2 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Table of Contents

3. Susan B. Anthony 24. 4. Lina Beecher 25. Elizabeth Jennings Graham 5. Eugenie Besserer 26. Marietta Holley 6. Louise Blanchard Bethune 27. Lena Horne 7. Jane Bolin 28. Charlotte Pruyn Hyde 8. Fanny Brice 29. Rosalie Jones 9. Bessie Buchanan 30. Mary Edmonia Lewis 10. Maria Callas 31. Sybil Ludington 11. 32. Anna Caroline Maxwell 12. Sara Jane Clarke 33. Nancy Davis Reagan 13. Lucille Clifton 34. Joan Rivers 14. Marie Maynard Daly 35. Isabel Sandford 15. Marian de Forest 36. Blanche Stuart Scott 16. Agnes de Mille 37. Annie Edson Taylor 17. Gertrude Belle Elion 38. St. Kateri Tekakwitha 18. 39. Dorothy Thompson 19. 40. Julia Gardiner Tyler 20. Sarah Loguen Fraser 41. 21. Annette Joanne Funicello 42. 22. 43. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 23. Kate Gleason 44. Helen Munson Williams

About Famous New Yorkers Women who were either born here or proudly claim New York state as their home have made a tremendous difference in our state, across the nation and the world in a variety of fields over the years. This installment of Famous New Yorkers provides a sampling of women who have had an impact on civil rights and social justice, sports, entertainment, politics, industry, literature, religion and more. Their profiles were written by Kevin Gilbert for the New York News Publishers Association’s Newspaper In Education (NIE) program. Any teacher wishing to obtain the teaching guides that correspond with these profiles, or if you’d like to know more about NIE, contact Mary Miller at mmiller@ nynpa.com or call 518-449-1667, Ext. 701.

Credits Designer, Christopher Brown Writer, Kevin Gilbert Coordinator, Charlie Kraebel This special edition is provided to subscribers of the four Digital First Media news companies in New York: The Daily Dispatch, The Daily Freeman, The Record, and The Saratogian. FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 3 Lady Liberty

Frederic-August Bartholdi, was inspired for the pedestal, while Congress rejected by Laboulaye’s idea to create the liberty a $100,000 appropriation. Ordinary statue. Visiting the U.S. in 1871, Americans eventually saved the project. Bartholdi chose the government-owned Publisher Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor as World newspaper’s fundraising campaign the ideal home for the statue. inspired people of all ages to give more After Louis Napoleon fell from power than $100,000, most of it individual in 1870, Frenchmen openly embraced donations of less than one dollar. the statue idea. Laboulaye established Once Hunt’s pedestal was completed the Franco-American Union in 1874, and in April 1886, final assembly began formally announced the statue project for the statue, which Bartholdi had the following year. By then, Bartholdi disassembled and shipped across the had already started work. He exhibited Atlantic. On October 28, Former Lady Liberty’s torchbearing arm at the Governor Cleveland, now President Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in of the United States, proudly presided 1876. Two years later, he exhibited her over the statue’s unveiling and official head at the Paris World’s Fair. dedication. When Bartholdi’s original engineer Ever since, Lady Liberty has stood died, Auguste-Gustave Eiffel – later of for freedom and opportunity, lifting Perhaps New York’s most famous Eiffel Tower fame – joined the project. her lamp, in the poet ’s resident, the Statue of Liberty was born He designed an innovative interior truss famous words, beside the “golden door” of proudly mixed American and French tower to support the statue’s copper-sheet to America. A national monument since parentage. Standing on an island in New skin. Attaching each sheet loosely on an 1924, she’s had her share of check-ups York Harbor “Lady Liberty” represents armature would allow the statue to sway and procedures over time, but remains an not just the United States but freedom and slightly in strong winds without cracking. unchanging image of hope and optimism opportunity for everyone on Earth. Using this method, Bartholdi finished the for friends of liberty around the world. Lady Liberty’s full name is “Liberty statue in 1884. Sadly, Laboulaye had Enlightening the World.” She traces died the year before. her ancestry to an 1865 French dinner For months, Lady Liberty loomed party, where Edouard Rene Lefebvre over Paris, while the Americans de Laboulaye, a historian of the United built a pedestal for her on Bedloe’s States, first proposed a statue of liberty. Island. In 1881, the New York branch Laboulaye admired American civil of the Franco-American Union had liberties and was proud of France’s commissioned the French-trained support for the American Revolution. He architect Richard Morris Hunt to design suggested that France present America the pedestal in imposing, classically- with a colossal statue honoring the end of influenced style. Construction began in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. 1883, at the site of an old army fort. He also wanted the statue to call attention By 1884 the project was nearly out to the lack of civil liberties in France of money. New York governor Grover under Emperor Louis Napoleon. Cleveland vetoed a bill to raise $50,000 Another guest at the party, the sculptor 4 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Susan B. Anthony

headmistress of the Canajoharie Academy election. Weeks passed before she was in 1846, but when her father started a new arrested. While awaiting trial, Anthony business in 1849, Anthony quit to run the voted in the Rochester city elections. A family farm near Rochester. hostile judge wouldn’t let a jury decide The Anthony family’s aversion the case and fined Anthony $100. She to political participation in a society never paid the fine. corrupted by militarism and slavery made For the rest of the century, Anthony Susan reluctant to join the new movement advocated women’s suffrage as part of a for women’s voting rights. She did join larger agenda that included easier divorce a growing anti-liquor movement but was laws, workers’ rights, racial equality, barred from addressing a convention and world peace. Although some women because some men opposed women were suspicious of Anthony’s other speaking in public. Since Quaker women concerns, her organizational skills and were free to speak in meetings, Anthony tireless activism earned her worldwide rejected limits on her role in reform and recognition as a movement leader during started a temperance society where the her presidency of the National American sexes were equal. Women’s Suffrage Association from 1892 By the end of the Civil War, Anthony to 1900. had decided that women needed to vote Susan B. Anthony continued her work Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division to have a moral influence on government. until she died on March 13, 1906. Shortly [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-85580] With slavery abolished, she hoped that before, she had predicted that “failure is Americans of both sexes and all races impossible” for the women’s movement. would be allowed to vote. She became Fourteen years later, American women the American Equal Rights Association’s voted legally in a presidential election. Susan B. Anthony was impatient corresponding secretary to advance Later yet, the country honored Anthony with the pace of change in 19th century her agenda, but criticized the 14th and by placing her face on dollar coins, America. She demanded sweeping 15th Amendments to the Constitution making her equal to presidents in national reforms in American society, and helped in her newspaper, The Revolution, for esteem. make them possible, while others guaranteeing men’s voting rights only. challenged her right to make demands at Anthony believed that educated women For more information about Susan all. had at least as much right to vote as black B. Anthony and for a virtual visit to Susan Brownell Anthony was born men, but supporters of the amendments her home in Rochester go to www. on Feb. 15, 1820. In 1826, her Quaker criticized her for demanding too much at susanbanthonyhouse.org. family left Massachusetts to start a cotton once. mill in Battenville, New York. Susan Despite her disappointment, Anthony went to local schools, and taught at her noticed that the Constitution didn’t forbid father’s own school before enrolling at a women from voting. As a leader of the Friends’ Seminary in Philadelphia. National Women’s Suffrage Association, An economic depression in the late she decided to test her rights. With 15 1830s forced Susan to support her family other Rochester women, she registered by teaching full-time. She rose to become and voted in the 1872 presidential FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 5 Eugenie Besserer

Eugenie was most successful at fencing. found they could make more money by Trained by the former fencing master of promoting their star performers. Movie the French army, she claimed the ladies’ magazines told fans more about fencing championship and dueled with Besserer and her peers, even if not men in public exhibitions. everything written about “the French Besserer became an actor instead of an emotional actress” was true. opera star. She wrote plays to showcase Besserer paid a price for her new fame. her skills, but mostly took supporting To meet a grueling production schedule, roles in other people’s plays. When she Besserer had to shuttle between studios in wasn’t acting, she taught fencing at the Edendale and Chicago. Still proud of her National Conservatory and the Berkeley athletic ability, she did her own stunts but Ladies Athletic Club in Manhattan. The broke a leg when a horse threw her. Berkeley club was a pioneer physical “A majority of the artists say that motion fitness center for women. Reputedly picture acting is the hardest kind of the only female fencing instructor in the work,” she wrote, but “I never deemed it U.S., Besserer was a perfect fit. so,” despite her injuries. Acting took Eugenie Besserer across After leaving Selig in 1918, Besserer the country and around the world. By worked regularly for other studios until Eugenie Besserer with Al Jolson in age forty she was a respected character her death on May 28, 1934. The Jazz The Jazz Singer, 1927 actor but not a star in her own right. That Singer was just one of six films she changed in 1910, when she visited a sick made in 1927. Most of her movies were Eugenie Besserer’s name might be relative in California. She visited the lost before the age of film preservation. forgotten if she hadn’t played the hero’s Selig Polyscope studio in Edendale, the People may remember her as tongue- mother in The Jazz Singer. By the time first motion-picture studio to operate full- tied by Al Jolson’s improvised lines, she made Hollywood’s first hit talking time in California. Many stage actors but Eugenie Besserer was a much more picture, Besserer had made history herself still looked down on silent movies, versatile and interesting performer than as one of Hollywood’s first movie stars. but Besserer “became interested as a one film clip can suggest. After becoming a star, Besserer professional in the artistic possibilities claimed that she was born in Paris. She of the motion picture,” as she wrote was actually born in Watertown, Jefferson later. She signed a contract with Selig, County, on Christmas Day, 1868. Her starting with the role of Aunt Em in The family moved to Canada, but Eugenie Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Due to her stage was soon orphaned. By her own account, experience, she instantly became the she ran away from her guardians at age company’s highest-paid actress. 12 and traveled to New York City, where During her eight years at Selig, she lived with an uncle. Eugenie Besserer became one of the Eugenie attended the National first generation of movie stars. Until Conservatory of Music. Founded in 1885 the 1910s, movie actors were rarely by Jeannette Thurber, the Conservatory identified on screen. Eventually, early taught musical and dramatic skills to movie fans wanted to know the names aspiring opera singers. Surprisingly, of their favorite performers. Studios 6 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Louise Blanchard Bethune

decided to learn architecture the practical standards for architects of both sexes. way, by going to work for Richard A. In the 1890s, the organizers of the Waite. During her apprenticeship, she Chicago World’s Fair invited Bethune to learned draftsmanship, design, and compete with other women architects for the other fundamentals, as well as the the right to design a Women’s Building. practical side of architecture. They offered $1,000 to the winner, but By 1881, Louise Blanchard was offered male architects $10,000 to design ready to start her own architectural firm. other exhibits. Believing that the sexes Recognizing the historical significance of should get equal pay for equal work, her move, she announced the opening at Bethune refused to participate. the Buffalo convention of the Association One decade later, Buffalo hosted for the Advancement of Women that the Pan-American Exposition. October. Anticipating many tourists, businessmen Blanchard began her career as the commissioned the Bethunes to design a partner of another Buffalo apprentice, luxury hotel. This time, Louise approved Robert A. Bethune. In December 1881, the terms, but financial problems delayed Blanchard and Bethune married and construction until after the fair. The renamed their company R. A. & L. 225-room Lafayette Hotel, which opened Courtesy of The Buffalo News Bethune. While Robert’s initials came in 1904, became her most prestigious first, Louise was an equal partner, both building. creatively and on the business side. Louise Blanchard Bethune looked The Bethunes soon won commissions forward to a time when women architects throughout the Buffalo area. Louise would be regarded as architects first, and Louise Blanchard Bethune didn’t designed everything from residential women second. Her career helped make think there was anything special about a houses to factories, churches, and that vision a reality. Louise died on Dec. woman being an architect. In her case, ballpark grandstands. Her most common 18, 1913, however many of her buildings however, history makes an exception, projects were schools, but she refused still stand and her historic legacy will because she was the first successful to be labeled as a specialist in one type outlast them all. female architect in the United States. of building. She wanted to prove that Jennie Louise Blanchard was born on women architects could handle as many To view images of the Lafayette Hotel July 21, 1856, in Waterloo. She was home different projects as men could. go to http://buffalobrewerydistrict.com/ schooled for much of her childhood, Louise Blanchard Bethune played an lafayette/about. but her father, the local high school active role in developing the architectural principal, held her to a high standard. She profession. She joined the Western responded by excelling at math, both at Association of Architects in 1885, and home and at Buffalo High School, where helped organize the Buffalo Society of she graduated in 1874. Architects in 1886. In 1888, she was Blanchard wanted to study architecture selected as the first female member of at Cornell University. She prepared for the American Institute of Architects. college with two years of teaching and Throughout her career, she supported independent study. In 1876, however, she measures to improve professional FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 7 Jane Bolin

