WOW2: October's Women Trailblazers and Events in OUR History

Welcome to WOW2!

WOW2 is a monthly sister blog to This Week in the War on Women. Here, we learn about and honor women of achievement, including many who’ve been ignored or marginalized in most of the history books, and also mark moments and great events in women’s history. 

This Week in the War on Women will post a little later, so be sure to go there next and catch up on the latest dispatches from the frontlines:   www.dailykos.com/...

We are edging closer to Election Day, and for the first time in U.S. history, we have a real chance to elect a woman as President. The totally deplorable performance of her opponent should make this a slam-dunk, but even as all the polls show Hillary Clinton with a substantial lead, there have been so many surprises in this long, long long campaign that I really don’t want to count the unhatched chickens.

In the meantime, we have quite a list for October of women who had to fight their own battles with misogyny to achieve their goals.

OCTOBER: Women Trailblazers and Events in Our History

• October 1, 1847 –Maria Mitchell becomes the 2^nd woman to discover a comet, after Caroline Herschel, winning a prize established by King Frederick VI of Denmark. She was later appointed head of the Vassar College Observatory, but had to persuade the administration to allow the students to be outside at night for observing.

• October 1, 1847 –Annie Besant born, British socialist, advocate for women’s rights and self-rule for Ireland and India, public speaker and author of numerous books on politics, the status of women, religion and theosophy

• October 1, 1912 –Kathleen Ollerenshaw born, English mathematician known for her work on lattices and pandiagonal magic squares, President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (1978-79); Political career: in spite of being deaf since the age of eight and only receiving an effective hearing aid at age 37, she served a member of the council for Rusholme (1956-1981) and Lord Mayor of Manchester (1975-76) 

• October 1, 1921–Margaret Hillis born, conductor, founder/director of Grammy-winning Chicago Symphony Chorus

• October 1, 1935–Dame Julie Andrews born, actress/singer, Academy Award for Mary Poppins, theatre director, children’s book author, advocate for Operation USA during the Haitian relief campaign

• October 1, 1953 –Grete Waitz born, Norwegian marathon runner, won the New York City Marathon 9 times, more than any other runner

• October 2, 1755 –Hannah Adams born, acquired a fair knowledge of Greek and Latin from divinity students boarding with her father, then tutored others to earn a living when her father went bankrupt. She turned to writing for additional income, and became the first U.S. woman to earn a living as an author, mainly writing about religion and history, including An Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects (1784), an encyclopedic outline of world religions, and A Summary History of New England (1799), which caused some scandal as she squared off with Reverend Jedidiah Morse, an orthodox Calvinist, over publication rights for their competing history textbooks, eventually ruining Morse's reputation, as Adams's coterie of liberal Bostonians rallied to her defense 

• October 2, 1846 –Eliza Maria Mosher born, physician and educator, held positions as a prison physician, prison superintendent, college physician, college professor and women's dean at the University of Michigan; also a lecturer on the health benefits of physical education

• October 2, 1885 –Ruth Bryan Owen born, first southern woman representative in U.S. Congress, first woman on House Foreign Affairs Committee, first woman appointed as U.S. Ambassador (1933-36, to Denmark) 

• October 2,1895–Ruth Streeter born, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve WWII colonel

• October 2, 1912–Alice Bourneuf born, economist, contributed to Marshall Plan for Post-WWII European recovery, taught economics at Boston College (1959-77)

• October 2, 1919–Shirley Clarke born, filmmaker, Academy Award, best feature documentary, Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel with the World

• October 2, 1926 –Jan Morris born James Humphrey Morris, Welsh historian and author; London Times correspondent with the British Mount Everest Expedition who broke the story when Edmond Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to reach the summit; Morris began medical transition in 1964, then travelled to Morroco in 1972 to undergo sex reassignment surgery, because doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and his wife divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time

• October 2, 1949 –Annie Leibovitz born, portrait photographer

• October 3, 1648 –Élisabeth Sophie Chéron born, French painter, poet, musician and academicienne 

• October 3, 1859 –Lilian Whiting born, journalist and author, The Life Radiant, Land of Enchantment, and The Golden Road among many others

