Category: Historical / page 13

Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria


Queen Victoria was queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 to 1901, and empress of India from 1877 to 1901. This is the second longest reign of any of British monarch in history. Victoria was born on May 24, 1819 in London, England. Victoria became the heir apparent after her father died. Her father, Edward, had three older brothers; however, none of them had legitimate heirs to the throne. After the death of King William IV, Victoria became queen at the age of 18. Victoria […]
Gertrude Weil
Gertrude Weil


Gertrude Weil was a North Carolina suffragist and labor reform and civil rights activist. Weil was born on December 11, 1879, in Goldsboro, North Carolina, to an affluent Jewish family. She graduated from Smith College in 1901 and returned to Goldsboro to join the Goldsboro Woman’s Club, which her mother had founded. Club work gave Weil an outlet for her ambition and she became president within a few years. In 1911 Weil joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association and worked alongside Carrie Chapman Catt to further the movement. In […]
Angelina Grimké Weld
Angelina Grimké Weld


Angelina Grimké Weld was nineteenth-century abolitionist, suffragist and orator. Born on February 20, 1805, to a family of wealthy slaveholders in Charleston, South Carolina, Weld witnessed the evils of slavery from an early age. Both she and her sister, Sarah Moore Grimké, were deliberately educated less than their brothers, although the boys shared what they had learned with their sisters. Weld joined her sister in Philadelphia in 1829 and converted to Quakerism, both joining the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. In 1835, Grimké was catapulted to fame after a letter she […]
Ida B Wells-Barnett
Ida B Wells-Barnett


Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, editor and anti-lynching activist, was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. Wells attended Rust College in Holly Springs until 1878, when a yellow fever epidemic killed her parents and one of her six siblings. Determined to keep her family together, Wells began teaching in surrounding areas. In 1881, she moved her youngest siblings to Memphis to live with an aunt and took a job as a schoolteacher in nearby Woodstock. In September 1883, while commuting by train, Wells was asked to leave the "ladies' […]
Frances Willard
Frances Willard


Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer and women's suffragist. Willard became the national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1879, and remained president until her death in 1898. During her lifetime, Willard succeeded in raising the age of consent in many states, as well as passing labor reforms including the eight-hour work day. Her vision also encompassed prison reform, scientific temperance instruction, Christian socialism, and the global expansion of women's rights. Willard was born on September 28, 1839, in Churchville, New York. She graduated […]
Frances “Fannie” Barrier Williams
Frances "Fannie" Barrier Williams


Frances "Fannie" Barrier Williams was an educator and women's rights activist. Williams was born on Feb. 12, 1855, in Brockport, New York. Her father was a profitable businessman, and the family – one of the few African American families in Brockport – associated with the white elites with little discrimination. Williams graduated from Brockport State Normal School (now SUNY-College at Brockport) in 1870, the first African American graduate from that school. After college, Williams taught at a school for Black students in Hannibal, Missouri, where she experienced considerable discrimination. She […]
Mildred Wood
Mildred Wood


Dr. Mildred Hope Fisher Wood was a pioneer who brought special education for learning disabilities to the forefront in Iowa, empowering thousands of students each year to lead productive, respected lives. Born in Alta, Iowa, in 1920, Wood earned a B. A. degree in 1956, a master's degree in 1962, an Ed. S. degree in 1963, all from State College of Iowa; did postgraduate work at Syracuse University and the University of Oregon; and obtained her Doctorate of Education from the University of Indiana in 1970. Wood was a pioneer […]
Victoria Woodhull
Victoria C Woodhull


Victoria Claflin Woodhull was an activist and a leader of the U.S. woman's suffrage movement, and the first female candidate for president of the United States as the nominee for the Equal Rights Party in 1872. Woodhull was born September 23, 1838, in Homer, Ohio. In 1953, at age 15, she married Canning Woodhull and subsequently had two children. Because husband was an alcoholic, Woodhull often worked outside the home to support the family. She divorced her husband in 1864 and married Colonel James Harvey Blood in 1866. Possibly because […]
Frances Wright
Frances Wright


Frances Wright was an social reformer and author. She advocated for universal education, the abolition of slavery, birth control and women's rights. Wright was born September 6, 1795, in Dundee, Scotland. Following the death of Wright's parents when she was two years old, she and her siblings were sent to live with different relatives, with Wright going to live with her aunt and maternal grandfather in England. In 1813, she and a sister moved to Scotland to live with their uncle James Mylne, a strong opponent of slavery. From 1818-1820, […]
Zitkala-Ša
Zitkala-Ša


Zitkala-Ša, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Native American suffragist, writer and activist. Born Gertie Eveline Felker on February 22, 1876 near the Yankton Agency in Dakota Territory, Zitkala-Ša took her mother’s surname as a young woman and changed her name to Gertrude Simmons. When her sister-in-law accused her of abandoning her Native American heritage, she took the name Zitkala-Ša – which translates into English as “Red Bird” – and used it primarily in her writing, her work with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and personal correspondence. […]