At Wellesley, an elite female college, every 10 years by Republican and Bolin was one of only two black students. Democratic mayors. As a Domestic She graduated with honors in the top Relations judge, she presided over twenty of her class. At Yale Law School, juvenile delinquency cases and saw she was one of three women and the only how the legal system discriminated black student. She became the first black against black and Hispanic youth. woman to earn a law degree from Yale During her tenure, she strove to secure in 1931 and was admitted to the bar the equal treatment for juvenile offenders following year. of all races and religions. Away from With career opportunities limited the bench, she was a vice president of during the Great Depression, especially the NAACP. Sometimes more radical for black women lawyers, Bolin worked than the leadership, she resigned for her father’s firm. After marrying from the NAACP in 1950 to protest Ralph Mizelle in 1932, she moved to anti-communist hysteria within the New York City and became Mizelle’s organization. law partner. Bolin sought a career in the Judge Bolin reluctantly accepted public sector and became active in the mandatory retirement from the bench in Republican party of Mayor Fiorello La 1979. She remained active as a member Library of Congress, Guardia. In 1936, the GOP nominated her of the New York State Board of Regents Prints and Photographs Division for a seat representing Harlem in the New and a volunteer reading instructor in [reproduction number LC-USF344-007933-ZB] York State Assembly. She lost badly to New York public schools. In later life, By modern standards Jane Bolin had a popular Democratic incumbent, but the she admitted feeling embarrassed by a privileged life as a lawyer’s daughter Republicans remembered her service to having long been the first and only black and an Ivy League student. But in an era the party. woman judge. By the time she died on of racial and sexual discrimination, Bolin Bolin applied for a job in the office of Jan. 8, 2007, the many black women who defied the odds and became an American the corporation counsel, who represented followed in her footsteps remembered her pioneer. New York City in court. She was rebuffed with pride. Jane Matilda Bolin was born in by an office bureaucrat, but the counsel To read Jane Bolin’s New Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, on himself decided to hire her as an assistant York Times obituary go to http:// April 11, 1908. While she was of mixed counsel. Mayor La Guardia and the city’s www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/ racial ancestry – her mother was white, liberal Republicans hoped to regain black obituaries/10bolin.html?_r=0. her father half black and half Native support by showing their commitment to American – she identified as black all her black advancement. On July 22, 1939, life. Her father was a successful lawyer La Guardia summoned Bolin to the who eventually became president of the New York World’s Fair grounds. When Dutchess County Bar Association. Jane she arrived, the mayor surprised her by wanted to be a lawyer, too. Despite early swearing her in as a judge in the city’s misgivings, her father sent her to the best Domestic Relations Court, and the first schools, where her race and gender often black woman judge in the United States. left her isolated. Judge Jane Bolin remained on the bench for the next 40 years, reconfirmed 8 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Fanny Brice

amateur night competition at Keeney’s The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Ziegfeld Theater. Amateur nights stopped being Follies (1946). amateur for her once she started winning As Fanny Brice grew older, she up to $30 a week in contests all over became younger – much younger – in town. Encouraged by success, Fannie the American imagination. She achieved tried out for professional stage parts. her greatest popularity as a radio star, Unfortunately, by the beauty standards of reviving a character she had created in the time, she was too tall to be a chorus 1912. “Baby Snooks” was supposed to girl. be a precocious, nosy little girl. It was Taking the Brice name from a family absurd on purpose when Brice played friend, Fanny found work in touring Baby Snooks on stage, but on radio burlesque shows. She learned that she it suddenly seemed believable. She could win applause by emphasizing her introduced Snooks to a new audience on apparent awkwardness for comic effect. The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air, and made Singing the song “Sadie Salome” with a her a regular character on weekly variety Yiddish accent in an ill-fitting sailor suit, shows. In 1944 Brice became the star of she scored her first hit in a 1910 show, her own Baby Snooks show. The College Girls. Fanny Brice was still playing Baby Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Brice’s performance got the attention Snooks when she died in Los Angeles on Division [reproduction number, LC-DIG- of Florenz Ziegfeld, the impresario May 29, 1951. The success of Funny Girl ggbain-34089] behind the spectacular “Ziegfeld Follies” as a play and movie proved that her fans variety shows. He made her a Ziegfeld wanted more, and preserved her place in star in seven Follies shows between 1910 American popular culture. For more In the 1960s, Barbra Streisand became and 1923. She flourished as a mimic and info about Fanny Brice and Broadway a star by playing the part of Fanny Brice physical comedienne, parodying new musicals you might want to explore, in a play and a movie. That was a sure dance styles and movie celebrities. At the http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/ way to success, because Brice was one of same time, she scored hits as a serious fanny-brice/. the most beloved musical-comedy stars singer with torch-song ballads like “My of the 20th century. Man.” “Fanny Brice” was the stage name Besides performing for Ziegfeld, of Fania Borach, who was born on Fanny Brice was also a vaudeville the Lower East Side of Manhattan headliner and a star of numerous shows on Oct. 29, 1891. Her parents owned apart from Ziegfeld. When sound film several saloons in Newark, where little arrived, movie studios hoped to take “Fannie” sometimes sang and danced on advantage of her comedic and musical bars and tabletops. She didn’t lose the talents, but Brice never felt comfortable urge to perform even after her parents on movie soundstages. She missed broke up and her mother took her to live audiences and was distracted by Brooklyn. technicians working all around her. Fannie dropped out of school when she Nevertheless, she recorded some of her was 14 years old, after winning her first Ziegfeld skits for posterity in the films FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 9 Bessie Buchanan

Plantation Review and shared a dressing celebrity in Harlem and could finance room with the future international a campaign with her husband’s money. superstar Josephine Baker. After Baker The Democratic leadership endorsed her made her name in France, Bessie in the primary for the 12th Assembly followed her across the Atlantic in 1927 District against a Democratic incumbent. to perform at the famous Moulin Buchanan won the nomination, 3,832 Rouge theater. While Baker stayed in votes to 2,586. Whoever won the general Europe, Bessie eventually returned to election would make history, since the New York. In 1929 she married Charles Republican party also nominated a Buchanan, one of Harlem’s most woman, Lucille Pickett. Buchanan successful businessmen, who managed won in a landslide. the Savoy Ballroom nightclub. Assemblywoman Buchanan served The Savoy became a center of the four terms in Albany, earning respect as swing band movement of the 1930s, an advocate for equal rights. She might while Bessie Buchanan became part of have become the first black woman Harlem’s social elite. Ranked among elected to Congress, but her husband’s Harlem’s best-dressed women, she strove friendship with the powerful incumbent to improve medical services in Harlem in her district, Rep. Adam Clayton Bessie Buchanan in 1962 and wrote a regular column for her Powell, kept her from challenging him. Source: New York State Archives husband’s weekly newspaper, The In 1960 Governor Nelson Rockefeller, People’s Voice. a Republican, made Buchanan a delegate Even one of Harlem’s elite could still to a White House conference on aging. be humiliated by racial discrimination. In In 1962, after deciding not to seek a fifth As an entertainer, Bessie Allison October 1951 Buchanan took Josephine term, Buchanan surprised Democrats Buchanan didn’t become as famous as Baker to dinner at the stylish Stork Club, by endorsing Rockefeller for reelection. some of her peers in 1920s Harlem, but but the white staff refused to serve them. He rewarded her with an appointment as a community leader she made history The snub sparked a protest campaign and to the state Human Rights Commission. in a more important way. raised Buchanan’s profile as a champion She combated discrimination as a Bessie Allison was born in New York of equal rights. commissioner until her retirement in City on March 7, 1902. She grew up in Powerful New Yorkers saw Buchanan 1967. Bessie Allison Buchanan died on the city’s theatrical district and came of as a potential political leader. In the September 7, 1980, still revered as a age at a time of new opportunities 1950s, the Democratic party in New York symbol of Harlem’s cultural vitality and for black entertainers. At age 19, she City gave voters more voice in choosing political activism. performed in Shuffle Along, one of the candidates for office. In Harlem, first all-black musicals to become a Democrats noticed that more women than Broadway hit. As white jazz fans flocked men were registered to vote. Party to Harlem, she became a chorus dancer leaders set a goal of electing the first at the legendary Cotton Club. A talented black woman to the State Assembly singer as well, she made recordings for in 1954. Black Swan records. Bessie Buchanan seemed ideally In 1925 she performed in the suited for this historic role. She was a 10 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Maria Callas

worked as a traveling salesman and with performances in Mexico, Argentina, chemist, his family relocated seven and Great Britain, while even more times, while Maria, or Mary, attended six people heard her on records and radio different public schools. broadcasts. She made her American debut Mary’s mother loved opera and with the Lyric Theater of Chicago in encouraged her daughter to learn music. 1954, and became a box office sensation. Despite the Depression, Mary took At the time of her Met debut, Callas piano and voice lessons. She sang in was featured on the cover of TIME school plays, and won second prize magazine and performed on Ed Sullivan’s in an amateur talent contest broadcast TV show. She had reached the peak of nationwide on radio in 1934. her opera career, and was now as much a In 1937, her mother decided that Mary pure celebrity as a masterful singer. To an should continue her musical training in extent, gossip about her romances with Greece. After many auditions, Mary got a other celebrities and conflicts with opera scholarship at the National Conservatory companies overshadowed the rest of her in Athens. She made her concert debut career. as Marianna Kalogeropoulou in 1938, Always a perfectionist, and considered and first sang opera publicly a year later. a difficult diva by many, Maria Callas Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs During World War II, while Greece was retired from the opera stage in 1965. Division [reproduction number, LC- occupied by the Axis, she graduated to She continued to give concerts, conduct USZ62-113267] starring roles. master classes, and make recordings until After the war, Marianna’s career her death on Sept. 16, 1977. No female stalled as some Greeks accused her of opera singer since then has equaled her When Maria Callas sang at the collaborating with the enemy. In 1945 fame. Metropolitan Opera in October 1956, she returned to the U. S. and auditioned it marked the arrival of an international for the Metropolitan Opera. After she For more information about Maria celebrity and one of the greatest opera was rejected, colleagues encouraged her Callas look in the library for books singers of her era. It also marked the to go to Italy and gain more experience. about her life. For an excerpt from one homecoming of a New York native. Starting in Verona, then moving on to biography go to www.serendipity.li/ In August 1923 the Kalogeropoulos Venice, Maria Callas took on increasingly callas/gal01.html. family arrived in New York from Greece. difficult roles. She developed greatly as Maria Cecilia Sophia Anna, their newest an actress as well a singer, combining daughter, was born on Dec. 2. By then, technical mastery of her voice with Maria’s father had changed the family remarkable emotional intensity. She name to Kalos; he soon changed it to also lost more than 70 pounds, replacing Callas. the stereotype of opera singers with Maria’s father owned a pharmacy in a glamorous image that increased her Greece, but worked as a lab assistant stardom. in New York while he learned English. In 1950, Callas sang at Italy’s most He finally opened a drug store, but lost prestigious opera house, La Scala in it during the Great Depression. As he Milan. She became an international star FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 11 Shirley Chisholm

because she hadn’t been taught American seat easily. history or geography. With a tutor’s help In Albany, Chisholm’s legislation she caught up in less than two years. made college more accessible to poor After graduating from Girls’ New Yorkers, expanded unemployment High School, Shirley turned down a coverage, and ended discrimination scholarship at Vassar, a prestigious against pregnant teachers. Despite women’s college, because she couldn’t her successes, Chisholm believed that afford the housing costs. At Brooklyn changes were necessary at the national College, she won prizes for debating, level to improve her community. joined the Society In 1968, Chisholm campaigned to for black students, and campaigned represent the 12th Congressional District, unsuccessfully to elect women to the where women voters outnumbered males student council. by a large margin. Despite surgery for a Shirley took graduate classes at benign tumor, she defeated black rivals Columbia and married fellow student in the Democratic primary before beating Conrad Chisholm while working as a the Republican candidate, a prominent teacher and administrator. Her concern civil rights leader, by more than 20,000 for children’s and working people’s needs votes. She prevailed because voters Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs led her to become active in local politics. trusted her to remain independent of party Division [reproduction number, LC-U9-25383-33] In her neighborhood, the 17th bosses and put community interests first. Assembly District, blacks were a 14 years in Congress, and as a majority, but whites dominated the Presidential candidate in 1972, Shirley In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the Democratic Party. Chisholm became a Chisholm continued to defy the first black woman elected to the U. S. dedicated fundraiser for the Democratic establishment. When she died on Jan. 1, House of Representatives. For her, that Club, but grew convinced that party 2005, she was remembered for breaking was just one victory in a lifelong struggle leaders were more interested in keeping down barriers, and as a role model for for racial and gender equality. power than in helping the community. challenging any barrier to American Chisholm’s parents were immigrants In 1953, Chisholm joined other black achievement. from Barbados. She was born Shirley Democrats in challenging the leadership’s Anita St. Hill in Brooklyn on Nov. 30, white candidate for judge. Their success For more information about Shirley 1924. When she was 3, her parents led to the formation of the Bedford- Chisholm and other accomplished women sent Shirley and her siblings to her Stuyvesant Political League. Despite go to https://www.womenofthehall.org/. grandmother’s home in Barbados until Chisholm’s hard work for the League, her they could earn enough money to raise male colleagues were reluctant to accept their children in America. a female leader and finally forced her out. In Barbados, Shirley received a strict In 1960, Chisholm helped form the British-style education in a one-room Unity Democratic Club in the 17th schoolhouse where seven classes met at District. In 1962, their candidate won an once. Shirley was a quick learner, but Assembly seat. When he became a judge when her parents finally brought her two years later, Chisholm finally got a home, she was set back three grades chance to run for office and won the open 12 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Sara Jane Clarke

to protect their privacy, Clarke became champion of women’s rights. For readers “Grace Greenwood” in her social life as seeking entertainment she was an author well as in print. of sentimental poetry and prose and an Grace Greenwood had a national accomplished travel writer. For children, following by the end of the 1840s. Her starting in 1853, she was the editor of The work was published in many of the Little Pilgrim, a magazine published by period’s leading magazines. Behind the her new husband, Leander Lippincott. scenes, she became an assistant to pioneer Throughout her career, Grace female editor Sarah J. Hale at Godey’s Greenwood affirmed that women had the Lady’s Book, the most popular women’s right to speak for themselves in politics magazine of the era. Greenwood herself and the arts. She believed that women edited a companion publication, Godey’s could stand on their own as writers, Dollar Newspaper. artists and thinkers. She proved it before Greenwood started a controversy when she married, and again after Lippincott she began writing for The National Era, abandoned her to avoid arrest for a weekly paper dedicated to the abolition financial misconduct. For the rest of the of slavery. Her new role offended some 19th century, Greenwood worked steadily southern readers of the Godey magazines. as an author and lecturer to support her Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Publisher Louis A. Godey hoped to family. She published numerous works of Division [reproduction number LC- keep a nationwide audience by keeping poetry and prose, including a biography USZ62-125488] his journals and their personnel neutral of Queen Victoria, while writing regularly Sara Jane Clarke made a name for on slavery. He fired Greenwood, but for the Times and the Saturday Evening herself in the mid-19th century as the advertised her reinstatement after protests Post. popular writer “Grace Greenwood” but from northern readers. Greenwood Grace Greenwood did not write any risked her name and career by taking a refused to return. literary masterpieces and was forgotten stand against slavery. Cutting ties to Godey emboldened by all but historians after her death on The youngest of eleven children, Grace Greenwood to take a stronger April 20, 1904, but Sara Jane Clarke’s Sara Jane Clarke was born in Pompey, stand against slavery and focus more on diverse career as an author and journalist Onondaga County, on Sept. 23, 1823. politics in her writing. On assignment for blazed a trail for generations of talented When her family moved to New the National Era, she became the second women to follow. Brighton, Pennsylvania, she enrolled female reporter to cover the House of To access digital copies of Grace in the Greenwood Institute. The school Representatives. On the editorial side, Greenwood’s writing go to The most likely inspired her choice of “Grace she helped prepare Harriet Beecher Gutenburg Project at www.gutenberg.org/ Greenwood” as a pen name. Stowe’s landmark antislavery novel ebooks/author/2057. Sara Jane began publishing articles Uncle Tom’s Cabin for publication. She and poems in local newspapers, under soon broadened her scope further as a her own name or pseudonyms, before European correspondent and first female she moved to Pennsylvania. She emerged reporter for the New York Times. from Greenwood more determined to Grace Greenwood was many things make a living for herself as a writer. to many audiences. For radical thinkers, While writers often used pen names she was an opponent of slavery and a FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 13 Lucille Clifton

