A monthly list of 25 fun facts, helpful hints and other pearls
of wisdom relating to philanthropy and the development profession
March 2005 Volume 1, Number 7
25 Extraordinary Women
In celebration of Women's History Month and WID's 25th Anniversary
year, we have compiled the following list of women, some are outstanding
philanthropists and others are women who have made a positive
difference in their community and in the lives of others.
1. Dicksie Bradley Bandy (1890 - 1971)
Dicksie Bradley Bandy and her husband, following the failure of
their country store during the depression, bought hand-tufted
bedspreads from local crafters and marketed them in northern cities.
The business later became a vital part of the international textile
and carpet industry. Equally attentive to philanthropic interests
and mindful of the Cherokee Nation's suppression by the state
and federal governments, she led the successful effort to restore
the Chief Joseph Vann House in Spring Place, Georgia. She was
active in forming the first library board in Dalton, Georgia creating
the Dalton Regional Library System, and establishing the Salvation
Army in Dalton, for which she was given the William Booth Award.
2. Lettie Pate Evans (1872 - 1953)
Lettie Pate Whitehead assumed control of her husband's business
interests when he died only seven years after he and a friend
had come up with the idea of selling Coca-Cola in bottles. Mrs.
Whitehead, who later married Arthur Kelly Evans, became one of
the first female directors of a major American corporation when
she was appointed to the board of The Coca-Cola Company in 1934,
a position she held for almost 20 years. She generously shared
her wealth both during her life and after her death. In her lifetime,
she contributed to more than 130 different charities and left
much of her estate to the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation to support
charity, education and religion. She was the first woman to serve
on the Board of Trustees of Emory University.
3. Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840 - 1924)
Isabella Stewart Gardner was one of the foremost female patrons
of the arts. She was a patron and friend of leading artists and
writers of her time, including John Singer Sargent, James McNeill
Whistler and Henry James. She was a supporter of community social
services and cultural enrichment. She was an ardent fan of the
Boston Symphony, the Red Sox and Harvard College football. Isabella
Stewart Gardner was also the visionary creator of what remains
one of the most remarkable and intimate collections of art in
the world today and a dynamic supporter of artists of her time,
encouraging music, literature, dance and creative thinking across
artistic disciplines. In 1903, she completed the construction
of Fenway Court in Boston to house her collection and provide
a vital place for Americans to access and enjoy important works
of art. Her will created an endowment of $1 million and outlined
stipulations for the support of Museum, including that the permanent
collection not be significantly altered. In keeping with her philanthropic
nature, she also left sizable bequests to the Massachusetts Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Industrial School for
Crippled and Deformed Children, Animal Rescue League and Massachusetts
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
4. Kate Gleason (1865 - 1933)
Kate Gleason, the first woman to be president of a national bank,
as well as the first woman member of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers. Kate started working Saturdays at her father's machine-tool
factory at the age of twelve. She went to Cornell University to
study mechanical arts. By 1893, she helped her father design and
perfect a machine that produced beveled gears quickly and cheaply.
Henry Ford credited Kate, rather than her father for this invention
when he said it was "the most remarkable machine work ever
done by a woman". As a result of her business leadership,
Gleason Works became a leading U.S. producer of gear-cutting machinery.
While serving as president of First National Bank of Rochester,
she promoted large-scale development of low-cost housing. Upon
her death, she left an estate of $1.4 million, of which a large
portion was used to set up a Kate Gleason Fund for charity and
education.
5. Rebecca Gratz (1781 - 1869)
Rebecca Gratz was a devout Jew who dedicated her life to the service
of the less fortunate in America. She was born in Philadelphia
into a wealthy and highly esteemed family that supported the American
Revolution. When she was 20, she organized the Female Association
for the Relief of Women and Children of Reduced Circumstances
in Philadelphia. Sensing that there was a further need to service
the needy and the unfortunate in the Jewish community, she organized
and founded the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society in 1819. She
created the Jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum in 1855 and led
in the establishment of the Fuel Society and the Sewing Society.