• October 3, 1860 –Annie Hirniman born, British theatre manager, founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester, promoted new playwrights

• October 3, 1897 –Ruth Muskrat Bronson born, Bureau of Indian Affairs official who got loans for Indian students, National Congress of American Indians forced authorities to honor treaties (1944), wrote Indians are People, Too  

• October 3, 1904 –Mary McLeod Bethune opens her first school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida

• October 4, 1836 – Juliette Lambert Adam born, French author and feminist, Les provinciaux à Paris, Laide, Grecque, Païenne and L'Angleterre en Egypte

• October 4, 1864 – Eliza Kellas born, educator, principal of Emma Willard School, co-founder of Russell Sage College

• October 4, 1908–Eleanor Flexner born, author, historian – Century of Struggle: The Women’s Rights Movement in the United States, and Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography

• October 4, 1976–Barbara Walters debuts as the 1st woman evening news co-anchor (ABC News)

• October 4, 1993–Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the 2nd woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice

• October 5, 1789 – Women of Paris, mostly market women protesting the scarcity and high cost of flour, march on Versailles demanding bread, and the return of the Royal court to Paris

• October 5, 1850 – Fanny Jane Butler born, pioneering English medical missionary to India, worked in Kashmir, also founded medical facilities in Srinagar and Bhagalpur

• October 5, 1858 – Helen Churchill Candee born, American journalist and author, How Women May Earn a Living, New Journeys in Old Asia; survivor of RMS Titanic sinking

• October 5, 1889 – Teresa de la Parra born, Venezuelan author, Iphigenia: Diary of a young lady who wrote because she was bored

• October 5, 1917 – Magda Szabó born, major Hungarian novelist, The Door, Für Elise, An Old-Fashioned Story

• October 5, 1932 – Yvonne Braithwaite Burke born, African-American politician, US Congresswoman (D-CA)

• October 5, 1959 –Maya Lin born, artist and architect of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. (1980-82) and other public sculptures, author of Boundaries

• October 6, 1897 – Florence B. Seibert born, biochemist, developed the standard Tuberculosis skin reaction test

• October 6, 1905–Helen Wills Moody born, dominated American women’s tennis in the 1920s and 30s with 8 Wimbledon titles and 7 U.S. singles titles   

• October 6, 1910 – Barbara Castle born, English politician,  Member of Parliament for Blackburn (1945-79) the longest-serving female MP in the House of Commons

• October 6, 1914 – Joan Littlewood born, English theatre director, known for work in developing the Theatre Workshop group, called "Mother of Modern Theatre"— remembered for 1963 production of "Oh, What a Lovely War!"

• October 6, 1914 –Mary Louise Smith born, Republican Party committeewoman and chair (1974-77), supporter of ERA and pro-choice  

• October 6, 1917 – Fannie Lou Hamer born, activist, singer, organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, member of the National Women's Political Caucus, fought for the right to vote for African Americans in the South

• October 6, 1925 – Shana Alexander born, journalist, first female staff writer for LIFE magazine

• October 6, 1978 – Liu Yang born, astronaut, first Chinese woman in space

• October 7, 1865 – Martha McChesney Berry born, educator, founder of Berry College in Georgia

• October 7, 1909 – Anni Blomqvist born, Finnish author, Against the Forces of the Sea

• October 7, 1913 –Elizabeth Janeway born, social analyst of 20th century women’s equality drive, wrote Man’s World, Women’s Place and Powers of the Weak (1980)

• October 7, 1920 –Kathryn Clarenback born, founding member of the National Organization for Women, executive director of the National Committee on the Observance of International Women’s Year (1977)  
• October 7, 1928 – Lorna Wing born, British physician-psychiatrist, childhood developmental disorders pioneer, developed treating Autism as a spectrum disorder, coined term Asperger Syndrome, leader in founding UK National Autistic Society

• October 7, 1937 – Maria Szyszkowska born, Polish politician, senator for the Warsaw district, president of the Association of Free Thought
• October 7, 1954 –Marian Anderson is the first black singer to be hired by the NY Metropolitan Opera Company

