Born April 5,1761, in Kent, New York, Ludington was the oldest of 12 children. Her father had served as an officer in the British military, but when the American Revolution began, he joined the Continental army.

The granddaughter of slaves, Eunice Hunton Carter was the first Black woman in New York to become Assistant District Attorney. The only person of color and woman among an all-white male team of special prosecutors, Carter was the mastermind that took down the notorious Lucky Luciano, then most powerful Mafia boss in the country and one of the most brutal in history.

Linda Martell is a courageous, groundbreaking African American woman who battled racism, sexism, and multiple stereotypes to fight her way to country music stardom. In 1969 Martell became …

In 1885 when twenty-year-old Elizabeth Cochrane read an essay in the local newspaper entitled, “What Girls are Good For”, little did she know that it would catapult her into a career as an investigative journalist. Upset by the writer’s argument that women should stay out of the workforce, were valuable only for having children and housekeeping stay out of the workforce, were valuable only for having…

Alice Ida Antoinette Guy was born near Paris in 1873. At the age of 21, she talked her way into a position as secretary to Léon Ernest Gaumont, an already famous inventor, engineer, and industrialist. Soon after, Gaumont founded the world’s first and oldest film studio. Guy Blaché volunteered to demonstrate the capabilities of the company’s new motion-picture camera…

Meet Sarah Josepha Hale, author, editor, influencer, and social reformer. She was also a tireless advocate for making Thanksgiving a national holiday. Born in 1788 in Newport, NH, Hale’s parents believed in educating girls as well as boys. At the time, no institutions of higher learning admitted women, so from a …

Less well known than Victoria Woodhull (see September’€™s issue), is Belva Lockwood, attorney, suffragist, educator, and international peace activist who ran for President in 1884 and 1888. Like Woodhull, Lockwood was the nominee of the Equal Rights Party and the second woman to run for the nation’s …

Nearly 150 years before Kamala Harris and Hilary Clinton, in 1872 Victoria Claflin Woodhull became the first woman to win her party’s nomination as candidate for President of the United States. Running on a platform of universal suffrage, equal rights, and equal pay, Woodhull selected renowned civil rights activist …

At the Summer Olympics in Paris, 1900, 22 year-old golfer Margaret Ives Abbott became the first American woman to win the Gold Medal. Although she continued to play amateur golf throughout her life, she died not knowing of her groundbreaking achievement.

Born in 1875 to formerly enslaved parents and later known as “The First Lady of the Struggle,” Mary McLeod Bethune was a pioneering educator, civil rights activist, and advisor to four U.S. Presidents.