Dr Yvonne Sylvain was the first female doctor from Haiti and the first woman accepted into the University of Haiti Medical School, earning her medical degree in 1940. She played a vital role in providing improved medical access and tools for Haitian citizens and was a leading advocate for the physical, economical, social and political equality of Haitian women.
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.
Betsy Thung Sin Nio was an Indonesian-Dutch women’s rights activist, medical doctor, economist and politician. As the daughter of a wealthy and progressive Peranakan family of the Cabang Atas gentry in Batavia, she was encouraged to pursue education, which was unusual for Indonesian women at the time. After completing high school, she earned her qualifications as a bookkeeper, but became a teacher instead because social norms prevented women from doing office work. In 1924 Thung enrolled at the Netherlands School of Business in Rotterdam to study economics, then went on to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate in economics. She enrolled at the University of Amsterdam in 1932 to pursue her medical studies.
During that time, Thung met Dutch physician and suffragist Aletta Jacobs, who encouraged her to become involved in the Dutch women’s movement and the Association for Women’s Interests and Equal Citizenship. Thung became an activist for improving the socio-economic and civil status of women, writing articles for feminist journals in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. After completing her medical degree in 1938, Thung returned to Batavia and opened a medical practice focusing on the health of women and children. She continued her feminist activism and fought for women’s suffrage; when the government proposed that only European women be given the rights to vote and stand in elections, Thung successfully campaigned for voting rights for educated women regardless of their race.
During World War II, she maintained her private practice, volunteered at a local public hospital and opened a private hospital to treat European patients. After the war ended, she became a medical officer for the Jakarta school system and entered local politics. She was elected as the first woman member of the Municipal Council of Jakarta in 1949, representing the Persatuan Tionghoa. From 1949 to 1965, she traveled abroad on numerous occasions on behalf of her country, including serving as a translator for trade delegations and as an economist on fact-finding missions to Russia and China. Following Indonesia’s 1965 coup d’état and the shift away from communism, she was released from government work. In 1968, when assimilationist policies were introduced to force Chinese citizens to take Indonesian names, Thung permanently immigrated to the Netherlands, where she continued to work as a physician.
Selina Seixas Solomons dedicated her life to women’s suffrage and was a key player in California granting women the right to vote in 1911, with the state’s eighth amendment passing by only a 2% margin. California became the sixth state in the United States to grant the vote to women.
In 1896, California failed to pass women’s suffrage – in part, Solomons believed, due to the number of elite suffragists who were not connecting with middle and lower-class voters. In 1910, she founded the Votes for Women Club in downtown San Francisco specifically for working class women like shop girls and clerks. At the club, meals were served and the women were educated on the suffrage movement, with lectures and forums advocating the right to vote and a reading room with literature about the suffrage movement. The clubwomen joined Solomons in canvassing amongst the working-class population.
“We had kept back our womanish tears. Now we gave free rein to our emotions in both manly and womanly fashion, with handshaking and back slapping as well as hugging and kissing one another. October 10, 1911 proved to be the greatest day in my life,” she said
In 1912, Solomons published How We Won the Vote in California: a true story of the campaign of 1911, which outlined their successful strategies, from lobbying to fundraising efforts.
Teréz Karacs was a writer, educator, memoirist and women’s rights activist. She was a leader of Hungary’s early feminist movement, as well as the general social reform movement, and a famous literary writer of contemporary Hungary. A pioneer of women’s education, she founded the Zrínyi Ilona Grammar School in the northeastern Hungary.
Kartini was an Indonesian national hero, a pioneer in the area of education for girls and women’s rights for Indonesians. Her birthday is celebrated as Kartini Day in Indonesia.
Born into an aristocratic Javanese family in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), she attended a Dutch-language primary school. She aspired to further education but there was no opportunity available to girls in Javanese society.
Kartini wrote letters about her ideas and feelings, and they were published in a Dutch magazine and later as Out of Darkness to Light, Women’s Life in the Village, and Letters of a Javanese Princess. Although she died at only 25, her advocacy for the education of girls was continued by her sisters. Kartini Schools in Bogor, Jakarta, and Malang were named for her and a fund established in her name to support the education of girls.
Urani Rumbo was an Albanian feminist, playwright and teacher who founded several associations promoting Albanian women’s rights, including the Lidhja e Gruas (English: Woman’s Union), one of the country’s first major feminist organizations. In 1919, while teaching at the De Rada school of Gjirokastër, she started an initiative against female illiteracy and the tradition of restricting women to certain parts of the household. In 1920 she opened the Koto Hoxhi school, a five-year primary school for girls from all parts of Gjirokastër and of all religions. There is an elementary school in Gjirokastër named after her. On March 1, 1961, she posthumously recieved the Mësuese e Popullit (Teacher of the People) medal.
Born: July 29 1887, Japan Died: 10 July 1980 Country most active: Japan Also known as: 木村 駒子, Komaku Kimura or Komago Kimura (misspellings in American newspapers) Komako Kimura was […]
Born: March 19 1882, United States Died: 9 December 1964 Country most active: United States Also known as: NA Minnie Fisher Cunningham was an American suffrage activist, who was the […]
Abigail Norton Bush was an American abolitionist and women’s rights activist in Rochester, New York. She served as president of the Rochester Women’s Rights Convention, held in 1848 immediately after the Seneca Falls Convention. As such, Bush became the first woman to preside over a public meeting composed of both men and women in the U.S.