Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and inventor who pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems. As a natural beauty seen widely on the big screen in films like Samson and Delilah and White Cargo, society has long ignored her inventive genius.
Affectionately called “R.B.G.” by her supporters, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has inspired generations of women to break gender barriers. Even after facing gender discrimination as she pursued her academic goals, Ginsburg forged ahead and became the second woman–and first Jewish woman–to serve on the Supreme Court.
Amalie Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who made many significant contributions to abstract algebra, despite facing anti-Semitism and being unable to get fair wages.
Hanna Maron was a German-born Israeli actor, comedian and theater personality who held the world record for the longest career in theater.
Ada E Yonath is a biochemist and structural chemist, who earned her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science in X-ray crystallographic studies on the structure of collagen.
Ilse (Intrator) Stanley was a German Jew who, working with a handful of people including Nazi Gestapo members of the Gestapo and other Jewish civilians, secured the release of 412 Jewish prisoners from Nazi concentration camps between 1936 and 1938, before the devastating events of Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938).
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.
Wanda Aleksandra Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist and pianist whose performances, teaching, writings and especially her many recordings helped revitalize the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 1900s. She was the first person to record Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord in 1933. She conducted extensive research on all aspects of 17th- and 18th-century music, and published her book Musique ancienne in 1909. Landowska toured throughout Europe performing Bach concertos on harpsichord; these concerts, combined with her research, and writings spurred the 20-century revival of the instrument and the development of modern harpsichord technique. Landowska also taught classes at conservatories in Berlin and Paris, and in 1925 founded her own school, the École de Musique Ancienne (School of Ancient Music), north of Paris at Saint-Leu-la-Fôret. In 1940, she and her domestic partner, Denise Restout, fled the Nazi invasion of France. Her home in Saint-Leu was looted, and her instruments and manuscripts stolen, so she arrived in the United States essentially with no assets. She went on to re-establish herself as a performer and teacher in the United States, touring extensively. After her death in 1959, her longtime domestic partner Restout edited and translated her writings and music, preserving Landowska’s artistic legacy.
Italian neurobiologist who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).
Dr. Marietta Blau was an Austrian physicist who did pioneering work with the pion, a subatomic particle that is made up of quarks and antiquarks. Even though Dr. Erwin Schrodinger nominated Blau and her colleague Dr. Hertha Wambacher, for the Nobel Prize, the committee instead, awarded the prize to Dr. Cecil Powell for work that utilized Dr. Blau’s discoveries.