education. While working and raising uncapitalized and unrhymed lines. It six children she was writing poetry, was powerful without being ornate, as she’d been doing since age 10. She expressing in spare, direct language her thought her poems were good enough for life experiences and her imagination publication, but wasn’t sure how to get of history, mythology and politics. them published. She could write poems about God and Lucille’s friend Ishmael Reed sent Lucifer, Indians and Africans, her parents some of her poems to the country’s best- and children, her body and her illnesses, known black poet, Langston Hughes, all with the same concise intensity. who selected some of them for the 1970 Clifton was a professor or poet in collection The Poetry of the Negro. By residence at Coppin State College, the then, Clifton had sent poems to Robert University of California at Santa Cruz, Hayden, whose poetry she’d read in Columbia University, George Washington Negro Digest magazine. Impressed, University, Duke University and St. Hayden sent them to the poet Carolyn Mary’s College in Maryland. She was Kiser, who brought them to the YM- nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in YWHA Poetry Center. In 1969 Clifton 1980 and 1988, and won the National won the Center’s Discovery Award. Book Award in 2000. She was the Poet Photo courtesy of Ms. Clifton’s sister, Elaine At the award ceremony, she met a Laureate of Maryland from 1979 to 1985, Phillip. representative of the Random House and the Chancellor of the American publishing company. Later that year, Academy of Poets in 1999. Random House published Good Times, Lucille Clifton died on February Many American children have grown Clifton’s first book of poetry. The New 23, 2010, shortly before she was to up reading the stories of Lucille Clifton. York Times named Good Times one of receive the Frost Medal from the Poetry As they grow up, many rediscover Clifton the Notable Books of 1969. Society of America for her lifetime of as a great American poet. Lucille Clifton’s career as a poet was achievement in American culture. Thelma Lucille Sayles was born on off to a sensational start. In 1970 she June 27, 1936 in Depew, Erie County. began another career as an author of Lucille was a precocious learner with children’s books. Some of the Days of an artistic bent. She enrolled in Howard Everett Anderson was the first of a series University at age 16 as a drama major. about a boy growing up in the inner She later transferred to Fredonia State city. Clifton also wrote for children’s Teacher’s College before marrying television. She shared an Emmy award University of Buffalo philosophy as a co-writer of the TV special Free to professor Fred Clifton in 1958. Be You and Me in 1974 and wrote for As a professor’s wife, Lucille Clifton the Vegetable Soup TV series, produced lived in a fertile intellectual climate as by the New York State Department of part of an active black arts community Education from 1975 to 1978. in 1950s Buffalo. In 1968, the Cliftons Clifton was popular with academic moved to Baltimore, and Lucille took critics as well as young readers. Her a job in the Washington, D.C. office of poetry was minimalist, featuring short, 14 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Marie Maynard Daly

School, where teachers encouraged her biochemistry instructor at the school’s interest in chemistry. After graduation she College of Physicians and Surgeons. At enrolled in Queens College, part of the the same time, she became a researcher City College of New York system. Not at Goldwater Memorial Hospital, where only was the tuition free, but the school she did her most influential work. was close enough to home that Marie Researching the causes of heart disease could commute to classes. She could in rats, she identified cholesterol as an thus afford to earn a Bachelor’s degree in important factor in high blood pressure 1942. and the clogging of arteries. Americans During World War II opportunities haven’t looked at food the same way opened up for women seeking careers since. in science while their male counterparts The chemistry of aging and heart went to war. Marie Daly earned a disease became Daly’s specialty. Master’s degree from New York Moving to the Albert Einstein College University while working as a lab of Medicine at Yeshiva University, she assistant at Queens College. She moved organized research on the effects of on to the Ph.D. program at Columbia diet and smoking on heart health. She University. Mentored by Dr. Mary remained at Einstein College until her Photo by Ted Burrows, courtesy of Albert Einstein Letitia Caldwell, who overcame physical retirement in 1986. College of Medicine, D. Samuel Gottesman disability to become the school’s first As a researcher and professor, Marie Library Archives female assistant professor, Daly earned Maynard Daly became a mentor for the her doctorate in 1948 with a dissertation next generation of scientists. She became on a pancreatic enzyme’s effect on a leader in the recruitment of minority Marie Maynard Daly inherited her digestion. students in fields beyond her own. father’s dream of being a chemist. She Dr. Daly took a teaching job at Among her protégés was Francine Eissen, inspired dreams for future generations as Howard University, one of the nation’s the first African-American woman to earn the first African-American woman to earn most prestigious black colleges. She a Ph.D. in biology. Daly died on Oct. 23, a Ph.D. in chemistry, and as a researcher soon earned an American Cancer Society 2003 but a scholarship fund she created whose work has influenced everyone’s research grant that allowed her to work in 1988 keeps her father’s dream alive life. at the elite Rockefeller Institute. The by creating opportunities for future black Marie’s father was an immigrant only black scientist at the Institute, Daly scientists. from the British West Indies. He won a was at the forefront of research during a scholarship to study chemistry at Cornell golden age in the field of biochemistry. University, but room and board were too She studied cellular metabolism and the expensive for him. He dropped out after building blocks of the nucleus at the same one semester and eventually moved to the time that James Watson and Francis Crick Corona neighborhood in Queens, where discovered the structure of DNA. Watson Marie was born on April 16, 1921. acknowledged Daly’s work when he Marie was fascinated by her father’s and Crick won the Nobel Prize for their science books. Her grades allowed her to discovery. attend the all-female Hunter College High Daly returned to Columbia as a FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 15 Marian de Forest

of women’s clubs from across the country The Zonta idea spread rapidly. By as the executive secretary of the Board of 1923, Zonta clubs had opened in New Women Managers at Buffalo’s ambitious York City, Washington D.C. and other 1901 Pan-American Exposition. Ideas for large cities. They joined forces to raise a club of her own were probably already money for international charities, and stirring. by 1930, Zonta itself was international As a local drama critic, de Forest in scope, with clubs in Canada and also promoted the arts scene in Buffalo, Europe. In that year an international helping bring many performers to the Confederation of Zonta Clubs dedicated city. In 1911, the drama critic became its efforts to community service and a dramatist when Jesse Bonstelle, a further progress for women. Buffalo actress and theater manager, While Zonta expanded, Marian de invited De Forest to write the first-ever Forest continued to play an important stage adaptation of ’s role in Buffalo’s cultural life. In 1922, beloved novel Little Women. Many she became president of a community people thought it would be impossible to theater group, the Buffalo Players. adapt the sentimental novel for the stage. In 1924, she became a co-founder of De Forest proved them wrong when her the Buffalo Music Foundation, which Photo from National Women’s Hall of Fame play became a Broadway hit in 1912. brought a wider range of classical music in Seneca Falls De Forest continued to write plays to the city. During the Great Depression, and reviews for the Express, but her she organized pop concerts to give work most ambitious and successful project to unemployed musicians and was a Marian de Forest was a successful had nothing to do with the theater. She driving force behind the creation of playwright during the early 20th century, saw a need for a club similar to the the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in but her most successful creation, still all-male Rotary Club, where women in 1934. De Forest died soon afterward, on running today, spotlights businesswomen business professions could join together February 17, 1935, but her legacy thrives instead of actors. to support each other. In 1919, she called in Buffalo and in Zonta Clubs around the De Forest was born in Buffalo on a meeting at the Statler Hotel in Buffalo world. February 27, 1864. After suffering an eye to form such a club. Using a Lakota word For more about Marian de Forest injury Marian received private tutoring meaning “honest” and “trustworthy,” she and other remarkable inductees to the for a time, and learned to memorize her named it the Zonta Club of Buffalo. National Women’s Hall of Fame go to lessons. After becoming the youngest Zonta was designed to represent as www.womenofthehall.org/women-of-the- person to graduate from the Buffalo many different vocations as possible. hall/. For more about Zonta International Seminary, she became a journalist. Membership was limited to one visit www.zonta.org. Buffalo’s many newspapers offered many woman for each category of business. opportunities for aspiring writers. De Members were expected to spend at Forest eventually established herself least 50% of their time in business at as the drama critic and women’s editor an executive level. Zonta’s object was for the Buffalo Express. She joined the to encourage friendship and dedication Scribblers, a Buffalo club for women to the advancement of women in all writers. She encountered a wide variety professions. 16 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Agnes de Mille

pioneer Ruth St. Denis perform in contributed to character development California, she wanted to become a and advanced its plot in a way that dancer. Her father disapproved, and seemed unprecedented in 1943. experts claimed that she lacked a Oklahoma! made Agnes de Mille a “dancer’s body.” With her mother’s star choreographer on Broadway. She encouragement, Agnes pursued dance went on to design dances for many of training in New York and London after the era’s most memorable musicals, graduating from UCLA, learning classical including Carousel (1945), Brigadoon and modern techniques as a dancer and (1947) and Paint Your Wagon (1951). She choreographer. also directed entire musicals, including Agnes made her solo dance debut Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Allegro in in 1927. In the 1930s, she began 1947. In the early years of television, choreographing dances for plays in she introduced viewers to “The Art of London and New York. Throughout her Ballet” and “Art of Choreography” in career, she sought a synthesis of classical episodes of the Omnibus series. In the and modern style. Perfect classical 1960s, she promoted dance as one of the technique was less important for her first members of the National Council than expressing personality and emotion for the Arts. In 1965 she became the Photo by Beryl Tobin, provided courtesy of through dance. But while modern dance first president of the Society of Stage agnesdemilledances.com often had an abstract quality, de Mille Directors and Choreographers – and the infused dance with American folk only woman to lead a labor union at the culture. time. Do American images and themes After choreographing Broadway shows In 1975 de Mille suffered a cerebral belong in ballet? Does ballet belong (and occasional movies) for several hemorrhage. She recovered to write on the Broadway stage? Agnes de years, de Mille’s breakthrough to fame a memoir and resume her career as a Mille answered both questions with a came when she choreographed Rodeo choreographer until her death on October resounding yes and earned a place in the for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 7, 1993. Honored by the Theater Hall of nation’s cultural history. 1942. Rodeo wasn’t the first ballet set Fame and the National Medal of the Arts, Agnes George de Mille was born in in the American West, but de Mille’s Agnes de Mille merged classical and Manhattan, New York City on September choreography, combined with music by popular culture to help shape America’s 18, 1905. Her father was William C. de Aaron Copland, created a sensation. cultural heritage. Mille, a successful playwright. In 1914 Rodeo led directly to another major For more information about Agnes de the de Milles moved to Los Angeles, breakthrough when it inspired the Mille and dance read one of her books where William’s brother Cecil B. De producers of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s including Early Doors: My Life in the Mille had established himself as a musical Oklahoma! to hire de Mille. American Theater. movie director. William started writing Musicals often included dance or ballet and directing movies while Agnes was interludes, but de Mille’s choreography captivated by the early movie stars. for Oklahoma! raised dance to a new Agnes dreamed of being an actress, level of importance. While ballet but after watching the classical ballerina sequences previously had little relation Anna Pavlova and the modern-dance to a show’s story, Oklahoma!’s dances FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 17 Gertrude Belle Elion

University in 1941. – a compound that blocked the growth Like women in many professions, of leukemia cells. Her drug, called Elion saw job opportunities open up as 6-mercaptopurine, put leukemia men enlisted to fight in World War II. patients into temporary remission. Elion Wellcome Research Laboratories, a continued her research, looking for a pharmaceutical company, hired her in permanent cure. Using 6-mercaptopurine 1944 as a biochemist assisting Dr. George with other drugs for childhood leukemia H. Hitchings. Like Elion, Hitchings had the best long-term results. dedicated himself to medical research Some of the antimetabolites developed after the death of a close relative. by Elion and Hitchings had the side effect Educated in a racially-integrated high of weakening the immune system. That school, he welcomed women made patients more vulnerable to other as colleagues. diseases, but Elion realized that the same Elion found intellectual fulfillment drugs could save lives if used to prevent working with Hitchings, but felt that the the immune system from rejecting lack of a Ph.D. still handicapped her. She transplanted organs. resumed graduate studies at Brooklyn Rational drug design led to treatments Polytechnic Institute while working at for a growing number of specific Image courtesy of Wellcome Wellcome, but the school eventually diseases, from malaria to meningitis. Library, London refused to let her study part-time. Forced Elion’s methods made possible the to choose between her doctorate and her development of drugs to combat herpes job, she stayed at Wellcome. and the HIV virus. As later researchers Gertrude Belle Elion received the Hitchings’s research team sought to built on her work, Elion was promoted Nobel Prize in Medicine without ever fight cancer and other diseases at the to head Glaxo Wellcome’s department of becoming a doctor. She didn’t need a cellular level. Elion and Hitchings made experimental therapy. doctorate to make some of the 20th a crucial observation: if cancer cells The Nobel Prize Elion shared with century’s most important contributions develop differently from normal cells, Hitchings in 1988 for “discovering to medicine. through different chemical processes, important principles for drug treatment” The daughter of a dentist, Gertrude you could figure out how to block was one of many honors she received. Belle Elion was born in New York City their growth without interfering with Brooklyn Polytechnic, now known on January 23, 1918. Shortly before she the growth of normal cells. The next as Polytechnic Institute of New York, enrolled at Hunter College, her challenge was finding a substance that awarded her an honorary doctorate, as grandfather died of cancer. would have the desired effect. Scientists did Harvard. She remained active as a The loss inspired her to find a cure for could test millions of natural substances researcher and mentor to scientists until cancer by learning organic chemistry. for that effect, but why not create her death on February 21, 1999. Elion received her bachelor’s degree something to do exactly what you want? No one questions her credentials as in 1937. At the time there were few job Before DNA was officially discovered, a trailblazer whose work improved opportunities for women in her chosen Elion studied its building blocks to learn countless lives. field. She worked as a schoolteacher and how cancer cells grew. Her pioneer part-time lab assistant before earning a work in rational drug design led to the master’s degree from New York creation of a synthetic antimetabolite 18 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Geraldine Ferraro

