most effective treatment for
leprosy during the 20th century. She became the first woman and the first African American to
receive a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii. In addition, at just 23 years old, she was
the university’s first female chemistry professor. Arthur Dean, the College of Hawaii president,
initially took credit for Alice Ball’s innovative leprosy treatment. He even published her findings
on extracting the active ingredient in chaulmoogra oils and called it the “Dean Method.”xix
4. Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama for failing to give up her
bus seat—so that it would be available for white passengers—when instructed to do so by the
bus’s driver.xx
5. The structure of DNA, the molecule of life, was discovered in the early months of 1953. Nine
years later, three men were jointly awarded a Nobel Prize for this achievement. The third man
honored, Maurice Wilkins claimed credit work that was actually completed by his estranged
colleague, Rosalind Franklin, who had died four years before the prize was awarded.xxi
6. Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was an American medical physicist and winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine for the development of the radioimmunoassay (RIA) technique. RIA is a
technique used to measure minute quantities of hormones and other antigens in the human
body.xxii
12 Alice Ball Black 1892-1916
Alice Augusta Ball was anAmerican chemist who
developed the "BallMethod", themosteffective
treatmentfor leprosyduring the early 20th century.
13 Rosa Parks Black 1913-2005
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in
the civil rights movementbestknown for her pivotalrole
in the Montgomerybus boycott. TheUnited States
Congress has calledher "the firstlady ofcivilrights"and
"the mother ofthe freedom movement"
14
Rosalind
Franklin
White 1920-1958
Rosalind ElsieFranklin was anEnglishchemist and X-ray
crystallographer whosework was central tothe
understanding ofthe molecular structures ofDNA, RNA,
viruses, coal, andgraphite.
15
Rosalyn
Yalow
White 1921-2011
Rosalyn SussmanYalow was an American medical
physicist, and a co-winnerofthe 1977 NobelPrize in
Physiology or Medicine for development ofthe
radioimmunoassay technique. Shewas thesecond
woman, and the firstAmerican-born woman, tobe
awarded theNobelPrize inphysiology or medicine.
16 Kip Tiernan White 1926-2005
Kip Tiernan was a social activist.She was born Mary Jane
Tiernan inConnecticut and raisedby hergrandmother,
and cameto Boston inher early 20s.
17
Maya
Angelou
Black 1928-2014
Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer,
memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven
autobiographies, threebooks ofessays,several books
of poetry, and is credited with a list ofplays, movies,
and television shows spanning over 50 years.
18 Vera Rubin White 1928-2016
Vera FlorenceCooper Rubin was an American astronomer
who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She
uncoveredthediscrepancy between the predicted angular

3. # Women Race Time Description African-AmericanHistoryi
motion ofgalaxies andtheobserved motion, by studying
galactic rotationcurves.
7. Best known for founding Rosie’s Place, Kip Tiernan was at the center of the fight for economic
and social justice for nearly three decades. In the mid-60s Kip she was involved in the civil rights
and anti-war movements.xxiii
8. Throughout her writing, Maya. Angelou explored the concepts of personal identity and resilience
through the multifaceted lens of race, sex, family, community and the collective past. As a whole,
her work offered a cleareyed examination of the ways in which the socially marginalizing forces
of racism and sexism played out at the level of the individual.xxiv
9. Vera Rubin was a groundbreaking female astronomer. She broke the glass ceilings in
astronomy and her pioneering astronomical research. After getting an undergraduate
degree in astronomy from Vassar College, and an M.S. from Cornell, she got her Ph.D. in
astronomy from Georgetown University in 1954. She had applied to Princeton
University after Vassar, but the Princeton graduate astronomy program did not admit
women until 1975.xxv
10. Nina Simone realized what it was to be Black in America in 1963 when she heard about the
bombing of the little girls in Alabama and the murder of Medgar Evers. An hour later, Nina
Simone had composed a song called “Mississippi Goddam.” Crisply honest, it is a pure expression
of rage and an indictment of inequality. “It was my first civil rights song,” she recalled. It
redirected her career. xxvi
19 Nina Simone Black 1933-2003
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, known professionallyas Nina
Simone, was an Americansinger, songwriter, musician,
arranger, and civil rights activist. Her musicspanned a
broad rangeofmusicalstyles including classical, jazz,
blues, folk, R&B, gospel,and pop.
