Harriet Tubman, American Abolitionist

Harriet Tubman’s accomplishments in the abolition of slavery, the Civil War, and the women’s suffrage movement changed the arc of American history. She was born Araminta “Minty” Ross to Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross sometime between 1820 and 1822 on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland. When she was five years old, Tubman’s owners rented her out to neighbors as a nursemaid where she was whipped whenever the baby cried. Two years later, she was rented out to set muskrat traps and later as a field hand. Early signs of her resistance to slavery came at age twelve when she intervened to keep her master from throwing a heavy weight […]

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Clara Barton, philanthropist

  Clarissa “Clara” Harlowe Barton, is one of the most honored women in American history. Her contributions in education, during the Civil War, and at The Red Cross made a difference in the lives of an untold number of people. Clara began teaching at age 18, founded a school for the children of mill workers, and established the first free school in Bordentown, New Jersey when she was 31. She resigned when she discovered that the school had hired a man at twice her salary. “I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man’s work for less than a […]

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Katherine Stinson, Aviator

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-B2-1234] I don’t enjoy flying—well, actually sitting in an airplane while somebody else flies it is problematic. There’s something about hurtling through the air locked in a metal box that freaks me out. Call me crazy. So when I read about Katherine Stinson, who was clearly unafraid to fly, it duly impressed me. At 19, she became one of the first women in the United States to receive a pilot’s license. One year later, the Stinson family established the Stinson Municipal Airport and the Stinson School of Flying, where Katherine and her sister, Marjorie, opened a flying school, teaching their […]

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