occupation for a female college Her success in a district that voted for graduate in 1956 was teaching school. Republican Ronald Reagan over Carter While teaching in Astoria, Queens, she in 1980 convinced many Democrats that attended night classes at Fordham Law she could challenge Reagan nationwide. School, earned her law degree in 1960 Starting in the summer of 1983, she and was admitted to the bar in 1961. was mentioned frequently as a possible Ferraro worked as a lawyer for her Vice Presidential candidate. At the 1984 husband’s real estate business and did convention Democratic, presidential pro bono work for poor clients in Family nominee Walter Mondale chose Ferraro Court. In 1970 she was elected president as his running mate. She was the first of the Queens County Women’s Bar woman to run on the national ticket of Association. Socializing with lawyers one of the nation’s major political parties. drew her into politics. She first worked on Mondale and Ferraro opposed her cousin Nicholas Ferraro’s campaign President Reagan and Vice President for State Senate. When Nicholas became George H.W. Bush. While Mondale District Attorney for Queens County, he hoped voters would make history by named her an assistant prosecutor. In choosing Ferraro, Republicans questioned 1977 she took over the county’s Special her experience in foreign policy and her Image courtesy of the Victims Bureau. financial ties to her husband’s business. University of Arkansas As a tough but compassionate crime She and Mondale suffered a historic fighter, Ferraro clearly had a future defeat, winning only Mondale’s home in politics. When her Congressman state of Minnesota and the District of retired, friends urged her to represent Columbia. Since she hadn’t run for Geraldine Ferraro didn’t quite achieve New York’s 9th District in the House Congress again, her defeat left her everything she wanted to in life. She of Representatives. Spurned at first by without a job – but the campaign had never became Vice President of the party leaders, Ferraro secured thousands made her a celebrity. She prospered United States, but she made history of signatures to make the Democratic by giving speeches, appearing in trying. primary ballot. After winning the commercials and publishing a best-selling The daughter of Italian immigrants, nomination and the general election, autobiography. Geraldine Ferraro was born in Newburgh she was offered a spot on the powerful Geraldine Ferraro failed twice, in on August 26, 1935. The family moved Ways and Means Committee but chose 1992 and 1998, to win a Democratic to a South Bronx apartment after committee assignments that enabled her nomination for U.S. Senate. In 1993, Geraldine’s father died. Her mother to benefit her district. President Bill Clinton appointed her worked hard and made many sacrifices, Reelected in 1980 and 1982, Ferraro ambassador to the United Nations so Geraldine wouldn’t be stigmatized rose within the Democratic party. She Commission on Human Rights. Until her as poor while attending parochial was deputy chairman of President Jimmy death on March 26, 2011, she remained a school. Geraldine earned a scholarship Carter’s reelection campaign in 1980, prominent Democratic spokesperson and to Marymount Manhattan College but secretary of the House Democratic served as an inspirational figure during a worked multiple jobs to meet personal Caucus in 1981 and chairman of the long struggle with cancer. She had won expenses. She had once wanted to platform committee for the 1984 her place in history just by trying. become a doctor, but the typical Democratic National Convention. FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 19 Ella Fitzgerald

she froze on stage. Fearing to move a toured the world as an ambassador of muscle, she chose to sing instead. To her American music with the Jazz at the surprise, she won the contest. Philharmonic troupe. In the 1950s, she After more amateur night triumphs, redefined herself once more with a series professional musicians began to notice of “Songbook” albums. The “Songbooks” Ella Fitzgerald. She was offered a established Fitzgerald as the ideal contract to sing on the radio, but when interpreter of George Gershwin, Jerome her mother died, the contract was Kern, Cole Porter, and other great 20th withdrawn because the orphaned Ella was century American songwriters. After still a minor. years of improvising and experimenting, In 1935, Fitzgerald sang her singing now took on a timeless professionally for the first time at the quality that remains popular today. Harlem Opera House. Soon afterward, Ella Fitzgerald continued to tour the Chick Webb, the leader of a popular “big world and try new musical styles until band,” hired her to perform as his regular illness and age slowed her down in the vocalist at the Savoy Ballroom. He also 1980s. She earned twelve Grammy became Ella’s legal guardian until she awards during her recording career. The came of age. Society of Singers gave her their first Photo courtesy of LegendsArchive.com As Ella Fitzgerald sang on live radio lifetime achievement award, and named it broadcasts and records with his orchestra, the “Ella” in her honor. Beyond her death Webb encouraged her creativity. In on June 15, 1996, Ella Fitzgerald is still 1938, they co-wrote a song based on identified with the highest standards of a childhood game Ella remembered. American popular song. A case of stage fright led to the start “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” became her first hit For more information about Ella of Ella Fitzgerald’s singing career. By record and made her a star. Fitzgerald and her amazing career go the end of her career, she was praised By 1939, when Chick Webb died, Ella to www.ellafitzgerald.com or www. worldwide as “the First Lady of Fitzgerald was famous and respected ellafitzgeraldfoundation.org. American Song.” enough to take his place as bandleader. Shortly after she was born in Newport She toured the country until the band News, Va., on April 25, 1917, Ella broke up during World War II, while Fitzgerald’s parents separated. Ella’s continuing her recording career. Instead mother moved to Yonkers, where she of being pigeonholed as a singer of worked as a cook and a laundry manager. novelty songs like “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” For recreation, she listened to popular Fitzgerald studied the experimental music on the radio while Ella sang and sounds coming from younger jazz danced along. musicians. She redefined herself as Ella sang in her high school glee an innovative “scat” singer in a vocal club, but actually wanted to be a dancer. equivalent of the new “bebop” style. In Her first ambition was to perform in the doing so, she earned new respect from amateur night contest at Harlem’s famous fans and music critics alike. Apollo Theater. When she got her chance, After World War II, Ella Fitzgerald 20 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Sarah Loguen Fraser

doctor by her feeling of helplessness at Dominican Republic). Loguen married an accident scene. With tutoring from Fraser later in 1882, and after learning her family doctor, she enrolled in the Spanish moved to Santo Domingo to Syracuse University College of Medicine work in his pharmacy. Sarah passed the (now SUNY Upstate Medical University), University of Santo Domingo’s medical vowing that she’d never again be unable exam in spanish thus becoming the to help a human being in need. Sarah was first woman doctor of any race in that one of fifteen graduates, including four country. women, in the class of 1876. When Charles Fraser died in 1894, Her degree made Sarah Loguen the Sarah kept his pharmacy running for fourth black woman doctor in American several more years before returning to the history, but it was only the beginning of United States. She held several positions, her career. She took an internship at the including a residency at the Blue Plains Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia, an Industrial School, but was often treated institution created to give young women more like a servant than a doctor due doctors practical experience. to her race. She continued practicing If she’d been relatively privileged medicine into retirement age ending her before, Dr. Loguen now knew privation. medical career back in Washington at the Painting by Susan Keeter, 2000. Collection of The Women’s Hospital clinic was city’s Women’s Clinic. Syracuse Medical Alumni Association/SUNY understaffed and underfunded. Sarah Dr. Fraser’s death on April 9, 1933 Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY was constantly on call, doing the work was recognized by a large article in of two people. She would often walk Syracuse newspaper entitled “Woman Sarah Loguen Fraser was more than long distances from calls, spending her Physician, Daughter of Negro Bishop.” a famous New Yorker. She wasn’t just money on food instead of streetcar fare. In Santo Domingo, flags were lowered one of the first black women doctors Throughout her internship, she assured to half-mast in her honor. In later years, in America, but was a pioneer for her her family that she could stand the Americans also recognized her place profession in two countries. pressure, and she won the affection of in medical history. A street on her Fraser’s father was a famous New patients who called her “Miss Doc.” old Syracuse campus, and a medical Yorker in his own right. The Rev. Jermain In 1878, Dr. Loguen moved to the scholarship bear her name, and an annual Wesley Loguen escaped from slavery New England Hospital for Women and Sarah Loguen Fraser Day celebrates her to become the main conductor of the Children in Boston. In 1882, she became pioneering achievements at home and Underground Railroad in Syracuse, as the first black woman to set up a private abroad. well as a bishop in the African Methodist medical practice in Washington D.C. The To learn more about general health Episcopal Church. His fifth child, nation’s most prominent black leader, and fitness go to the Body and Mind, a Sarah Marinda Loguen was born into a Frederick Douglass, personally hung her family friendly website by the Centers for relatively privileged position for black shingle for her. Disease Control and Prevention at www. children on Jan. 29, 1850. As a young Related to the Loguens by marriage, bam.gov. girl Sarah helped care for the fugitive Douglass now played matchmaker by slaves that passed through her family introducing Sarah Loguen to Dr. Charles home. Fraser, a pharmacist who practiced in Sarah was inspired to become a Santo Domingo (now known as the FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 21 Annette Joanne Funicello

most children’s shows, where adults were her sing in a one-piece swimsuit. Frankie the stars and kids were only seen in the and Annette symbolized a last moment of audience. Children would star on The American innocence before the social and Mickey Mouse Club – including Annette. cultural upheaval of the Vietnam era. After three auditions, Walt Disney After the beach movie series ended, personally hired the twelve-year-old to Annette Funicello concentrated on being fill the last spot in the cast. a wife and mother. While the young The Mickey Mouse Club was an Annette still appeared in reruns of the instant hit that fall. Annette, known beach movies and The Mickey Mouse only by her first name, became the Club, the adult Funicello’s main show most popular Mouseketeer. After fans business activity in the 1970s was peanut surprised Walt Disney by requesting butter commercials. Nostalgia for the records of a song she sang, he signed early Sixties eventually reunited Annette Annette to a recording contract. Many of with Frankie Avalon for a TV special, her records were hits and she remained the 1987 movie Back to the Beach, and a popular after The Mickey Mouse Club concert tour. stopped production. She starred in Disney In the 1990s, Funicello revealed that feature films and episodes of the studio’s she was suffering from multiple sclerosis, Publicity photo of American entertainer Wonderful World of Color show, but still a neurological disease that eventually Annette Funicello (circa 1975) holding a had time to graduate from high school left her unable to walk or talk. The news photograph of herself as a child star on in 1960. shocked and saddened generations of The Mickey Mouse Club As a teenager, Funicello sometimes fans who had grown up with her, while felt that Disney had too much control her struggle with the disease inspired Annette Funicello was an icon for the over her career. In 1959 she sued to them. Annette Funicello passed away on Baby Boom generation. On TV in the have her long-term contract revoked, April 8, 2013, but Americans will always 1950s and in movies during the 1960s, but lost her case in court. As Annette remember her as a youthful entertainer. she embodied youthful beauty and matured, Walt Disney was unsure of innocence as no one would again. how to promote a young woman he still Annette Joanne Funicello was born saw as an innocent child. She rarely in Utica on October 22, 1942. When worked outside the studio until 1963, Annette was four the Funicellos moved when Disney allowed her to star in to Encino, California, where her father the American-International Pictures ran a garage. Annette began taking dance production Beach Party – as long as she classes at age six and won a child beauty didn’t wear a bikini. contest at age nine. Beach Party was a zany slapstick In May 1955 Walt Disney saw Annette comedy inspired by the popularity of perform in a “Ballet vs. Jazz” show in surfing and “surf” music. Its success Burbank. The creator of Mickey Mouse inspired more “beach” movies teaming had just started out in television and Funicello with singer Frankie Avalon. was planning a new children’s program. Teenagers who grew up watching Annette Disney’s show would be different from on TV flocked to drive-in theaters to see 22 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Matilda Joslyn Gage

While she took part in the struggle than poor, minority or immigrant men, for black freedom, Matilda Joslyn Gage Gage believed in racial equality. She was keenly felt her own lack of liberty as a dedicated not only to securing rights for woman. She could not vote and had few blacks but also to defending the rights rights over her property. Society assumed and recognizing the sovereignty of Native women to be dependent on men, Americans, whose cultures were often but participation in the anti-slavery more fair to women than white culture. movement proved them capable of moral While some women sought the vote to leadership. Gage believed women capable enforce traditional moral codes, Gage of further leadership if given more challenged organized religion’s influence opportunities for self-reliance. That over marriage rights and family law. She included the moral and intellectual founded the Woman’s National Liberal self-reliance that came with the right to Union in 1890 in part to oppose what she vote. Gage first addressed a women’s- saw as many churches’ support rights convention in 1852. After the Civil for gender inequality. War, she became a national leader in the Matilda Joslyn Gage was recognized women’s-rights movement. as a widely-published, sometimes In 1871 Gage tried to vote in a local controversial author and activist when election and was arrested. She hoped she died on March 18, 1898. Her books For women in 19th century America, that the resulting trial would expose the ranged from a survey of women inventors the struggle for voting rights was the injustice of denying votes to women. to a massive critique of Christianity’s cause of a lifetime. For Matilda Joslyn While involved in civil disobedience attitudes toward women. Her vision of a Gage, it was just part of a lifelong she took a greater role in organizing the better world influenced by women struggle for equality and social justice. women’s movement. She was elected influenced another author: her son-in- Matilda Joslyn was born in Cicero, president of the National Women’s law L. Frank Baum, the author of The Onondaga County, on March 24, 1826. Suffrage Association in 1875. In 1878 she Wonderful Wizard of Oz. But the ratifi Her father, Dr. Hezekiah Joslyn, was an became the owner and publisher of cation of the Nineteenth Amendment abolitionist – an advocate for an the National Citizen & Ballot Box recognizing women’s right to vote proved immediate end to slavery. Joslyn was a newspaper. Her lobbying and propaganda that Gage’s legacy would be more than founder of the abolitionist Liberty Party paid off when New York State passed a just a fantasy. and personally assisted escapees from law in 1880 allowing women to vote in slavery as they fled through New York local school-board elections. Further State. Matilda followed her father’s progress was slow in coming. Gage example after marrying Henry Hill Gage claimed the right to vote for the statewide in 1845. In Fayetteville, where Henry ran office of school commissioner on the a dry-goods store, the Gages’ home basis of an 1892 law, but an appeals court became a station on the Underground rejected her claim in January 1894. Railroad for fugitive slaves. By aiding Gage was considered a radical fugitives from slavery, both Gages risked among early feminists. While some prosecution in federal courts and a large women demanded the vote because they fine. They believed the cause was worth considered themselves more intelligent the risk. FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 23 Kate Gleason