6. Aurora Karamzin (1808 - 1902)
Aurora Karamzin was a remarkable woman benefactor and cosmopolitan
who devoted most of her life to charity work. In 1830 she was
a Lady in waiting to the Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
Six years later she married the enormously rich Prince Deminov,
who died soon afterward and left Aurora an enormous fortune. She
is remembered for her initiative to give aid to the Finnish people
during the famine in the 1860s. She sold the Deminov Palace in
St. Petersburg and used the money to establish the Deaconess Institute
in Helsinki.
7. Susette La Flesche (1854 - 1903)
Susette LaFlesche was a member of the Omaha Tribe and a tireless
campaigner for native American rights. La Flesche was the first
Native American published lecturer, artist and author. She helped
change national perceptions about the rights of Native Americans.
8. Mildred Robbins Leet (1922 - )
As Co-founder and Chairman of the Trickle Up Program, Inc., philanthropist
Leet assists people worldwide in rising out of poverty. Trickle
Up provides seed capital to impoverished individuals, allowing
them the opportunity to work their way to self-sufficiency. Leet
also helped found United Cerebral Palsy and was a co-founder and
Vice President of the U.S. Committee for the United Nations Development
Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
9. Belva Lockwood (1830 - 1917)
First woman to practice law and argue a case before the U.S. Supreme
Court (1879). Lockwood became a lawyer when she was 40 and used
her knowledge to help secure women's suffrage, property law reforms,
pay equity and world peace. She helped open the legal profession
to women.
10. Juliette Gordon Low (1860 - 1927)
Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of the USA in 1912.
She was a tireless champion of young girls and raised a significant
amount of money to support the Girl Scouts by traveling nationwide
for the cause.
11. Mary Lyon (1797 - 1849)
Mary Lyon was the founder of Mount Holyoke, the first college
for women, in 1837. It became the model for institutions of higher
education for women nationwide. Lyon based her school on sound
finances and high quality education in all disciplines, encouraging
and educating women to reach beyond teaching and homemaking.
12. Bridget "Biddy" Mason (1818 - 1891)
Biddy Mason won freedom from slavery, worked as a nurse/midwife
and then became a successful entrepreneur and a generous contributor
to social causes. After moving to California in 1851, Mason petitioned
the court and, in 1856, won freedom for herself and her three
daughters. Hard work and her nursing skills allowed her to become
economically independent. Mason was also very frugal and only
ten years after gaining her freedom, she bought land in Los Angeles
for $250 - she was one of the first black women to own land in
Los Angeles. In 1884, she sold a parcel of the land for $1500
and built a commercial building with spaces for rental on the
remaining land. She continued making wise decisions in her business
and real estate transactions and her financial fortunes continued
to increase. Biddy Mason gave generously to various charities
and provided food and shelter for the poor of all races. In 1872
she and her son-in-law, Charles Owens, founded and financed the
Los Angeles branch of the First African Methodist Episcopal church,
L.A.'s first black church.
13. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)
Eleanor Roosevelt was a social activist, author, lecturer, and
United States representative to the United Nations, and wife of
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She became involved in the
League of Women Voters and the Women's Trade Union League. The
Great Depression during the 1930s broadened Mrs. Roosevelt's concerns.
She sponsored an experiment at Arthurdale, West Virginia, designed
to bring small-scale manufacturing to impoverished coal miners
in a self-sustaining community. Widespread unemployment, particularly
among youth, led to her support of the National Youth Administration,
a program for youth employment, and of the leftist-dominated American
Youth Congress. She worked to promote racial equality, and in
a famous incident resigned from the Daughters of the American
Revolution when the black singer Marian Anderson was denied the
use of their facilities. Following the death of her husband in
1945, Roosevelt founded Americans for Democratic Action.
14. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774 - 1821)
She was an educator and philanthropist and, with her canonization
in 1975, she became the first American-born saint of the Roman
Catholic Church. She accompanied her husband, William Seton, a
successful merchant, to Italy in 1803. After his death in Pisa
she returned to New York City and, in 1805, became a Roman Catholic.
