Unladylike2020: Unsung Women Who Changed America

Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) spent her childhood picking cotton in rural Texas, and after being rejected from flight schools in the U.S. for being Black and a woman, traveled to France to learn to fly. In 1921, she became the first African American to obtain an international pilot’s license, and a media sensation because of her daredevil aerial stunts.

Grace Abbott (1878-1939), an architect of social work and an activist in the immigrant rights movement, was the highest ranking woman in the U.S. government from 1921 to 1934 as chief of the Department of Labor’s Children’s Bureau. She led the fight to end child labor and maternal and infant childbirth death, and also helped draft America's Social Security Act.

Over 50 years before the Montgomery bus boycott, civil rights activist and entrepreneur Maggie Lena Walker (1864-1934) led a city-wide boycott against segregated streetcars in Richmond, VA. She also founded a newspaper, a department store, and the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, making her the first African American female bank president in the United States.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the first female engineering professor at Purdue University. She invented time and motion studies with her husband Frank, and created the design of the L-shaped kitchen and numerous home appliances. Controversially, she was also involved in the early eugenics movement.

An early participant in the environmental movement, U.S.-born Mexican American Ynés Mexía (1870-1938) began her scientific career as a botanist at age 51, leading botanical expeditions across Mexico, Central America, and South America. She became one of the most accomplished plant collectors of her time, discovering over 500 new plant species of which 50 are named in her honor.

Anna May Wong (1905-1961), the first Asian American female movie star, had a long and varied career spanning silent and sound film, stage, radio, and television. Overcoming severe racism in an era when Asian protagonists in Hollywood movies were typically performed by white actors in yellow face, Wong starred in classics such as The Toll of the Sea, The Thief of Bagdad, and Shanghai Express.