Cornell, where she was the first woman president of the First National Bank of ever admitted to the university’s East Rochester enlisted to fight in World Mechanical Arts program. She never War I, the bank chose Gleason to take his graduated, but only because her family place for the duration of the war. Kate needed her too urgently at the factory. Gleason was the first American woman to Even studies closer to home at the be elected president of a bank. Mechanics Institute (the present-day Gleason’s interests and expertise Rochester Institute of Technology) were diversified later in life. As a cut short by business needs. philanthropist and entrepreneur, At the Gleason Works, Kate became she made low-cost housing more a sales representative as well as a accessible by developing a new bookkeeper and technician. While concrete-pouring method that earned her making further improvements on her membership in the American Concrete father’s designs, she traveled across the Institute. She divided her time after the country and abroad to build markets for war between Rochester and the her products. Kate was so determined devastated French village of Septmont, to downplay her gender that Susan B. which she dedicated herself to rebuilding. Anthony had to persuade her to dress She also established an exchange of in more feminine fashion on sales calls. turkey-raising know-how between When William Gleason’s son died in However she dressed, Kate Gleason built Septmont and the model farm community 1877, the future of his family’s machine- her company’s global reputation just of Beaufort, South Carolina. tool business was in jeopardy. Gleason as the development of the automobile Kate Gleason was mourned after turned for help in an unexpected direction increased worldwide demand for her death on January 9, 1933, as one of and started his daughter KateGleason’s Gleason’s products. Auto industry pioneer Rochester’s leading citizens. Today, the career as a pioneering American Henry Ford credited Kate herself with Rochester school she attended all too businesswoman. “the most remarkable machine work ever briefly hosts the Kate Gleason College of Kate Gleason was born in Rochester, done by a woman.” Engineering in her honor. Monroe County, on November 25, 1865. Although she never earned a college Her parents were Irish immigrants with degree, Kate Gleason earned the highest progressive political ideas. Supporters of respect from her peers in the engineering women’s right to vote, they were friends and business communities. She became of the suffragist Susan B. Anthony. It the first woman to be elected to full did not seem unusual for the Gleasons to membership in the American Society of employ their daughter for what many Mechanical Engineers in 1914. In the considered men’s work. Kate Gleason same year, she became one of the first showed a natural aptitude for every American women to be appointed to a aspect of running a factory. Before receivership for a bankrupt business. graduating high school, she became a Within three years, she restored Ingle bookkeeper for the Gleason Works, Machining to solvency and profitability. where her father built machines to make In Rochester, Gleason was recognized intersecting beveled gears. She hoped as a local business leader. When the to continue her engineering training at 24 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Katharine Graham

took a modest job as a reporter on the Vietnam War after the White House San Francisco News in 1938. Soon blocked the New York Times from afterward, her father asked her to come continuing publication. She resisted to Washington and edit the Post’s page of threats of legal action against the Post letters to the editor. and was vindicated by a Supreme Court While working at the Post, Katharine decision in favor of the newspapers. fell in love with Philip Graham, an One year later, she supported Bob ambitious lawyer who was working as Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s a Supreme Court clerk. They married investigative reporting of the break- in 1940. As Eugene Meyer prepared in at Democratic National Committee to retire, he chose to put Philip, not headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Her Katharine, in charge of the Post. reporters eventually exposed President Katharine didn’t object; while she Richard Nixon’s role in the incident. enjoyed journalism, she felt that she Again defying White House Pressure, the knew nothing about the actual business of Post’s revelations helped pressure Nixon newspaper publishing. into resigning in 1974. Philip Graham continued Eugene Katharine Graham also made history Meyer’s effort to build the Post into a as the first woman to head a Fortune Courtesy of The Washington Post Company major paper. He acquired Newsweek 500 company and serve as a director of magazine and new TV stations for the the Associated Press and the American Washington Post company. On Aug. 3, Newspaper Publishers Association. As 1963, he committed suicide after years a writer, she earned a Pulitzer Prize for At first, Katharine Graham didn’t think of mental illness. One month later, her autobiography, Personal History, in herself capable of taking over the family Katharine Graham was elected president 1997. Upon her death on July 17, 2001, business, but when tragedy put her in of the Washington Post Company. Katharine Graham was recognized once charge, she turned the Washington Post Although Katharine Graham served as more for her important role in American into one of the nation’s most prestigious chairman of the board from 1973 through history. and powerful newspapers. 1991, she didn’t become the official For more information Katharine Meyer was born on June publisher of the Post until 1979. From about Katharine Graham read her 16, 1917 at her family’s home on 5th 1963 on, however, she effectively ran the autobiography, Personal History. For Avenue in New York City. Her father, newspaper, learning the publishing and information about the Washington Post Eugene Meyer, was a wealthy financier mass media business as she went with the go to www.washpost.com. who provided Katharine with an elite help of loyal executives. She made all the education at the Madeira School in most important decisions, two of which Virginia, at Vassar College, and the secured the Post’s place in American University of Chicago. history. Among Eugene Meyer’s acquisitions In 1971, the Post became the second was a struggling newspaper in the newspaper to publish excerpts from nation’s capital, the Post. Katharine the so-called Pentagon Papers. Graham shared her father’s interest in newspapers. authorized publication of the secret After graduating from college, she government documents about the FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 25 Elizabeth Jennings Graham

system and for the Society for the jurors’ “peculiar notions as to colored Promotion of Education Among Colored people’s rights,” as one reporter wrote, Children. Little else is known about her forced a compromise award of $225 – a until Sunday, July 16, 1854. year’s salary for Jennings. The judge Jennings was in a hurry to get to her added another 10 percent to the award, church, where she was the organist. As plus legal expenses. usual on Sunday, she boarded a horse- Jennings’ struggle inspired her driven Third Avenue Railroad streetcar, father to help found the Legal Rights along with her friend Sarah E. Adams. On Association, an organization that this day, however, the conductor claimed helped more people sue businesses for that the car was full, despite plenty of discrimination. A succession of lawsuits open seats, and told them to wait for a finally persuaded New York streetcar properly labeled car that permitted black companies to end segregation in 1865. passengers. He said his white passengers Her lawyer went on to become president objected to sharing the car with black of the United States in 1881. women, although none of them said so. Jennings continued teaching, married On the street, both whites and blacks Charles Graham in 1860, and started a protested when Jennings and Adams were family. Her one-year old son died during Elizabeth Jennings Graham, circa 1895. thrown off the car. the July 1863 riots against the Civil Jennings’ church demanded an end War military draft. After dodging racist to streetcar segregation. Her father mobs to bury their boy, the Grahams left A century before encouraged her to sue the Third Avenue New York. Elizabeth Jennings Graham challenged racial segregation on a Railroad and prove that her rights had couldn’t give up on her city for good, Southern bus, Elizabeth Jennings been violated. A white law firm, Culver, however. After her husband died, she challenged segregation on a New York Parker and Arthur, took her case and resumed her teaching career and opened City streetcar. assigned it to junior partner Chester A. New York’s first kindergarten for black Elizabeth’s father, Thomas L. Arthur. children. She died on June 5, 1901. In Jennings, was born a free man. He The case went to trial on Washington’s 2007, thanks to a group of New York City became the first black man to win a Birthday, Feb. 22, 1855. Jennings asked third and fourth grade students, the corner U.S. patent when he invented a new for $500 in damages. Arthur showed of Park Row and Spruce Street in Lower dry-cleaning process. Jennings used his that the company, as a “common Manhattan became Elizabeth Jennings earnings to buy his wife’s freedom rather carrier,” was legally responsible for any Place. than wait for New York State law to employee’s misconduct. A sympathetic liberate her. Throughout his life he was judge instructed jurors that common an activist against slavery and fought for carriers could not refuse “respectable” equal rights for black Americans. passengers, regardless of race. No Elizabeth Jennings was born sometime conductor could deny service to “sober, between 1826 and 1830. Learning the well-behaved” blacks. The only real value of education from her parents, issue for the jury was how much money Elizabeth became an educator herself. Jennings deserved. A majority believed She taught in New York’s public school she deserved the full $500, but some 26 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Marietta Holley

Even though Marietta had to leave “My Opinions” and “Betsey Bobbet’s”, school at age 14 to help support her to the same publisher who printed Mark family, she continued to write, and Twain’s early novels. Sold across the began publishing her poems in the local country by subscription, the book’s rapid newspaper. Like many writers, she used success created a demand for sequels. a pen-name, her first being “Jemyma.” At Stage adaptations followed, as did more first, however, she made more money as a books. Between 1873 and 1914, Holley piano teacher. published 21 books about Samantha’s Starting in 1867, Holley’s work began adventures on the farm and around the to be published in respected national world. magazines, but she achieved real success Marietta Holley was soon recognized when she began writing prose. In 1871, as a powerful spokesperson for women’s she created three characters for a series rights and social reform. She was invited of comic stories: Josiah Allen, a simple- to read or speak before many groups of minded farmer; his wife Samantha, twice admiring readers. Remembering her early his size and at least twice as smart; and humiliations, however, she never made Samantha’s friend, Betsey Bobbet, who public appearances. was constantly looking for a man to By the time Marietta Holley died on Courtesy of the Watertown Daily Times marry. March 1, 1926, her career was already Holley had Samantha narrate the being forgotten. Her dialect style of stories. Like many humorists of her time, writing had gone out of fashion, but she misspelled words on purpose and perhaps more importantly, once women used deliberately bad grammar to recreate had the right to vote, the injustice that the sound of Samantha’s rustic accent. As Holley had so cleverly satirized had gone According to one estimate from one with many rural characters, Samantha’s out of fashion too. hundred years ago, a writer known as clumsy-sounding dialect disguised a “Josiah Allen’s Wife” was once just practical, common-sense mentality that For more information about Marietta as popular as Mark Twain. Like Mark saw through other people’s pretensions. Holley go to https://www.watertown-ny. Twain, Josiah Allen’s Wife was a pen Samantha Allen was a hard-working gov/index.asp?NID=451. name. The real author was an unmarried woman who rejected the double standards New Yorker, Marietta Holley, who used that kept women in a second-class her disguise to satirize American society position. When Josiah told her that for 40 years. women were too “delicate” to go out and Marietta Holley was born on a vote on Election Day, Samantha replied, Jefferson County farm near Lake Ontario “If I am too fragile to handle a paper vote on July 16, 1836. She started writing at . . . I am too fragile to lift 100 and 50 an early age, while she attended the local pounds of milk.” Since Samantha lifted district school. She wanted to become a such weights with ease, readers could poet, but was teased so much for writing draw their own conclusions. sentimental verses that she became very In 1873, Marietta Holley submitted shy about reading them in public. her first book as “Josiah Allen’s Wife,” FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 27 Lena Horne

Lena’s schooling was sporadic. Back partial blacklist from movies due to her in New York, she dropped out of Girls’ friendship with Communist performers High School to become a chorus line and civil rights activists. dancer at the Cotton Club, a major In the 1950s Horne returned to New showcase for black entertainers. Slightly York, where she appeared frequently on bowlegged, Lena realized she’d have television while resuming her performing to succeed as a singer. After making a and recording career. She starred in the brief Broadway debut in the 1934 show Broadway musical Jamaica, while a Dance With Your Gods, she became an 1957 live album was a top-ten hit. She increasingly successful cabaret and big- also honored her grandmother’s activist band singer. She returned to Broadway heritage as a participant in the 1963 to sing in the revue Blackbirds of 1939 March on Washington. As America before touring the country with white achieved greater racial integration, Horne bandleader Charlie Barnet. became an American cultural institution, Horne had already made one movie, setting a record for a onewoman show the all-black The Duke is Tops, and and winning a special Tony award for had been featured on radio by the time 1981’s The Lady and Her Music. Hollywood executives discovered her at Lena Horne continued recording music the Little Trocadero nightclub. Impressed through the end of the 20th century. By For Lena Horne’s family, show by her voice and her looks, Metro- the time of her death on May 9, 2010, business was a step down socially. For Goldwyn-Mayer signed her to a seven- no one disputed her place as a musical Americans as a whole, nearly every step year contract. Very few black performers legend and a true star of the golden she took in show business was a milestone had ever signed such contracts, and age of Hollywood. of racialprogress. Horne was by the far the most famous Lena Calhoun Horne was born on of them thanks to recordings, radio June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn’s Bedford- appearances and USO tours. She was Stuyvesant neighborhood. Her paternal one of the most popular pinup models grandparents were middle-class for black soldiers during World War II, homeowners, among the “First Families” when she insisted on performing only for of Brooklyn’s black community. Lena’s racially integrated military audiences. grandmother was a civil-rights activist Lena Horne’s movie career proved who enrolled Lena in the NAACP at age frustrating. Apart from a handful of two. Lena’s father, however, was involved all-black films, M-G-M used her as a in illegal gambling, while her mother specialty act in musicals, designing her strove desperately to become scenes so they could be cut by racist an actress. theater owners without hurting the Both of Lena’s parents neglected her. story. While her performances made Her mother occasionally took her on the an indelible impression on those who road, but often left Lena in foster homes saw them, Horne eventually tired of while she sought theatrical work. Despite her limited acting opportunities. After the hardships, Lena herself became her contract expired, she suffered a entranced by show business. 28 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Charlotte Pruyn Hyde

Over the next five years, Charlotte and House to the public as an educational Louis planned the construction of their and cultural resource through The Hyde new home. Hyde House was envisioned Collection Trust. The Trust guaranteed as part of a complex overlooking the that Hyde House would endure after paper mill and including the homes of her death as a center for the study and Charlotte’s sisters. The architect enjoyment of fine art. Henry Forbes Bigelow designed Hyde Charlotte Pruyn Hyde died on House in the American Renaissance style, August 28, 1963. Before the end of emulating an Italian villa. The Hydes paid the year, Hyde House was opened to special attention to the house’s lighting the general public as the home of The schemes. Windows and skylights were Hyde Collection. It was placed on the designed, and mirrors and chandeliers National Register of Historic Places in installed, to put each piece of the growing 1984. Today, The Hyde Collection serves art collection in the best possible light. the public as a museum and a living Upon completing Hyde House, memorial of Charlotte Pruyn Hyde’s Charlotte and Louis increased the pace contributions to art history and the history of their collecting. Leading art historians of her community. advised the Hydes on their important purchases by Italian Renaissance masters, When Charlotte Pruyn Hyde built a by Rembrandt and others in the Dutch home for her family, she knew that she tradition, and from an expanding range of was also building a legacy. Designed to periods and cultures. house her art collection, Hyde House was From the beginning, the Hydes destined to be shared with the world. envisioned their collection as a cultural Born in 1867, Charlotte Pruyn was the legacy to share with the public. During eldest daughter of Samuel Pruyn of Glens Louis Hyde’s lifetime, the family held Falls. As the owner of extensive logging exhibitions from their collection at the interests and a co-founder of the Finch, Crandall Public Library. After Louis’s Pruyn & Co. paper mill, Pruyn could death on September 25, 1934, Charlotte afford to give his children a highly Pruyn Hyde began to transform Hyde cultured education. Art appreciation was House into a public art showcase. an important part of Charlotte’s finishing- While spending much of her time in school education in Boston, where New York City, Charlotte opened Hyde she met the Harvard law student Louis House to art tours starting in 1937. One Fiske Hyde. After a long courtship, year later, she formally created The Hyde Charlotte married Louis in 1901. Collection and began expanding the In 1907, Samuel Pruyn invited Louis collection to include more American to join Finch, Pruyn & Co. as its vice and 20th century art. She also hosted art president. Louis accepted the offer, classes at Hyde House, often observing moving his family to Glens Falls and the students at work. reuniting Charlottewith her father and In 1952 Charlotte dedicated Hyde sisters. FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 29 Rosalie Jones