• October 8, 1645 – Jeanne Mance opens first hospital in Montreal, Quebec

• October 8, 1826 –Emily Blackwell born, sister of Elizabeth Black well, third U.S. woman to earn a medical degree

• October 8, 1847 – Rose Scott born, Australian feminist, founding member of  Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales; social activist, president of women's committee of the Prisoners' Aid Association

• October 8, 1881–Esther Lape born, co-founder League of Women Voters, championed U.S. participation in the Permanent Court of International Justice, which failed by 7 votes in the Senate (1935), worked for compulsory health insurance, which was supported by Presidents Truman and Eisenhower but defeated by the AMA 

• October 8, 1891 – Ellen Wilkinson born, British Labour MP, only woman on the Jarrow March, with 200 constituents, from the town of Jarrow to London to petition Parliament to aid the town in re-establishing its industry and alleviating wide-spread unemployment – she also served as a junior minister in the WWII Ministry of Home Security, then Minister of Education until her death (1945-1947)

• October 8, 1930–Faith Ringgold born, African-American artist, and feminist, known for her painted story quilts.

• October 8, 1993 – Toni Morrison becomes the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature

• October 9, 1823 –Mary Shadd Cary born, first black woman editor in North America, “Provincial Freeman” (1853) in Windsor, Canada, helped black freed slaves know their rights 

• October 9,1830 – Harriet Hosmer born, American sculptor who worked in Rome, one of the few women to win complete financial independence through her artistic work

•  October 9, 1884 –Helene Deutsch born, psychoanalyst, wrote 2-volume The Psychology of Women (1944-45) with emphasis on motherhood

• October 9, 1892 – Abigail Eliot born, founding member of the National Association for Nursery Education (1933), helped monitor quality and establish standards  

• October 9, 1901–Alice Mae Lee Jemison born, member of the Seneca tribe, Indian nations rights activist, journalist, critic of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

• October 9,1934 – Jill Kerr Conway born, Australian-American author, first woman president of Smith College

• October 10, 1870 –Louise Mack born, Australian journalist and author

• October 10, 1888 –Dorothy Ferebee born, gained medical internship at Freedman’s Hospital despite rampant sexism, then built a 47-year association with Howard University hospital and the District of Columbia 

• October 10, 1900  –Helen Hayes born, actress and “First Lady of the Stage,” began in stock companies, in 1930s starred as Mary Queen of Scotland and Queen Victoria, won the first ‘Tony’ award in 1947

• October 10, 1911 –Clare Hollingworth born, British journalist and author, first war correspondent to report the outbreak of WWII

• October 10, 1931 – Alice Munro born, Canadian author, primarily known for her collections of short stories, won the Nobel Prize for Literature

• October 10, 1938 –Gloria Coates born, composer of 16 symphonies, as well as chamber music and works for solo instruments (warning: modern, not easy listening)

• October 10, 1983–Dr. Barbara McClintock wins Nobel Prize for Medicine, discovery of mobile genetic elements

• October 10, 2005 –Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democratic Union party, becomes German’s first female chancellor

• October 10, 2014 –Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani girls’ education activist, wins Nobel Peace Prize, shares with Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi

• October 11, 1871 –Harriet Boyd Hawes born, archaeologist, nurse and relief worker, worked on the excavation at the Minoan palace site on Crete

• October 11, 1872 –Emily Wilding Davison born, British suffragette, jailed and force-fed numerous times, died from injuries caused when she stepped in front of the horse owned by King George V during the 1913 running of the Epsom Derby, trying to gain attention for the cause of suffrage

• October 11, 1874 –Mary Heaton Vorse O’Brien born, labor and human rights activist, journalist, writer, Sinister Romance: Collected ghost stories

• October 11, 1884  –Eleanor Roosevelt born, civil and women’s rights advocate; U.S. First Lady (1933-45); only female member of U.S.delegation to the United Nations (1945-52) serving as first chair of the Commission on Human Rights; author, Courage in a Dangerous World

• October 11, 1984–Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes 1st U.S. woman astronaut to “walk” in space on Challenger flight