In 1809 she established the Sisters of Charity in Maryland. Elected
the first superior of the order, she held that office until her
death. Parochial education in the U.S. began with her establishment
of a Catholic school in Emmitsburg, Maryland and she was noted
for her ministrations to the poor and sick.
15. Harriet Williams Russell Strong (1844 - 1926)
With no formal engineering or business school training, Harriet
Williams Strong became a renowned inventor, agricultural entrepreneur,
civic leader, philanthropist, and advocate of women's rights and
women's higher education. Widowed at a young age with young children,
she turned her talent for invention into patents, raised fast-growing
pampas grass and sold the plumes to the millinery trade. In less
than five years, she rescued her family and land from debt, and
became the leading commercial grower of walnuts in the country.
She tirelessly advocated for water conservation and new approaches
to arid land agriculture, for the education of women, women's
independence, and for women's suffrage, traveling across the continent
with Susan B. Anthony to promote women's causes. Mrs. Strong became
the first female member of the Board of the Los Angeles Chamber
of Commerce and the first woman Trustee of the University of Southern
California Law School.
16. Florence Wald (1916 - )
Florence Wald is the former dean of the Yale School of Nursing
and founder of the Hospice movement in America, for which she
was awarded the honorary Doctorate of Medical Sciences by Yale
University in 1995.
17. Lillian Wald (1867 - 1940)
Lillian Wald was a nurse who organized the public health nursing
service and the Henry Street Settlement in New York City to meet
the needs of the urban poor. Wald created public health nursing
services for many groups, and established the Public Health Nurses,
known today as Visiting Nurse Service.
18. Madam C. J. Walker (1867 - 1919)
Sara Breedlove, an entrepreneur, was considered the first African
American woman to become a millionaire. She did this by devising
a hair care and grooming system for African Americans and pioneered
a door-to-door sales approach. The daughter of former slaves,
Walker became an advocate for positive social change as well as
a philanthropist.
19. Faye Wattleton (1943 - )
A nurse and the first African American to become president of
the Planned Parenthood Foundation, Wattleton developed Planned
Parenthood into an influential nationwide organization.
20. Annie Dodge Wauneka (1910 - 1997)
First woman elected to the Tribal Council, she became determined
to lead the fight against tuberculosis among the Navajo. She wrote
a dictionary to translate English words for modern medical techniques
into Navajo, and hosted a radio broadcast in the Navajo language
to explain how modern medicine could help in better care for pregnant
women and new babies and other family health problems.
21. Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862 - 1931)
Ida Wells-Barnett was an African American leader, anti-lynching
crusader, journalist, lecturer and community organizer who fought
social injustice all her life. Wells-Barnett sued a railroad over
segregated seating, criticized segregated education and became
editor and part owner of a newspaper. The horrors of lynching
inspired her to lead a major effort to abolish the atrocity.
22. Frances Willard (1839 - 1898)
As second president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU), she led the largest organization of women in the United
States. The WCTU provided a base for the 20th century women's
rights movement, supporting, in addition to women's suffrage,
broad social reforms such as equal pay for equal work, the eight-hour
day, and the protection of women and children in the workplace.
23. Oprah Winfrey (1954 - )
Oprah Winfrey is the first African American woman to own her own
television production company. As host of the nation's most successful
talk show, Winfrey reaches more that 15 million people every day.
She is an advocate for ending child abuse, and she contributes
generously to colleges and universities.
24. Sarah Winnemucca (c. 1842 - 1891)
Sara Winnemucca was a Native American leader who dedicated her
life to returning land taken by the government back to the tribes,
especially the land of her own Paiute Tribe.
25. Fanny Wright (1795 - 1852)
Fanny Wright was the first American woman to speak out against
slavery and for the equality of women. An inspiration to Susan
B. Anthony and other women's equality advocates, Wright wrote
and spoke out publicly for equal rights for all at a time when
women were not accepted in such roles.