to lose interest in women’s suffrage. or wagon generated plenty of publicity Along with Harriet Stanton Blatch, the for the movement. So did trying newer daughter of founding suffragist Elizabeth modes of travel. On May 30, 1913, Jones Cady Stanton, and Elisabeth Freeman, a flew in a biplane over Staten Island, British activist, she believed in staging dropping leaflets to the people below high-profile events to demonstrate the during an air show. continued strength and determination of The dramatic events staged by Rosalie the women’s movement. Jones and other suffragettes heightened In 1911, Rosalie Jones joined Harriet the nation’s awareness of the women’s Blatch in a women’s-rights demonstration movement in the decade before the on Wall Street. Hecklers pelted them Nineteenth Amendment granted all with eggs and tomatoes. Undeterred, American women the right to vote. Jones became the president of the Nassau By 1920, Jones had resumed her legal County branch of the National American studies. She moved to Washington D.C., Woman Suffrage Association in 1912, graduated from the Washington College and embarked with Elisabeth Freeman of Law and Georgetown University, and on a horse-and-wagon tour of Suffolk became one of the first women to pass the County. local bar exam. She married U. S. Senator “General Jones” pictured at right, leading Jones and Freeman chose a wagon Clarence Dill from Washington and supporters on a march. over an automobile because the slower became President of the Congressional pace gave them more time to talk to Wives’ Club in the 1930s. people along the way. They toured Rosalie Jones lived a mostly private When Rosalie Jones died in 1978, Ohio in similar fashion later in 1912. life on Long Island after divorcing her most of her old Long Island neighbors Newspapers began to portray Jones, who husband. She lived long enough to be knew her only as an eccentric woman had supposedly done little but play tennis nearly forgotten, but historians have who raised goats on her family estate. before, as a leading American suffragette. begun to restore “General” Jones’s place Few knew that, nearly 70 years earlier, She acknowledged her new role by in America’s long struggle for equal Jones had been a flamboyant “General” calling herself “General” Jones. rights. of the women’s suffrage movement. The “General” gained national Born in 1883 to a wealthy family in attention in December 1912 by leading To learn about Rosalie Jones and the the Laurel Hollow district of Oyster Bay, a “Pilgrim Army” on a 13-day march Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 go Long Island, Rosalie Gardiner Jones from the Bronx to Albany to deliver pro- to http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9803/ aspired to a law career. She graduated suffrage petitions to the state legislature. suffrage.html . from Adelphi College and the Brooklyn In February 1913 she led a march from Law School before joining the struggle Newark to Washington, D.C. to join for women’s right to vote. a major women’s-suffrage parade. Rosalie may have been rebelling Cartoonists compared her to George against her mother, who belonged Washington crossing the Delaware. Her to the New York State Anti-Suffrage mother scoffed at it all, but never tried to Association. Like many suffragettes, stop her. Rosalie didn’t want the general public Traveling hundreds of miles by foot 30 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Mary Edmonia Lewis

York Central College in McGrawville and and she chose ancient subjects for her Oberlin College in Ohio. most ambitious works. She reached the Oberlin was a progressive school for peak of her international fame when its time, where women studied alongside she exhibited a massive neo-classical men of all races. Despite the tolerant piece, The Death of Cleopatra, at the environment, Lewis faced persecution Philadelphia Centennial Exposition when people blamed her for the poisoning of 1876. President Ulysses S. Grant of two white classmates. The case was was so impressed by her talent that he dismissed for lack of evidence, but Lewis commissioned her to sculpt his portrait. was later accused of stealing art supplies In Europe and America, she earned and was forced to leave Oberlin. She thousands of dollars from commissions moved to Boston, where she claimed that ranging from portrait busts to altarpieces a statue of Benjamin Franklin inspired and tombstone sculptures. her to become a sculptor. She studied Lewis’s fortunes changed with under a local artist but was largely self- changing tastes in art. As modern art taught. Encouraged by Boston’s anti- moved away from realism and classical slavery community, Lewis began to make influences, Lewis’ work fell out of money by sculpting subjects popular fashion. Lewis herself fell into such National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian with her patrons. She created a medallion obscurity that scholars could not verify honoring the anti-slavery fighter John when she died until more than a century Brown and busts of Robert Gould Shaw after her passing on September 7, 1907. who commanded the first black combat By the time researchers found her grave unit of the Civil War. The earnings from in London, Mary Edmonia Lewis had Many 19th century Americans were these works enabled her to continue her already been rediscovered as a pioneer surprised to discover that one of their training in Europe. black female artist. She and her work country’s best sculptors was a woman In Italy, Lewis joined a colony of have been restored to their rightful places of color. Even in the 21st century, Mary American women sculptors and other in the history of American art. Edmonia Lewis’s success at overcoming artists. She was still exceptional as a obstacles continues to surprise us. black woman but didn’t feel singled Sources disagree over where and out for her color as she did in the U.S. when Mary was born. Most say she was Europeans were more willing to judge her born on July 4, in either 1844 or 1845, simply as an artist rather than as a black in Greenbush, the present-day town artist. But as she perfected her craft, her of Rensselaer. Her father was a free work became popular in both Europe and black man while her mother was Native America. American, either full-blooded Ojibway As Edmonia Lewis matured as a or of mixed ancestry. Orphaned by age sculptor, her interests moved beyond the 4, she was raised by her mother’s family. anti-slavery and patriotic subject matter Her older brother Samuel went west and popular with American patrons. Her later made enough money as a gold prospector neo-classical style was inspired by the to pay for Edmonia’s education at New sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome, FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 31 Sybil Ludington

American spies from British-occupied turned down because she lacked proper parts of New York. Sybil and her younger documentation of her marriage. She died sister Rebecca took an active part in their on February 26, 1839, and was buried father’s cause as armed sentries guarding under her maiden name, with her first against raids from forces loyal to Britain. name spelled “Sibbell.” For the next forty Col. Ludington knew he could depend years, she vanished from history. on Sybil when he received news on April Martha J. Lamb, the editor of 26, 1777, that a large British force had the Magazine of American History, landed at Compo Beach, Connecticut to rediscovered Sybil Ludington in the seize nearby Danbury. He was ordered 1870s. She described Sybil’s ride to summon his troops at once to help and her sentry duty for her father, retake the town, but his men were at their possibly for the first time in print, in homes throughout the region. He needed the multivolume History of the City someone to ride through the region that of New York, published between 1877 night to alert them. Sybil accepted the and 1881. Lamb’s account was cited by mission. She rode more than 40 miles other writers for years to come. It was at top speed in dangerous conditions to retold more dramatically in William rouse troops from Fredericksburgh south Fletcher Johnson’s 1907 biography of From the archives of the to Carmel and Mahopac, then north to Col. Ludington. While some questioned Seneca Falls Historical Society Stormville. Ludington’s 400 men soon the truth of the story, Sybil became more joined the pursuit of the British forces widely known as a “female Paul Revere,” that had left Danbury and fought the and her story became part of Hudson Americans at Ridgefield. Reinforced by Valley’s heritage. Many acts of heroism by ordinary Ludington and other militia troops, the A statue was built in Sybil’s honor Americans during the Revolutionary Americans drove the British back to their in the 1930s, and stories about her War have been forgotten over time. In boats. appeared in magazines and newspapers some cases, a deed long forgotten has Later, Sybil and Rebecca would take as the 200th anniversary of the American been rediscovered and a hero reborn. on perilous patrol duties on their father’s Revolution approached. In 1975 the U.S. Sybil Ludington is a once-forgotten hero newly-acquired lands in eastern Dutchess Postal Service included her in a series who has become a role model for young County. After the American victory, Sybil of postage stamps honoring little-known American women. settled into the life of a young colonial “Contributors to the Cause.” By now, Born on April 5, 1761, Sybil was woman. She married Edmond Ogden in Sybil Ludington is one of the best- the eldest child of Henry Ludington, 1784 and moved with him to Catskill. known female heroes of the American who operated a mill in Kent, then part After Ogden died in 1799, she raised their Revolution. She represents untold of Dutchess County, and served in the son, who became a lawyer and a state numbers of women who aided the fight colonial army. When she was 15, in assemblyman, and eventually moved for American independence. 1776, her father joined the revolutionary in with his family in Unadilla, Otsego For more information about the Dutchess County militia as Colonel of County. American Revolution in New York state the Seventh Regiment. According to In 1838, Sybil applied for a federal visit NYS Parks online at http://bit.ly/ family history, Col. Ludington often pension newly available to widows of w93W9j. met at his home in Fredericksburgh with Revolutionary War veterans. She was 32 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Anna Caroline Maxwell

Boston City Hospital’s Training School When America declared war on for Nurses. Spain in 1898, Maxwell volunteered When Maxwell started her career, her services to the military. When her nurses were considered more like graduate nursing staff arrived at the servants than skilled professionals. Sternberg Field Hospital in Georgia, Beside treating patients and assisting their knowledge and techniques led to a doctors, they had to perform menial sharp drop in deaths from typhoid fever, housekeeping chores. Hospitals gave winning the commander’s gratitude and them allowances to attend training helping to inspire the creation of the schools, but the schools rarely had Army Nurse Corps in 1901. enough money to hire the best instructors. When the country entered World Her learning experience in Boston made War I in 1917, Maxwell was considered Maxwell think hard about how she could too old to serve as a military nurse. improve nurses’ training. Nevertheless, she crossed the Atlantic to After she graduated in 1880, Maxwell inspect Allied field hospitals. She lobbied started a nurses’ training program in to win military rank for nurses, and even Montreal. One year later, she became designed their uniforms. The French superintendent of the Massachusetts government decorated her for her efforts Courtesy of Columbia University School of General Hospital Training School for for all Allied troops. Nursing Nurses, where she established a library After her retirement, Maxwell helped and nursing residence while freeing raise funds for Columbia-Presbyterian trainees from housekeeping work. Medical Center’s new nursing residence, She moved to New York City in 1890 which was named Anna C. Maxwell Hall. “When you came here, we did not to become superintendent of nurses In failing health, she was the first patient know what to do with you,” a military at St. Luke’s Hospital, but moved to in the hospital’s Harkness Pavilion, commander once told Anna Caroline Presbyterian Hospital two years later to where she died on Jan. 2, 1929. The U.S. Maxwell, “Now we do not know what head its nurses’ training school. government recognized her pioneering we would have done without you.” His In 30 years at Presbyterian, Anna career by burying Anna Caroline comment acknowledged Maxwell’s Caroline Maxwell revolutionized the Maxwell in Arlington National Cemetery service to her country in transforming the nurses’ training system. She expanded with full military honors. nursing profession. a two-year program into a five-year Anna Caroline Maxwell was born in program that earned graduates a Bachelor For more information about Anna Bristol on March 14, 1851. Her father, a of Science degree from Columbia Maxwell and the Columbia University college-educated Baptist minister, soon University. She expanded the curriculum School of Nursing which she founded go moved the family to Canada, where and put the school on a tuition basis in to http://tinyurl.com/annamaxwell. he enhanced Anna’s boarding school order to hire superior instructors. She education by tutoring her at home. Anna put her ideas in print as a co-founder of returned to America in 1874 to become the American Journal of Nursing and the the assistant matron of the New England co-author of Practical Nursing (1907), Hospital for Women & Children in which became the profession’s standard Boston. Four years later, she entered textbook. FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 33 Nancy Davis Reagan

A college degree didn’t guarantee commission and as a supporter of the an acting career. Nancy Davis worked Foster Grandparents Program. She in a department store until she won a became first lady of the United States small non-speaking role in a play that after Reagan was elected President in eventually made it to Broadway. As her 1980. Reagan’s victory began an era career advanced, her mother arranged of increasingly bitter partisanship in with an old friend, the movie actor American politics. Nancy was widely Spencer Tracy, to get Nancy a screen disliked by her husband’s political test at the Metro-Goldwyn Mayer studio opponents, but remained one of the in Hollywood. The test earned Nancy a country’s most admired women seven-year contract, starting in 1949. throughout the Reagan administration. Nancy Davis’s name soon threatened Nancy Reagan became best known to get her in trouble. In the early years of for her “Just Say No” publicity campaign the Cold War, movie studios maintained against drug abuse by young people. a “blacklist” of talent suspected of She brought her anti-drug message to communist ties or sympathies. People the United Nations general assembly, on the blacklist could not get work in the becoming the initial first lady to address movies. Davis feared that she would be that body. While she represented Official White House Portrait, Library of confused with another Nancy Davis, an conservative values to many people, she Congress, Prints and Photographs Division alleged leftist, and blacklisted by mistake. played a progressive part in the evolution [reproduction number LC-USZ62-94021] She reportedly sought help from the of the first lady into a more influential president of the Screen Actors’ Guild, voice in public policy. Ronald Reagan. After Davis was elected Once the Reagans retired, partisan Nancy Davis dreamed of stardom as to the SAG Board in 1950, she and feeling against Nancy faded. After Ronald an actor but achieved far greater celebrity Reagan began going steady. They married Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s as Nancy Reagan, first lady of the United in 1952, but Davis continued to act under disease in 1994, Nancy earned sympathy States during the 1980s. her maiden name. nationwide. After he died in 2004, she Nancy was born Anne Francis Ronald Reagan soon became a planned his state funeral. Until her own Robbins in Manhattan on July 6, 1921. TV spokesman for General Electric, passing on March 6, 2016, Nancy Reagan Her mother was an aspiring actress and while Nancy acted only occasionally remained a model of class and dignity for her godmother was the famous actress after their marriage. In the 1960s, the women in public life. Alia Nazimova. When Nancy’s parents Reagans joined a new grassroots political To learn more about Nancy Reagan divorced in 1928, she lived with an aunt movement opposed to high taxes and and other first ladies of the U.S. go to The in Maryland until her mother married a excessive government regulation of National First Lady Museum at www. rich doctor, Loyal Davis in 1929. Nancy the economy. After a well-received firstladies.org. Davis moved to Chicago and lived a more speech at the 1964 Republican National privileged life. She attended the Girls’ Convention, Reagan was encouraged to Latin School and graduated from Smith run for political office. He was elected College in Massachusetts with a degree in governor of California in 1966 and 1970. dramatic arts in 1943. As first lady of California, Nancy Reagan served on the state arts 34 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Joan Rivers