• October 12, 1799 –Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute, from an altitude of 900 meters

• October 12, 1808 –Frances Dana Barker Gage born, reformer, abolitionist and suffragist, worked  with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

• October 12, 1860 –Mabel Thorp Boardman born, leader in the American Red Cross

• October 12, 1889 –Perle Reid Mesta born, US Ambassador to Luxembourg

• October 12, 1913 – Alice Chetwynd Ley born, English historical romance author, Letters for a Spy

• October 12, 1915 – WWI British nurse Edith Clavell is executed by a German firing squad for aiding Allied soldiers to escape — her death is exploited as propaganda by Allies

• October 12, 1916–Alice Childress born, actor, playwright, A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But A Sandwich

• October 12, 1925 – Essie Mae Washington-Williams born, African American educator and author, raised by one of her mother’s sisters without knowing until she was 25 that her real mother had been a servant at age 16 in the household of Strom Thurmond’s parents, and her biological father was a then-21-year-old Strom Thurmond, which she kept secret until after his death; her 2005 autobiography was nominated for a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize

• October 13, c.1754 – Mary Hays McCauley born, “Molly Pitcher” of the Battle of Monmouth (1778), legendary water-carrying heroine of the American Revolution

• October 13, 1862 –Mary Kingsley born, trained as a nurse, but became an early British explorer of Africa, first European to enter remote parts of Gabon; lecturer who was controversial for criticizing missionaries; author, Travels in West Africa, West African Studies

• October 13,  1871 –Eleanor Clarke Slagle born, social worker and pioneer in occupational therapy

• October 13, 1897–Edith Sampson born, lawyer, first black American to be appointed as a United Nations delegate, first to be elected U.S. circuit judge

• October 14, 1856 – Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore born, American travel writer, first female board member of the National Geographic Society. She had the idea to plant Japanese cherry trees to decorate Washington DC.

. . .

• October 14, 1863 –Winifred Sweet Black born, American investigative reporter and columnist for the Hearst papers, especially the San Francisco Examiner — publicity stunts like a “fainting spell” on a downtown street led to an exposé of San Francisco’s receiving hospital and the purchase of a city ambulance; investigated the leper colony on Molokai, Hawaiian Islands;  active in organizing charities and public benefactions, using her Examiner column to mobilize public concern 

• October 14, 1888 – Katherine Mansfield born, New Zealand author, best known for short stories, like "Mr Reginald Peacock's Day" and "Bliss" 

• October 14, 1893 –Lillian Gish born, consummate actress, stuntwoman and early film editor, her 75 year career ranged from one-reelers like An Unseen Enemy (1912) to The Whales of August (1987), wrote autobiography Lillian Gish: the Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me (1969)

• October 14, 1906 –Hannah Arendt born, German-American theorist and philosopher 

• October 15,1830 –Helen Hunt Jackson born, American author, poet and activist for improved treatment of Native Americans by US Government, Ramona

• October 15, 1906 –Alicia Patterson born, American publisher, founder and editor of Newsday

• October 15, 1906 –Victoria Spivey born, record producer, songwriter, 1920s blues singer, in all-black cast of 1929 film Hallelujah

• October 15, 1942 –Penny Marshall born, actor, director and producer; directed Big, first film directed by a woman to gross over $100 million at U.S. box office

• October 15, 1948–Dr. Frances L. Willoughby becomes 1st woman doctor in regular U.S. Navy

• October 16, 1869–Girton College, Cambridge founded, England’s first residential college for women. Women were originally only granted titular degrees – the title of a Bachelor or Master of Arts, but not full rights – they couldn't vote in the university Senate, sit on committees, or use the library, museums, or laboratories of Cambridge

• October 16, 1895 –Marguerite Rawalt born, lawyer, president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women (1954-56), supporter of the ERA and entire feminist agenda, particularly including the word “sex” in Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964 

• October 16, 1916 – Margaret Sanger opens the U.S.’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York – nine days later she was arrested. When she was convicted of illegally distributing contraceptives, the trial judge held that women did not have "the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.”

