Welcome to A Little HerStory

Hannah E. Myers was born to a Quaker family in Sandy Spring, Maryland, on May 30, 1819. She was the daughter of Samuel Myers and Paulina Oden Myers and one of seven children. When she was 14, the family moved to Ohio. Her father was a teacher at a Quaker School and the family espoused humanitarianism and the equal education of boys and girls. The were also staunch abolitionists, abhorring the use and mistreatment of slaves. As a young girl, Hannah always loved science and

Anne Kingsbury was born on October 29th, 1791, in Rindge, New Hampshire. She married Charles Wollstonecraft, whose sister was Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary was quite famous in Britain as a philosopher, author and advocate for the rights of women, and he was uncle to Mary Shelley, author of “Frankenstein.” When her husband died in 1817, Anne moved to Matanzas, Cuba. After settling in she began a study of the flora of the island. Three years later she created an extensive illust

This is a topic that has always disturbed me. So little attention or credit has been given to our indigenous sisters during the battle to win the vote. This begins to shed some light on the truth of the matter. Thanks to Jodi Foran, from the League of Women Voters, for bringing this to my attention. The example of gender equality in Haudenosaunee society gave 19th-century White women some big ideas. It’s been 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment secured v

Mary Louise Hawkins Was born in Denver, Colorado, on May 24th, 1921. She became an Air Evacuation Flight Nurse during World War II. She was evacuating 24 patients from fighting at Palau to Guadalcanal on September 24, 1944. The C-47 carrying them ran low on fuel and was forced to make a rough emergency landing on Bellona Island. During the landing a propeller tore through the fuselage and severed the trachea of a patient. Hawkins made a suction tube from various items she

Vivian Mildred Corbett was born in Washington, D.C. on February 2, 1918. When her father was deployed to serve in WWI, her mother moved the family back to Tulsa, Oklahoma, her home town. Vivian attended segregated schools and was exposed to not only segregation but ugly racism. Those experiences followed her into her adult life. "As a little girl in Oklahoma, I never imagined I would be able to do anything of any real significance," she said. There has been very little tha

Augusta Braxston Baker Augusta was born on April 1, 1911, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her parents were both schoolteachers and instilled in her a love of reading and learning. While her parents worked she was cared for by her grandmother, Augusta Fax. She was named after this grandmother. Her grandmother told her great stories and Baker loved them. She carried this love of stories, planted by her grandmother, throughout her life. She learned to read before beginning school.

Williamina Paton Stevens was born on May 15, 1857, in Dundee, Scotland. Her father was Robert Stevens who was a carver and gilder, her mother was Mary Walker. In 1877 she married James Orr Fleming who was a widower and an accountant. She worked for a while as a teacher but the couple soon emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts. She was 21 years old. The couple had one son, Edward. She was abandoned by her husband and had to find a way to support herself and her young son. S