up comedy. In the late 1950s female accept Rivers as the full-time host after comedians were still rare and often he retired. Seeing no future for herself at unwelcome by their male counterparts. NBC, Rivers accepted the new Fox TV Joan started at the bottom, working network’s offer of her own late-night talk at a Boston burlesque club as “Pepper show. January.” She later renamed herself after The Late Show with Joan Rivers a talent agent, Tony Rivers. Despite premiered in October 1986. It was the hostile audiences and disapproving biggest disaster of her career. Ratings parents she made it onto Jack Paar’s were poor because Fox reached relatively popular NBC TV program The Tonight few homes, while some potential guests Show in 1960, but failed to make an feared that Carson would ban them from impression. Tonight. In the spring of 1987 Fox fired Joining the Second City comedy Rivers. Later that year her husband Edgar troupe, Rivers began to improvise Rosenberg committed suicide. comedy based on her own experiences Rivers never gave up. She came back and brought new self-mocking humor to with an Emmy-winning morning talk her stand-up act. Slim and attractive, she show. She continued to write books and joked about how fat and ugly she used plays while touring with her stand-up Joan posing for a photo at USO Woman of the to be. In 1965, after perfecting her act in act. She tried everything that could earn Year event in 2001 small nightclubs, she returned to Tonight, money, including designing jewelry. In Source: US Coast Guard now hosted by Johnny Carson. A highly- the 21st century she gained new fans by amused Carson scheduled her frequently selling her designs on the QVC cable thereafter. channel and mocking new generations of Rivers still craved success beyond celebrities on her show, Fashion Police. In stand-up comedy, you “kill” the stand-up. She hosted her own daytime Only her shocking death on Sept. 4, 2014, audience or you “die.” In a seven-decade talk show briefly in 1968. In the 1970s following a botched surgery, stopped her. career, Joan Rivers “died” many times but she co-wrote and starred in a Broadway Joan Rivers remained controversial kept coming back to “kill” again until she play, Fun City, that flopped. She directed to the end of her career, which meant became a comedy legend. and co-wrote a movie, Rabbit Test, that people never stopped talking about her. Joan Alexandra Molinsky was born in also flopped. But her stand-up act grew Whatever people thought of her, everyone Brooklyn to Russian immigrant parents more popular as she started making fun agreed that she had been the queen of on June 8, 1933. The family moved to of celebrities. Audiences often were American comedy. Larchmont, Westchester County, when shocked into laughter by her frankness For more about Joan Rivers read one Joan was nine. She attended Connecticut about herself and others. Her confiding of her books or visit her website at www. College before earning a Bachelor’s words, “Can we talk?” became a national joanrivers.com. degree in English from Barnard College catchphrase in the 1980s. in 1954. By 1986 Rivers seemed near the Joan worked in New York department peak of success, hosting Tonight several stores while hoping for a break on weeks a year during Carson’s vacations. Broadway as an actress or writer. When Despite her strong ratings, Carson the break didn’t come, she tried stand- doubted whether his audience would FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 35 Isabel Sandford

support three children born in an unhappy husband, George Jefferson. marriage. In 1960 with $700 in savings In 1974 Lear decided that the Jefferson she left her husband and moved with her characters deserved their own show. children to California. She saw the move Thanks to their dry-cleaning business, as her last chance to succeed as George and Louise moved from an actress. Archie Bunker’s working-class Queens The move eventually paid off. In 1963 neighborhood to a “deluxe apartment in the veteran actress Tallulah Bankhead the sky.” In keeping with a long situation cast Sanford as Gertrude, a maid, for her comedy tradition, “Weezy” was the national tour in George Oppenheimer’s level-headed wife who defused crises comedy Here Today. The role was created by her husband’s temper. Isabel small and stereotyped but gave her Sanford and Sherman Hensley became important exposure across the country. two of TV’s most popular stars once A bigger opportunity came when actor- The Jeffersons premiered on January 18, director Frank Silvera cast her in James 1975. The show quickly became more Baldwin’s The Amen Corner. As the popular than All in the Family. At its ambitious Sister Moore, Sanford made peak, in 1980, it was the third highest her Broadway debut on April 15, 1965. rated program on television. The next Courtesy of Lemack & Company Management Among those who saw her was Stanley year, Sanford became the first black and Joyce Brock Photography Kramer, the director of hit films from the woman to win the Emmy award for serious Inherit the Wind to the comic It’s Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. He cast Series. The popular TV series The Jeffersons Sanford in the 1967 movie Guess Who’s Until her death on July 9, 2004, celebrated the success of hard-working Coming to Dinner? The comedy about Isabel Sanford continued to play Louise black families. Louise Jefferson’s rise an interracial romance starred Sidney Jefferson in commercials, stage plays and to wealth on the show mirrored the long Poitier, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer guest spots on other programs. She never climb to success of the woman who Tracy. Sanford played Tillie, a maid who found another role to match “Weezy,” played her, Isabel Sanford. disliked the idea of interracial marriage. but that was enough to secure her spot in Eloise Gwendolyn Sanford was born The film’s popularity meant that more television history. in Harlem on August 29, 1917. She was people than ever before saw Isabel the only child in the family to survive Sanford. infancy. While attending high school Sanford made her TV debut in 1968 she wanted to become an actress. She and began appearing frequently. Her performed in secret because her mother biggest break came when producer considered show business immoral. Her Norman Lear cast her as Archie Bunker’s mother’s death forced her to take her new neighbor on his TV comedy All in mother’s place as a cleaning woman the Family. She made her debut as Louise to make ends meet. Eventually, calling Jefferson in the show’s eighth episode, herself Isabel, she found work with the first broadcast on March 2, 1971. More American Negro Theater and other acting than two years later, the actor Sherman companies while working daytime jobs to Hensley first appeared as Louise’s 36 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Blanche Stuart Scott

same thing. She convinced the Willys- or later,” and consciously risked death Overland company to let her drive one of in specialty “death dives” that thrilled their vehicles from New York City to San audiences. But by the age of 30 she had Francisco. Scott would prove that a grown sick of people expecting her to woman could drive and maintain a car crash and quit stunt flying. as well as a man, while Willys-Overland Blanche Stuart Scott started a new would prove the durability of their cars. career in the entertainment industry. With one traveling companion, Scott She worked on movie and radio scripts set out in the “Lady Overland” on May in Hollywood, then became a popular 16, 1910. She reached San Francisco on radio personality on the “Rambling With July 23. Newspapers across the country Roberta” show back in Rochester. For the reported on her progress and celebrated rest of her life she cultivated her place her success. By the time she wrote a book in transportation history as a museum about the trip for Willys-Overland, consultant and a regular subject for media she was seeking new adventures in interviews. A decade after her death on the air. January 12, 1970, she was honored on a Historians don’t know whether Scott U.S. postage stamp as a woman who rode was the first woman to fly an airplane. over barriers to achievement She may have been inspired by a Wright and adventure. In the early 20th century, brothers flying exhibition in her honor Blanche Stuart Scott wanted fame and when the Lady Overland stopped in adventure. An automobile manufacturer Dayton, Ohio. Sometime late in the and an airplane manufacturer wanted summer of 1910, while taking lessons publicity. Everyone got what they wanted on the ground from airplane pioneer – and Scott made history as a Glenn Curtiss, her plane briefly took technological pioneer for women. off. In October Curtiss added her to his The daughter of a successful promotional flying team. Scott quit after Rochester hoof-paste manufacturer, getting married in January 1911, but soon Blanche Stuart Scott was born on April returned to the air as an exhibition flier 8, 1885. She grew up a “tomboy,” and test pilot. While another woman, excited by technological breakthroughs Harriet Quimby, was first to get a pilot’s in transportation. She learned to drive license, Scott was hailed as the “first an automobile in her teens, and her American woman who can really fly” and enrollment in a genteel finishing school “the Tomboy of the Air.” didn’t suppress her need for speed. As a Early aviation was extremely young adult, she spent much of her dangerous. Scott was flying in an air time in New York mingling with show outside Boston on July 1, 1912, celebrities, and hoped to become when she saw Quimby die in a crash. one herself. Afterward, the mayor of Boston told her After reading about a man driving an that flying was too risky for women. Scott automobile across the country, Scott was told a reporter, “All aviators get it, sooner convinced that a woman could do the FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 37 Annie Edson Taylor

in her old age. birthday, Annie finally got her turn. After In 1900, at age 62, Taylor opened a it was filled with air and sealed, her barrel dance school in Bay City, Michigan. made its way down the falls as thousands When that failed, she taught music in watched. When the barrel was brought Sault St. Marie. Soon she was almost out to shore 35 minutes later, Taylor had a of options and money. Determined not to slight cut on her scalp but walked away become a cleaning woman, she saw an under her own power. She had conquered alternative in a newspaper story about the Niagara Falls. big crowds visiting Niagara Falls Taylor’s stunt thrilled many and For generations, American daredevils scandalized others, but fame didn’t result sought fame by risking their lives at in fortune for Annie Taylor. One of her Niagara Falls. Some used barrels to managers stole her barrel and passed off a cross the treacherous Whirlpool Rapids. younger, prettier woman as Taylor. Taylor The first barrel crossing took place in herself posed for pictures alongside a 1886; the first by a woman, sharing a replica barrel at a souvenir stand and barrel with a man, happened that same made a silent movie about her feat but year. After those firsts, interest subsided made little money from her ventures. She until the Falls became a major attraction died in a county infirmary for the poor Photo courtesy of The Niagara Falls (Ontario) for visitors to the 1901 Pan-American on April 29, 1921. Annie Edson Taylor’s Public Library Exposition in Buffalo. On September story showed that celebrity didn’t 6, Martha Wagenfuhrer became the guarantee financial success, but her place first woman to cross the rapids solo. in the history of American daredevils can In the early twentieth century, One day later, Maud Willard died of never be taken away. American women strove to prove their suffocation attempting the same feat. equality to men. By going over Niagara Local authorities now discouraged barrel Falls in a barrel, Annie Edson Taylor stunts, but a Bay City newspaper soon proved that women were just as willing announced that a woman would top as men to risk their lives for fame. Wagenfuhrer by becoming the first person The daughter of an Auburn flour mill of either sex to ride a barrel over the owner, Annie Edson was born on October Horseshoe Falls itself. Taylor’s identity 24, 1838. She attended the Collegiate was kept secret until October, when her Institute in Charlottesville, then resumed manager, Frank M. Russell introduced her education at the State Normal School her as a veteran explorer and mountain for teachers in Albany after her husband, climber. David Taylor, died in the Civil War. She Taylor’s barrel was made of Kentucky became an instructor in dancing and oak and weighted at the bottom by a “physical culture.” Teaching across the 200-pound anvil, so it wouldn’t be swept country supplemented an inheritance, and off course. Twice over Russell postponed for a time Annie lived comfortably. As Taylor’s attempt due to high winds. He her inheritance gradually ran out, Annie tested the barrel by sending a cat safely Taylor worried about supporting herself over the falls. On October 24, her 63rd 38 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 St. Kateri Tekakwitha

people’s traditional religion. Kahnawake she lived a spiritual life of When Tekakwitha was four years work, prayer and care for the sick and old, a smallpox epidemic swept through elderly. Ossernenon. Smallpox was one of several Kateri Tekakwitha’s devotion to her diseases which crossed the Atlantic with faith earned her a reputation as a holy European settlers and decimated Native woman. It also took a toll on her health. American populations. Tekakwitha She was only 24 years old when she died survived the disease, but suffered on April 17, 1680. A legend soon spread impaired vision and facial scarring. Both that her smallpox scars had disappeared of her parents died. at her death, leaving her a beautiful Tekakwitha was adopted by her young woman. Kateri’s posthumous uncle. His prestige made her a promising spiritual career had begun. match for ambitious young men despite More than 200 years later, the Roman her disfigurement. As she grew up, she Catholic Church began the formal process felt that suitors didn’t value her for of investigating Kateri Tekakwitha’s herself. She grew determined never to credentials for sainthood. In 1943, Pope marry, and would prove receptive to a Pius XII declared her Venerable. In 1943, religious message that encouraged female Pope Pius XII declared her Venerable. Photo provided by Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, spirituality and chastity. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared her Auriesville In 1666, military forces from the Blessed. She was canonized by Pope New France colony burned Ossernenon. Benedict XVI on October 21, 2012 , After a peace treaty was signed in 1667, making her the first Native American to French missionaries visited the tribe’s be declared a Saint. Kateri Tekakwitha was a pioneer figure new settlement on the north shore of St. Kateri is now recognized among Native Americans. While other the Mohawk, near present-day Fonda. as a patroness of the ecology and pioneers are recognized for milestone While guests of Tekakwitha’s uncle, environment. Before her canonization, achievements in life, Tekakwitha has they taught the girl about her mother’s she was widely regarded as the patron been a pioneer in the afterlife and an faith. She responded with enthusiasm, saint of Native Americans. Her feast day inspiration for Roman Catholics of all despite opposition from her extended is celebrated on July 14. Even before she races. family. attained sainthood, her place in American Tekakwitha – her original name means On Easter Sunday, 1676, Tekakwitha history was already secure. “she moves things” or “she who pushes was baptized as a Roman Catholic. At For more information on Kateri all before her”-was born in 1656 in the that time she named herself Kateri after Tekakwitha consider visiting the National fortified Mohawk village of Ossernenon St. Catherine of Siena. She took her first Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, on the south bank of the Mohawk communion on Christmas Day, 1677. Auriesville. River, near present-day Auriesville, In 1679, she took a vow of perpetual Montgomery County. Her father was a chastity. By that time, she had left her Mohawk chief, while her mother was village to escape hostility toward her an Algonquin woman taken captive in religious practices. She moved to the war. Tekakwitha’s mother was a Roman Kahnawake Christian community on Catholic, while her father followed his the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. At FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 39 Dorothy Thompson

York State was just a job stuffing to the novelist Sinclair Lewis, the first envelopes in Buffalo. The campaign American to win the Nobel Prize for for voting rights inspired her to become Literature, only magnified her new fame. an organizer and aggressive public Back in the U.S., Thompson became speaker for suffrage. The efforts of many a columnist for the prestigious New suffragists paid off when New York York Herald Tribune. “On the Record” granted women the vote in 1917. Now ran three times a week in hundreds of Dorothy had to find work again. newspapers across the country. Her Dorothy Thompson was fascinated by weekly radio broadcasts for NBC by international politics. After World War I the same name reached millions of she went to Europe to become a freelance listeners. She was the first woman invited reporter. Competing with ambitious to address conventions of powerful young writers of both sexes, she sought organizations like the U.S. Chamber of out every possible lead for a story. Her Commerce and the National Association report on a conference of Jewish leaders of Manufacturers. In 1939, Time earned her work as a stringer with the magazine named her the second-most International News Service. She wrote influential woman in the country, after the stories “on spec” while the INS had the President’s wife. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs option to buy them or not. Dorothy Thompson’s fame endured Division [reproduction number LC-DIG- Sometimes Thompson was in the through World War II. Although her hec-26561] right place at the right time. Sometimes influence declined in the postwar years, her tenacity earned her “scoops” no one she continued her column until 1958. She As a young activist Dorothy else could get. She soon found regular was working on an autobiography when Thompson helped give women more work as the Vienna correspondent she died on Jan. 30, 1961. While she influence over government with the right and European Service chief of the made history as a trailblazer for female to vote. She then made herself one of the Philadelphia Public Ledger. In 1927 columnists and commentators, her place most influential people in the country as a she became the New York Post’s chief in public consciousness was inevitably reporter and media star. correspondent in Berlin. Now an expert filled by new generations of opinionated Dorothy Thompson was born in on German politics, she was one of the and influential women. Lancaster, Erie County, on July 9, 1893. very first American reporters to interview For more information about female When her widowed father remarried, Adolf Hitler. war correspondents, including Thompson, Dorothy quarreled with her new In 1931, Thompson didn’t think an go to http://nojobforawoman.com. stepmother. In 1908 Dorothy was sent obnoxious “little man” like Hitler could to live with an aunt in Chicago. After gain power. Once he did, she quickly attending the Lewis Institute she enrolled recognized the threat he posed. The new at co-ed Syracuse University as a junior. dictator resented the unflattering portrait Dorothy graduated in 1914 but didn’t in Thompson’s book I Saw Hitler! and qualify to become a schoolteacher. She expelled her from Germany in 1934. The had to find other work. incident made an American celebrity At first, Dorothy’s work for the of Thompson, who now became a women’s suffrage movement in New leading anti-Nazi writer. Her marriage 40 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Julia Gardiner Tyler

