The founder of the Mississippi Health Project and the Southeast Neighborhood House, Dr. Dorothy Ferebee provided healthcare to the most vulnerable members of the African American community. She advocated for public health, civil rights, and women’s rights in her roles as president of the National Council of Negro Women, an international delegate for the U.S. government, and a pioneering obstetrician.
An educator and humanitarian, Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton helped distribute needed supplies to the Union Army during the Civil War and later founded the disaster relief organization, the American Red Cross.
Mattie was considered an important witness in prosecuting polygamy. Not only was she in a polygamist marriage herself, but as a doctor, she often delivered the babies of polygamist wives. To the federal government, a baby delivered to a polygamist wife was proof a polygamist marriage. The prosecutors had a warrant out for Mattie to testify. She did not want to be responsible for a man getting arrested, leaving so many children without support. She decided to leave so that she would not have to testify. For the next two years, she and her young daughter Elizabeth moved around in England and the eastern U.S., until the warrant for her had expired.
Lillian D. Wald helped to bring health care to the residents of New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century. As a “practical idealist who worked to create a more just society,” Wald fought for public health care, women’s rights, and children’s rights while running the Henry Street Settlement.
In the early 20th century, at a time when matters surrounding family planning or women’s healthcare were not spoken in public, Margaret Sanger founded the birth control movement and became an outspoken and life-long advocate for women’s reproductive rights. In her later life, Sanger spearheaded the effort that resulted in the modern birth control pill by 1960.
Born in Canada, Mary Adelaide Nutting had a profound impact on American nursing. She was one of the key figures in modernizing the profession and her work is still influential in the field today.
Although Jane Delano was related to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she made a name for herself as a nurse and a leader. She was known for her creative ways of taking care of patients and her ability to organize. She held many leadership positions, including the president of the Board of Directors of the American Journal of Nursing and the first chairman of the National Committee of the Red Cross Nursing Service. Jane Delano also served as the superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps. She dedicated her life to public service and inspired many women to become professional Red Cross nurses around the world.
Born into a wealthy family, Frances Payne Bolton pursued a life of philanthropy, politics, and social reform. Bolton was a lifelong advocate of education, healthcare, and civil rights for African Americans. She is most noted for her contributions to the field of nursing and her work in the US House of Representatives.
Chemist, and later social worker, Virginia Spivey Coleman is most noted for her contributions to the United States’ atomic weapons program during World War II. She provided the scientific support needed to separate uranium, so that it could be used to create the first nuclear bomb dropped on Japan.
It is well known that the United States produced the first nuclear bomb in 1945. However, less well known are the women who contributed their talents to make this event a reality. Physicist Leona Woods Marshall Libby was one of the women who helped to create the atomic weapon. She worked on the team that constructed the first nuclear chain reaction leading to the development of the bomb.