20
Gabby
Douglas
Black 1995-present
GabrielleChristina Victoria Douglas is an American artistic
gymnast. She is the 2012 Olympic allaround champion
and the 2015World all-around silver medalist.
1. Racial Inequality/Racism (1965-present) Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess
different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the
superiority of one race over another.
2. In Pulas ki, Tennessee, a group of Confederate veterans convenes to form a s ecret
s ociety that they chris ten the “ Ku Klux Klan .” The KKK rapidly grew from a s ecret
s ocial fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on revers ing the federal
government’s progres s ive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South, es pecially
policies that elevated the rights of the local African American population. xxvii
3. Gabby D ouglas was the first African-American to win gold in the individual all-around in girls
gymnastics. . "I was just, you know, kind of getting racist jokes, kind of being isolated from the
group. So it was definitely hard. I would come home at night and just cry my eyes out. Like, 'What
did I do to deserve this?'"xxviii
4. Simone Biles opens up about competing in a sport with few black athletes While promoting her
partnership with the skincare brand SK-II, Biles spoke at length about her struggles with social-
media trolls, the public fixation on her appearance, and the effect race had on both.xxix
21 Simone Biles Black 1997-present
Simone ArianneBiles is an Americanartisticgymnast.With
a combined total of30Olympic and World Championship
medals, Biles is themost decoratedAmericangymnast and
the world's third mostdecorated gymnast, behindBelarus'
Vitaly Scherboand Russia's Larisa Latynina.
i
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery, https://www.britannica.com/event/Fugitive-Slave-Acts
ii
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-african-slave-ship-arrives-jamestown-colony
iii
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/interactive/slavery-united-states/
iv
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Slavery-Abolition-Act
v
https://www.britannica.com/event/Fugitive-Slave-Acts
vi
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html
vii
https://www.biography.com/scholar/ada-lovelace
viii
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/clara-barton, https://www.nps.gov/clba/learn/historyculture/cbcongress.htm
ix
https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes /view/4524
x
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Woman_of_the_Century/Ada_Miser_Kepley

4. xi
https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts /hour/katebio.html, https://mirjamsessays.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/discovering-kate-chopins-views-on-southern-slaveholding-society-an-analysis-of-speech-and-thought-
presentation-in-desirees-babymirjam-holleman-termpaper-may-8-2009-acc-22/
xii
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett
xiii
https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/brooklyn-bridge
xiv
https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/reconstruction, https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-codes, https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes /black-codes/,
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-gilded-age/south-after-civil-war/v/jim-crow-part-2
xv
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/madam-walker-the-first-black-american-woman-to-be-a-self-made-millionaire/
xvi
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/kkk-founded, https://u-s-history.com/pages/h1559.html
xvii
https://www.socialstudies.org/system/files/publications/articles/se_750511245.pdf, https://www.history.com/news/fdr-eleanor-roosevelt-anti-lynching-bill
xviiixviii
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-did-fdrs-new-deal-harm-blacks
xix
https://now.northropgrumman.com/celebrating-alice-ball
xx
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/civil-rights-movement/a/the-montgomery-bus-boycott, https://u-s-history.com/pages/h1559.html
xxi
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/10/28/photo-finish-2
xxii
https://www.beyondcurie.com/rosalyn-sussman-yalow
xxiii
http://www.rosiesplace.org/mural
xxiv
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/arts/maya-angelou-lyrical-witness-of-the-jim-crow-south-dies-at-86.html
xxv
https://wtop.com/the-space-place/2016/12/groundbreaking-astronomer-vera-rubin-roots-dc/
xxvi
https://longreads.com/2017/04/20/a-history-of-american-protest-music-when-nina-simone-sang-what-everyone-was-thinking/
xxvii
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/kkk-founded
xxviii
https://www.businessinsider.com/gabby-douglas-racism-2012-8
xxix
https://www.insider.com/simone-biles-on-black-gymnasts-and-inspiring-young-african-americans-2020-3