Journalist, politician, and civil servant, Oveta Culp Hobby worked to better her community and her country throughout her lifetime. She is best known for serving as the director of the Women’s Army Corps and as the first secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
In 1887, Nellie Bly stormed into the office of the New York World, one of the leading newspapers in the country. She expressed interest in writing a story on the immigrant experience in the United States. Although, the editor declined her story he challenged Bly to investigate one of New York’s most notorious mental hospitals. Bly not only accepted the challenge, she decided to feign mental illness to gain admission and expose how patients were treated. With this courageous and bold act Bly cemented her legacy as one of the foremost female journalists in history.
Despite spending much of her life enslaved, Phillis Wheatley was the first African American and second woman (after Anne Bradstreet) to publish a book of poems.
The same year the United States entered the first World War, Aileen Cole Stewart passed her exams to be a nurse in Maryland and Washington, DC. Her dedication and courage helped her climb the ranks to become one of the first African American women to serve in the Army Nursing Corps. She helped establish a field hospital in Cascade, West Virginia. Stewart was also certified by the American Red Cross and served with 17 other African American nurses during the influenza epidemic of 1918.
As a poet, author, and lecturer, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a household name in the nineteenth century. Not only was she the first African American woman to publish a short story, but she was also an influential abolitionist, suffragist, and reformer that co-founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.
Susette La Flesche Tibbles, an Omaha woman, spent her entire life tirelessly campaigning for Native American rights as a speaker, activist, interpreter, and writer.
Writer, performer and journalist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is best known for her 1944 novella Gigi.
Dr Teodora Krajewska was a physician, writer and teacher who was one of the first women to practice medicine in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Austria-Hungary.
Hajjah Rangkayo Rasuna Said was a major figure in Indonesia’s struggle for independence against the country’s Dutch colonisers.
Said was politically active from a very young age, and founded a political party – the Indonesian Muslim Association (PERMI) – in her early 20s.
An electrifying speaker who delivered speeches “like lightning during the day” according to one biography, her challenge to Dutch colonial authorities earned her the nickname Lioness. The Dutch often halted her speeches, and even imprisoned her in 1932 for 14 months.
When the Japanese invaded Indonesia during World War II in 1942, Said joined a pro-Japanese organisation, but used it to continue her independence activities.
After the Japanese were defeated, the Dutch returned to try to reimpose their control, initially with British help, and a brutal four-year conflict began, until the Dutch finally recognised Indonesian sovereignty in 1949.
Said was declared a National Hero of Indonesia by president Suharto in 1974. One of Jakarta’s main arteries is named for her (Jalan H.R. Rasuna Said) and Padang, West Sumatra.
Božena Němcová was a Czech writer during the final phase of the Czech National Revival movement and has been called the founder of modern Czech prose. She is also considered the country’s first feminist writer. Her grandmother Magdalena Novotná played an important part in her life, and Němcová would later write her most famous novel, 1855’s Babička (The Grandmother), featuring a title character inspired by her grandmother. She also published another novel that year, Pohorská vesnice (The village under mountains) and her popular short story Divá Bára the following year, as well as several collections of fairy tales and legends. Her first poem, To the Czech Women, was published April 5, 1843. Her image is featured on the 500 CZK denomination of the banknotes of the Czech koruna.