• October 16, 1925 –Angela Lansbury born, actress with an 70+-year career in theatre, film and television from Gaslight (1944) to Driving Miss Daisy (2014 production), supporter of the U.S. Democratic Party, and British Labour Party, involved with Abused Wives in Crisis, which combats domestic abuse, and with other organizations that rehabilitate drug users, or help those with HIV/AIDS

• October 17, 1720 – Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini born, Italian composer, harpsichordist and singer; she often performed in gatherings where her more famous sister, Maria Gaetana Agnesi lectured

• October 17, 1868 – Sophia Hayden Bennett born, American architect, first woman to receive an architecture degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, designed the Woman’s Building at the World Columbian Exposition in 1893

• October 17, 1936 –Sathima Bea Benjamin born, South African singer-songwriter, received the Order of Ikhamanga Silver Award from South African president Thabo Mbeki for her “excellent contribution as a jazz artist” and “contribution to the struggle against apartheid.”

• October 17, 1943 –Vilma Socorro Martinez born, lawyer, first female U.S. Ambassador to Argentina (2009), civil rights crusader, one of first women on the board of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund

• October 18, 1889 –Fannie Hurst born, author, wrote 17 novels and 9 volumes of short stories over 50 years, including Imitation of Life, left approximately one million dollars each to Brandeis and Washington Universities for professorships in creative literature 

• October c.18, 1890 – Pauline Newman born, labor leader who emigrated from Lithuania (1901), aided uprising of the 20,000 in New York; hailed by Coalition of Labor Union Women as a foremother of the women’s liberation movement; strategist in 1909 when 40,000 NYC women factory workers went on strike, 1^st woman ILGWU organizer

• October 18, 1898 –Lotte Lenya born, singer and actress, interpreted and promoted Kurt Weill’s music, especially The Threepenny Opera; left Germany in 1933, was part of the Group Theatre in New York, made recordings for Voice of America during WWII  

• October 18, 1917 –Mamie Clark born, psychologist, co-founder with husband . Kenneth of Northside Center for Child Development, for treatment of the whole child 

• October 18, 1929 –Persons Day in Canada– celebrates the success of the “Famous Five” who led the fight to establish that a “person” means a woman as well as a men in Canadian law.  The assertion of women's rights is now honoured by the Governor General's Awards in Commemoration of the Persons Case. Recipients of these awards continue the tradition of courage, integrity, and hard work which the Famous Five of the Persons Case inspired. Their effectiveness and courage advanced the cause of equality for girls and women, enriching their communities. Five awards are given annually in October to candidates chosen from across Canada, in addition to one Youth award

• October 18, 1947 –Laura Nyro born, singer-songwriter, feminist and pacifist, melded R&B, pop, doo-wop, jazz and Broadway 

• October 18, 1951 –Terry McMillan born, author of 13 novels including Waiting to Exhale

• October 18, 1956 – Martina Navratilova born, tennis champion, 9-time Wimbledon singles winner

• October 20, 1740 –Isabelle de Charrière born, Dutch author and poet, known as Belle van Zuylen in the Netherlands, known mostly letters she wrote about the era’s society and politics

• October 20, 1832 –Ellen Hardin Walworth born, author, lawyer, historic preservationist,  early advocate for the establishment of the United States National Archives. one of the first women in New York State to hold a position on a local board of education, a role she used to bolster the call for women's suffrage

• October 20, 1862 –Maud Nathan born, social worker, activist and suffragist, cousin to poet Emma Lazarus and Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo

• October 20, 1873 –Nellie McClung born, Canadian politician and activist, Liberal member of Legislative Assembly of Alberta (1921-26), one of Canada’s ‘Famous Five’ in the Persons’ Case

• October 21, 1854 –Florence Nightingale embarks for the Crimean War with 38 nurses she has trained, as well as 15 Catholic nuns. They arrive at Scutari in November to find an overworked medical staff, poor hygiene, and no equipment to prepare food for the wounded.

• October 21, 1929 –Ursula K. Le Guin born, author, known for ground-breaking science fiction and fantasy — The Left Hand of Darkness, Lathe of Heaven, and the Earthsea series; winner of many literary awards

“We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.” 

