Mercedes Laura Aguiar was a writer, teacher and feminist from the Dominican Republic. As a journalist and poet, she wrote works that promoted gender equality and Dominican sovereignty, in opposition to the US occupation. She fought for women’s right to vote, women’s right to education, and employment protections for women and children.
Lillian D. Wald helped to bring health care to the residents of New York’s Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century. As a “practical idealist who worked to create a more just society,” Wald fought for public health care, women’s rights, and children’s rights while running the Henry Street Settlement.
Throughout her 45-year career, Betsy Wade consistently proved that gender should not be a barrier to opportunity. As the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the New York Times in 1974, Wade transformed the industry and newsrooms across the nation.
Florence Kelley dedicated her life to social reform. She worked to end many social problems, including labor and racial discrimination. She influenced many social movements in the United States.
The most famous female labor activist of the nineteenth century, Mary Harris Jones—aka “Mother Jones”—was a self-proclaimed “hell-raiser” in the cause of economic justice. She was so strident that a US attorney once labeled her “the most dangerous woman in America.”
Pauli Murray was breaking barriers from a young age. Held back by what Murray dubbed “Jane Crow,” s/he* was a staunch advocate for the rights of women and people of color and fought tirelessly for civil rights. As a poet, writer, activist, organizer, legal theorist, and priest, Murray was directly involved in, and helped articulate, the intellectual foundations of two of the most important social justice movements of the twentieth century.
Eulalie Nibizi is a Burundian trade unionist and human rights activist.
Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková was a Moravian teacher, editor and women’s rights activist. After teaching for several years, she began to recognize the disparities between male and female teachers, as well as between their students. By 1898, she was publicly calling for women to receive equal pay for equal work and campaigning for equal education for boys and girls. In 1902, Wiedermannová founded and became chair of the Moravian Teachers Union, whose goal was to professionalize teaching standards. In 1903, she opened a Girls’ Academy in Brno, hoping to later expand to include secondary education. Because the Austro-Hungarian Empire provided little funding for girls’ education, she held lectures to help pay the academy’s operating costs of the academy. It was five years before she successfully established the first girls’ secondary school in Moravia, in 1908.
That same year, Wiedermannová founded and became the editor of Ženská revue (Women’s Review), a magazine featuring articles on developments in the international women’s movement. In 1909, she retired from teaching to focus on activism and became one of the most prominent Czech feminists, presenting more than a hundred lectures during her career. She founded several women’s associations and in 1910 was instrumental in creating a regional umbrella organization, the Progressive Organization of Women in Moravia, which was actively committed to women’s suffrage and the integration of women into all segments of public life.
Wiedermannová-Motyčková was an active demonstrator at rallies and participated in petition drives to secure the vote for women. She participated in international conferences and sought connections with feminists in other parts of her country. From the onset of World War I, her activism shifted to humanitarian aid for the poor and for soldiers’ families.She died in 1915, only a few years before Czech women secured the right to vote in 1918.
Teresa Villarreal González was a feminist, labor organizer, and political activist who supported the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) and the Mexican Revolution (1910–17). She and her sister Andrea published the feminist newspaper La Mujer Moderna (The Modern Woman) in 1910. That year, Teresa also established El Obrero: Periódico Independiente (The Worker: Liberal Newspaper) in San Antonio, Texas, and published articles that addressed issues of the working class and called for mass involvement in Mexican Revolution’s struggle for a democratic government. Along with economic, educational, and cultural improvements for the masses, she advocated for the emancipation of women.
Andrea Villarreal was a teacher, poet, feminist, labor organizer, and revolutionary.