Women in History Research Essay

For this assignment you need to conduct scholarly research and write an essay about significant person in American women’s history. You are provided with a list of people to choose from below. The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to explore your own interests, as well as to strengthen your research and writing skills.

Provide a brief summary of what the book/article is about, and then provide an evaluation of the text (how is it helpful for your research?).

List of People in Women’s History This list is, by and large, in chronological order. Included are keywords associated with each person to help you decide who you want to consider. This list is incomplete! If there’s somebody you’d like to research not found on this list, please just email the professor to confirm that it’s ok.

• Pocahontas (Native American, early American history, British colonies) • Malintzin (Native American, early American history, Spanish colonialism) • Mary Rowlandson (White woman captured by Native Americans, British colonies) • Ann Bradstreet (early female poet, British colonies) • Anne Hutchinson (White woman, religious leader and reformer, British colonies) • Charity and Sylvia (Lesbians in early America) • Tituba (only Black/indigenous woman accused of witchcraft at Salem) • Rebecca Nurse (one of the many women accused of witchcraft at Salem) • Mary Dyer (Quaker in British colonies hanged for violating Puritan policies) • Sacagawea (Native American woman, early U.S. history post-Revolution) • Abigail Adams (women’s rights advocate, wife of President John Adams) • Phyllis Wheatley (first African American author of a book of poetry) • Sally Hemmings (enslaved woman owned by President Thomas Jefferson who had

several of his children). • Sarah and Angelina Grimke (white women, abolitionists, advocates of women’s

rights) • Harriet Tubman (formerly enslaved woman, abolitionist, leader of Underground

Railroad) • Margaret Fuller (White woman, author, transcendentalist, advocate of women’s

rights) • Sojourner Truth (formerly enslaved woman, abolitionist and women’s rights

activist) • Dorothea Dix (reform leader, advocate for indigent mentally ill) • Lucretia Mott (White woman, abolitionists, women’s rights activist, 19th century). • Lucy Stone (White woman, abolitionists, women’s rights activist, first woman in US

to earn a college degree in 1847).

• Ida B. Wells (Black journalist, author, activist for Black civil rights, anti-lynching activist)

• Catherine Beecher (White woman, women’s rights activist, especially in education) • Louisa May Alcott (White woman, writer, poet, best known for her novel Little

Women) • Margaret Sanger (birth control activist, eugenics supporter) • Ida M. Tarbell (White, writer, investigative ‘muckraking’ journalist) • Susan B. Anthony (White, activist for women’s rights, particularly the right to vote,

never married so she could dedicate herself to activism) • Elizabeth Cady Stanton (White, activist for women’s rights, particularly the right to

vote) • Jane Addams (White woman, settlement house founder, reformer) • Alice Paul (White woman, activist for women’s rights, especially right to vote) • Emma Goldman (Jewish immigrant, anarchist, feminist) • Rose Schneiderman (Jewish immigrant, socialist, feminist, labor union leader) • Helen Keller (White, blind, deaf, socialist, reformer) • Maggie Lena Walker (African American businesswoman and teacher) • Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (White, labor leader, socialist) • Jeannette Rankin (first White woman to be elected to Congress in 1916) • Susan La Flesche (Native American, history of medicine) • Zitkala-Sa (Native American, author, singer, activist) • Anna May Wong (Asian American, Hollywood) • Emma Tenayuca (Latina, labor movement, radicalism) • Luisa Moreno (Latina, labor movement, radicalism) • Josefina Fierra de Bright (Latina, civil rights activist) • Pauli Murray (Black, biracial, feminist, civil rights activist, LGBTQ) • Mary McLeod Bethune (Black, activism) • Eleanor Roosevelt (White, former first lady, reformer) • Amelia Earhart (White, airplanes) • Betty Friedan (White, author, feminist, activist) • Billie Holiday (Black, singer) • Althea Gibson (Black, history of sports) • Del Martin (White, lesbian, feminist, activist, Daughters of Bilitis) • Phyllis Lyon (White, lesbian, feminist, activist, Daughters of Bilitis) • Claudia Jones (Black, Caribbean, radical, activist, scholar) • Lorraine Hansberry (Black, queer, radical, writer, activist) • Christine Jorgensen (White trans woman, received a lot of media attention) • Rosa Parks (Civil Rights Movement) • Ella Baker (Civil Rights Movement) • Fannie Lou Hamer (Civil Rights Movement) • Daisy Bates (Civil Rights Movement) • Ruby Bridges (Civil Rights Movement) • Rosetta Tharpe (Black singer, songwriter, helped to give birth to rock and roll) • Rachel Carson (environmentalist)

• Dolores Huerta (Chicana/Latina, labor leader, feminist) • Gloria Steinem (White, leader, women’s liberation) • Phyllis Schlafly (White, conservative activist) • Patsy Mink (Asian American, electoral politics) • Grace Lee Boggs (Asian American, radical activist) • Angela Davis (Black, radical activist) • Shirley Chisholm (Black, electoral politics) • Billie Jean King (White, history of sports) • Joan Baez (Latina, singer, activist) • Marsha P. Johnson (Trans, Black, activist) • Sylvia Rivera (Trans, Latina, activist) • Iris Morales (Puerto Rican activist, the Young Lords) • Denise Oliver-Velez (Puerto Rican, Afro-Latina, feminists, Black Power, Young

Lords) • Judy Heumann (white, disability rights activist) • Carmen Vázquez (Latina, immigrant and LGBTQ rights activist) • Sylvia del Villard (Black Latina activist, Puerto Rican, dancer, actor) • Karla Jay (White lesbian feminist, activist, writer) • Jeanne Cordova (Latina, lesbian feminist, activist, writer) • Sandra Day O’Connor (White, first female Supreme Court Justice) • Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Supreme Court Justice, legal activist for women’s rights) • Sonya Sotomayor (first Latina Supreme Court Justice) • Maxine Hong Kingston (Chinese American novelist) • Maya Angelou (Black female poet) • Mae Jemison (first Black woman in space) • Audre Lorde (Black lesbian author, activist) • Gloria Anzaldúa (Chicana lesbian author, activist) • Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemalan activist, US foreign policy, imperialism) • Ana Mendieta (Chicana artist) • Wilma Mankiller (Native American, first woman to serve as principal Chief of

Cherokee Nation) • Hillary Clinton (ran for president in 2016, lost to misogynist Donald Trump) • Selena Quintanilla (chicana, one of most celebrated Mexican American singers of the

late twentieth-century) • Stacey Abrams (Black woman, political leader, voting rights activists) • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Latina congresswoman, socialist, feminist)