— Ursula K. Le Guin

• October 21, 1940 –Frances FitzGerald born, journalist and author, won a Pulitzer Prize for her book Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam 

• October 21,1945 – French women vote in parliamentary elections for the first time

• October 22, 1834 – Abigail Scott Duniway born, Pacific NW suffrage leader, helped win Oregon in 1912, wrote Path Breaking

• October 22, 1919 –Doris Lessing born, British author, The Golden Notebook, Nobel Laureate in 2007

• October 23, 1850 – First U.S. National Women's Rights Convention begins in Worcester, MA 

• October 23,1866 – Ethel Dummer born, gives funds to establish Juvenile Psychopathic Institute in Chicago to study juvenile offenders 

• October 23, 1889 –Frieda Fromm-Reichmann born, major pioneer using therapeutic relationships in treating mental illness at Chestnut Lodge in Rockville, Maryland

• October 23, 1906 –Miriam Gideon born, composer of approximately 70 works including “The Hound of Heaven” (1945), developed more atonal pieces for voice and instruments after beginning with a more conservative tonal style

• October 23, 1906  –Gertrude Ederle born, first woman to swim the English Channel (1926)

• October 23, 1910 –Blanche Stuart Scott becomes first American woman pilot to make a public flight  

• October 23, 1911 –Martha Rountree born, creator and first moderator (1945-54) of television show Meet the Press, pioneering unrehearsed panel discussion television

• October 23, 1915 – Women's suffrage: In New York City on the 65th anniversary of the Worcester Convention, 30,000–33,000 women march on Fifth Avenue for their right to vote

• ​October 24, 1830 –Belva Lockwood born, attorney, first woman admitted to practice law before Supreme Court (1879), ran for U.S. President in 1884 and 1888

• October 24, 1868 – Alexandra David-Néel born, Belgian-French explorer, scholar and author, first western woman to enter the forbidden city of Lhasa

• October 24, 1896 –Marjorie Joyner born, helped develop and manage more than 200 Madam C. J. Walker beauty schools by 1919, added professional status to the occupation, worked with Eleanor Roosevelt and other leaders in civil rights struggles

• October 24, 1901 – Desiring to secure her later years financially and avoid the poorhouse, on her 63^rd birthday,  Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to survive a trip over  Niagara Falls in a barrel – the barrel was tested the previous day, going over the falls with a cat inside, who survived, bloodied and spitting mad

• October 24, 1915 –Letitia Woods Brown born, pioneer in researching and teaching African-American history, completed Ph.D. at Harvard in 1966, primary consultant for the Schlesinger Library’s Black Women Oral History Project, co-authored Washington from Banneker to Douglass 1791-1870

• October 24, 1923 –Denise Levertov born, British-American poet, her anti-Vietnam war poems include themes of destruction by greed, racism, and sexism in the 1970s; her later poetry reflects her conversion to Catholicism

• October 24, 1975— 90% of Icelandic women take part in a national women’s strike, refusing to work in protest of gaps in gender equality

• October 25, 1783 –Deborah Sampson receives an honorable discharge from the Continental army after serving one and a half years disguised as her deceased brother, Robert Shurtlieff Sampson

• October 25, 1894 –Marjorie Phillips born, artist, embraced techniques of Van Gogh and Cezanne, introduced modern art to the Phillips Gallery as associate director of her husband’s Washington D.C. museum

• October 26, 1837 –Louisa Lee Schuyler born, established first U.S. training school for nurses in conjunction with Bellevue Hospital. In 1915 awarded the first honorary LL.D. degree given to a woman by Columbia University

• October 26,1845 –Tennessee Celeste Claflin born, reformer and suffragist. She and her sister Victoria Woodhull were the first women to open a Wall Street brokerage firm

• October 26, 1911 –Mahalia Jackson born, internationally acclaimed gospel singer, sang at the 1963 March on Washington

• October 26, 1947 –Hillary Rodham Clinton born, U.S. Secretary of State (2009-13), Senator from New York (2001-09), former First Lady (1993-2001), current Democratic candidate for U.S. President 

• October 27,1744 –Mary Moser born, British painter, one of two female founding members of the Royal Academy