After returning, Gardiner spent the that most slaves lived better than poor winter of 1841-2 with her family in whites who toiled for heartless employers Washington D.C. At a White House in industrial cities. reception she met President John Tyler. The Tylers supported Virginia’s The 51-year-old Virginian, who became secession from the Union in 1861. president following William Henry A former president joined an enemy Harrison’s death in 1841, was already government when John Tyler was married. His first lady had been crippled elected to the Confederate Congress. by a stroke, however, and after she died Nevertheless, after Tyler died in 1862, the later in 1842, Tyler actively courted Union army posted guards near Sherwood Gardiner. Forest to prevent looting, out of respect On Feb. 28, 1844, the Gardiners joined for the former first lady. Later that year, President Tyler for an inspection of the she moved to the safety of New York, warship, USS Princeton. Her father was but did so indirectly, via Bermuda, rather one of seven people killed when one than swear allegiance to the Union. of the Princeton’s guns exploded. Four In New York, Tyler openly expressed months later, on June 26, she married the support for the Confederacy. She president in a private ceremony in New protested in the New York Post when Oil portrait of Julia Gardiner Tyler by Francesco York City. Union troops finally overran Sherwood Anelli, White House Collection Julia Gardiner Tyler embraced the role Forest in 1864. In 1865, her Staten Island of first lady, although she preferred the home was ransacked amid rumors that title “Lady Presidentress.” She saw her she had flown the Confederate flag. Julia Gardiner Tyler’s life was part role as hostess for well-publicized White Tyler reclaimed Sherwood Forest after romance and part tragedy. Her courting House balls and receptions. Her most the war. Struggling financially in later by a president was marred by death and lasting contribution to the presidency was life, she petitioned Congress for a federal disaster, and, during the Civil War, she to establish “Hail to the Chief” as the pension. The pension helped ensure turned against the country she served as music played when the president arrived that the years before her death on July first lady. at official functions. 10, 1889 were comfortable. Despite her Gardiner’s Island, where Julia was After President Tyler finished his controversial life, the nation recognized born on May 4, 1820, was owned by her term, his family retired to the “Sherwood her place in history as a first lady. wealthy family, who settled it in 1639. Forest” plantation near Richmond, where For more information about Julia Gardiner was taught to be a proper, Julia would bear seven children. She Gardiner Tyler and other first ladies, visit cultured young woman at Madame now had charge of dozens of slaves. the National First Ladies’ Library online Chagary’s Institute for Young Ladies. Slavery had been abolished in New at www.firstladies.org. Despite her education, she shocked high York when Tayler was a child, but she society in 1839 by posing as “the Rose saw nothing criminal about it. In a rare of Long Island” for a dry-goods store public statement, written in 1853, she advertisement. Her embarrassed parents defended slavery from criticism by an sent her on a European tour while the English duchess. She believed that Great scandal died down. Britain opposed slavery only to divide and weaken the U.S. She also claimed FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 41 Mary Edwards Walker

York, where she worked alongside her ended. husband, another medical student. Mary Walker wanted to continue As a progressive young woman, serving her country, but was denied Walker embraced new ideas about a permanent commission. To honor women’s public role and their public her accomplishments, however, appearance. She became a “Bloomer the government awarded her the Girl,” adopting the skirt-and-pantaloon Congressional Medal of Honor costume popularized by . for meritorious service. She is the Mary herself wrote articles supporting only woman to receive this military the Bloomer costume, and encouraged award. more comfortable, practical clothing for In peacetime, Walker worked as an women throughout her life. inventor, a journalist, and a women’s Walker also struggled with the many rights activist. She continued to advocate remaining limits on women’s rights. In more practical women’s clothing, serving 1860 she was expelled from an Iowa as president of the National Dress Reform college for trying to join an all-male Association and risking arrest for wearing debating society. One year earlier, she men’s clothes in public. She went to trial had separated from her husband, but on one occasion to win women the right Dr. Mary Walker, ca. 1860 - ca. 1865, National because the law defined very limited to wear pants in New York City, but her Archives grounds for divorce, it took her a decade individual crusade made her a fringe to be legally free from him. figure in the women’s rights movement. When the Civil War broke out, Walker As her health and fortunes declined, went to Washington, D. C. to organize aid Walker was stripped of her highest honor During the 19th century, American societies for soldiers’ families. She really when the government retroactively women like Mary Edwards Walker wanted to serve her country as an army revised the standard for Medal of Honor struggled for both equal rights and surgeon. She did volunteer work in field winners in 1917. She died two years individual freedom. While Walker’s hospitals near the Virginia battle lines later, but in 1977 a reappraisal of her individual interests were sometimes while lobbying the government to give pioneering work led to the restoration of controversial, her struggle for recognition her an official commission. She finally full honors to Mary Edwards Walker as made her an American hero in more ways received one in 1863, and was assigned an American hero. than one. as assistant surgeon to the 52nd Ohio For more information about Mary Mary Walker was born to a farm Regiment in Tennessee. Edwards Walker and the history of other family in Oswego Town on November Besides tending to Union soldiers, women in military service go to www. 26, 1832. She received her early Walker often crossed enemy lines to history.army.mil/news/2016/160200a_ education in her family’s common treat sick civilians. On one such trip in maryEdwardsWalker.html . school and attended the Falley Seminary 1864, Confederate soldiers arrested her in Fulton. Mary took advantage of as a suspected spy. She was confined in new career opportunities for women Richmond, the Confederate capital, until and graduated from Syracuse Medical a prisoner exchange freed her. She ran a College in 1855. Her early practice took hospital in Louisville and an orphanage her from Columbus, Ohio, to Rome, New in Clarksville, Tennessee, before the war 42 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Edith Wharton

volumes. She also learned to read French Frome” (1911) in rural New England, and and German as part of the upbringing of a “The Valley of Decision” (1902) in 18th refined young lady. She enjoyed making century Italy. up stories about her family and friends, Divorced in 1913, Edith Wharton but her mother wouldn’t let Edith read spent most of her remaining years in modern novels because she found them France. During World War I, she spent vulgar. a fortune on charity work for orphans Mrs. Jones did give Edith money and refugees. The French government to print a book of poetry in 1879. The rewarded Wharton by appointing her to prestigious Atlantic Monthly published the Legion of Honor. She also worked as one of her poems later that year. Edith a war correspondent, and wrote novels set didn’t resume writing in earnest, during the conflict. however, until after she married Edward With “The Age of Innocence”, her Robbins Wharton in 1885. most famous book, Wharton became The Whartons divided their time the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize between homes in New York and for fiction. She received an honorary Newport and sojourns in Europe. Edith doctorate in humane letters from Yale, began to write again and had a short story and a gold medal from the American Edward Harrison May, Edith Jones, 1881. published in 1890. Most of her attention Academy of Letters for special distinction Collection of the American Academy of Arts and went into furnishing her houses, and her in literature. Revenues from stage and Letters, NYC. first full-length book was an influential movie versions of her stories kept her guide to “The Decoration of Homes” wealthy until her death on Aug. 14, (1897). 1937. Movies continue to be made from The people of Edith Wharton’s When Edith Wharton felt restless, her novels, ensuring that the society she social class in 19th century New York writing was a productive outlet for her chronicled will be remembered as the considered it undignified to write novels. nervous energy. She wrote mostly about world of Edith Wharton. Yet by becoming one of America’s her own New York social circle, which greatest novelists, Wharton ensured that had grown old-fashioned with the rise of For more information about Edith readers would know how her society new wealth. Her main characters often Wharton and her books visit the library. lived. tried to defy the oppressive customs of If you’re exploring online, go to www. Edith Newbold Jones was born in their class while struggling to overcome edithwharton.org. a wealthy home on West 23rd Street the old habits in their own hearts. in New York City on Jan. 24, 1862. Beginning with a short story collection Her parents came from prosperous in 1899, Edith Wharton established landowning families. When their income herself as a popular author whom decreased later in the decade, they critics also admired. Novels like “The economized by moving to Europe until House of Mirth” (1905) and “The Age 1872. Of Innocence” (1921) are considered Edith never received any formal classics of American literature. Wharton schooling, but her father taught her to could also write powerful stories about read from a private library of hundreds of other places and times, setting “Ethan FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 43 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney

Art Students League, she took private As Whitney’s career flourished, her lessons from leading artists in New York art collection grew. She continued to and in France. support artists with contributions to the Gertrude didn’t want her art to be Friends of Young Artists and the Society praised just because she was rich. When of Independent Artists. She built the she began to exhibit her sculptures in Whitney Studio Galleries in 1928 to public, she used an alias in the hope that house modern art, but needed even more her work would be judged on its merit space to display her own collection. alone. Thousands of people saw her Whitney offered to give her collection sculptures at the Buffalo Exposition of for free to the prestigious Metropolitan 1901 and the St. Louis World’s Fair of Museum of Art and pay for a new wing 1904. to house it, but the museum’s directors In 1908, her sculpture, “Pan” won an weren’t interested in modern American award from the New York Architectural art. She answered that rejection by League. When “Paganism Immortal” building her own museum, the Whitney was honored by the National Academy Museum of American Art, which opened of Design in 1910, she finally took credit in 1931. under her own name. Today, two of Gertrude Vanderbilt Library of Congress, Whitney herself had been impressed Whitney’s sculptures are on exhibit at Prints and Photographs Division by the artists she met when she opened the Metropolitan Museum. Meanwhile, [reproduction number, LC-USZ62-79318] a studio in Greenwich Village. While the Whitney Museum has continued to she worked in a classical, realistic style, grow since her death on April 18, 1942. others were taking art in new, challenging It serves as a monument to Whitney’s Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney could directions. They struggled to create a enduring commitment to American afford to do anything she wanted. She modern style while often struggling artists. became a respected artist, but with wealth simply to survive. Many of the same For more information about the to spare, she used her resources to help experts who praised Whitney looked Whitney Museum of American Art go to many more artists realize their dreams. down on these artists, but she used her www.whitney.org. Gertrude Vanderbilt was born in wealth to buy their paintings and give New York City on January 9, 1875. them gallery space to exhibit their works. The Vanderbilts were one of America’s Her own work evolved into a richest families. Gertrude enjoyed dramatic, monumental style. She created expensive private tutoring and attended a memorial to the Titanic, and created the prestigious Brearley School before powerful monuments to the soldiers of marrying Harry Payne Whitney, a World War I after performing volunteer wealthy polo player, in 1896. hospital work in France in 1914. She Gertrude grew up amid many beautiful designed a victory arch in New York and paintings and sculptures collected by her the award-winning Washington Heights father. She painted watercolors as a child, Memorial in 1922, as well as a memorial but as an adult, she decided to become a at the spot where American troops first sculptor. Besides attending classes at the landed in France in 1917. 44 FAMOUS WOMEN OF NEW YORK 2 SEPTEMBER 2017 Helen Munson Williams

on herself, but to furnish Fountain Elms, Munson Williams’s tribute to her family the home she and James built on Genesee was gone, the Munson and Williams Street in the 1850s. names had not been forgotten. Fountain Elms was an Italian-style Helen’s daughters, Rachel and Maria, mansion designed by William Woolett married half-brothers, hotel owner Jr., an Albany architect. The Williamses Thomas R. Proctor and businessman furnished it with the handiwork of Frederick P. Proctor. They continued to leading New York craftsmen, favoring build the family’s collections, adding neat and practical pieces to the more modern art and eclectic inventories elaborately designed items that decorated of elegant timepieces to the Munson- many other homes. Williams holdings. In 1919, they resolved After her husband’s death in 1873, to create a public legacy honoring all Helen Munson Williams shrewdly three branches of the family. They drafted managed both his estate and business a charter forming the Munson-Williams- interests inherited from her father. As Proctor Art Institute, which opened to the she expanded the family fortune, she public in 1936. increased her charitable contributions to Fountain Elms formed an integral local churches, hospitals and orphanages. part of the Institute, serving as a house Portrait of Helen Munson Williams, circa 1855 She often surprised workmen on museum that displayed arts and crafts Courtesy of Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts the projects she sponsored with her from the family collection. While the Institute, Museum of Art, Utica knowledge of building materials and Munson-Williams Memorial fell into interior design. disrepair, Fountain Elms was restored At the same time, Mrs. Williams and reopened as part of a vastly expanded Nothing remains of the memorial expanded the arts and crafts collections Institute in 1960. Helen Munson Williams originally of Fountain Elms. She renovated the The Munson-Williams-Proctor Art planned for her family. While her most mansion in 1876, and stocked it with Institute combines one of the nation’s ambitious project is long gone, a more items purchased during a two-year leading museums of 19th century lasting memorial remains in the form of European tour with her daughters in decorative arts with a diverse fine art her own home. 1888. collection and acclaimed instructional Born on Aug. 28, 1824, Helen In later life, Helen Munson Williams programs. Fountain Elms is an enduring Elizabeth Munson was the daughter of wanted to leave behind a permanent memorial to Helen Munson Williams’s Alfred Munson, one of Utica’s most public tribute to her father and husband. role as a philanthropist patron of the successful early manufacturers. She was She commissioned the construction of American arts. educated at the Utica Female Academy a Munson-Williams Memorial building For more information about the before marrying James Watson Williams, to house the Oneida Historical Society, Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute a prominent lawyer, in 1846. but didn’t live to see it finished. She died go to www.mwpai.org. As James’s career flourished, including on March 13, 1894, two years before the a term as mayor, Helen Munson Williams memorial opened its doors. earned a reputation for modesty in spite After deteriorating during the 1950s, of her wealth. When she spent money, the Munson-Williams Memorial was it wasn’t to lavish fine clothes or jewelry demolished in July 1966. While Helen