• October 27, 1868 – Janet Scudder born, sculptor

• October 27, 1908 –Lee Krasner born, artist on the Works Progress Federal Art Project in 1930s and 40s, which enabled her to exhibit her paintings and collages in New York and London, also aided the art and career of her husband, Jackson Pollock

• October 27, 1940 –Maxine Hong Kingston born, award-winning author of The Woman Warrior:  Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, an autobiography of the Chinese-American female experience

• October 28, 1842 –Anna Dickinson born, orator, early champion of the rights of women and blacks, supported interracial marriage, attacked the double standard of morality, first woman to speak before the US Congress

• October 28, 1856 –Anna Klumpke born, American portrait and genre painter, known for her portraits of famous women, author of a biography of painter Rosa Bonheur

• October 28, 1856 –Carolina Maria Benedicks-Bruce born, Swedish sculptor, founder with her husband of the artist’s estate Brucebo on Gotland, known for her work on preservation of buildings, women’s suffrage, and the Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defence Service

• October 28, 1897 –Edith Head born, Hollywood costume designer, first successes were Clara Bow and Mae West, won academy awards for The Heiress, Delilah, and The Sting

• October 28,1939 –Jane Alexander born, American actress,former director of the National Endowment for the Arts

• October 28, 1958 –Mary Roebling is the first woman director of a stock exchange (American Stock Exchange)

• October 28, 2007 –Cristina Fernández de Kirchner becomes the first elected woman President of Argentina

• October 29, 1837 –Harriet Powers born, African-American quilter and folk artist. Her quilts are on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA

• October 29, 1877 –Narcisa de Leon born, Filipino film producer 

• October 29, 1930 –Niki de Saint Phalle born, French sculptor and painter

• October 29, 1908 –Louise Bates Ames born, child psychologist, researched and stressed normal steps in development, wrote newspaper advice column in 1960s

• October 29,  1938 – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf born, Liberian politician, 24th and current President of Liberia, first elected female head of state in Africa, awarded 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

• October 29-30,1966 – First organizing conference held for the National Organization for Women; officers elected include Betty Friedan as the first president of NOW

• October 30, 1741 –Angelica Kauffman born, Swiss-born Austrian painter 

• October 30, 1857 –Gertrude Horn Atherton born, author of over 60 stories and articles

• October 30, 1864 –Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge born, pianist, endowed first pension fund for Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1916), funded Lucy Sprague Mitchell’s Bureau of Educational Experiments, established a foundation at the Library of Congress (1925) that provided for the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Auditorium 

• October 30, 1877 –Irma Rombauer born, author of The Joy of Cooking 

• October 30, 1881 –Elizabeth Madox Roberts born, American poet and author

• October 30, 1886 –Zoë Akins born, American playwright

• October 30, 1896 –Ruth Gordon born, actor, screenwriter. one of the Lost Boys in “Peter Pan,” with Garson Kanin wrote comedies for Hepburn and Tracy movies, starred as Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker (1954), and in Harold and Maude

• October 30, 1944 – Anne Frank and her sister Margot are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

• October 31, 1860 –Juliette Low born, founder and first president of the Girl Scouts U.S.A.

• October 31, 1874 –Mary Swartz Rose born, scientist and educator; earned her Ph.D. in 1909 from Yale in physiological chemistry

• October 31,1876 –Natalie Clifford Barney born, American poet and playwright; with her first book, a collection of poems called Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes, ‘Some Portrait-Sonnets of Women’, she became “the first woman poet to openly write about the love of women since Sappho”— a society paper headline, "Sappho Sings in Washington," alerted her father, who bought and destroyed the publisher's remaining stock and printing plates.

• October 31, 1896 –Ethel Waters born, African American singer/actor, recorded more than 250 sides after debut (1921), unsurpassed vocalist and stylist with perfect pitch 

• October 31, 1896–Lutah Riggs born, architect of both country estates and modest homes, advocate of preserving historic buildings

• October 31, 1906– Louise Talma born, composer, first American woman to receive the Sibelius Medal, taught music theory and musicianship at Hunter College for 51 years