Through her work as a teacher, Susan B. Anthony quickly became aware of the wage gap between men and women in the profession. In 1848, the first Women’s Rights Convention in the United States, launching the Suffrage movement. She died 14 years before the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Florence Kelley, the first woman factory inspector in the United States, was born September 12, 1859 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to William Kelley and Caroline Bonsall. She led the struggle for the passage for labor and social legislation, including eight and ten-hour day and minimum wage legislation for women as part of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards.
Frances Perkins was the secretary of labor under President Franklin Roosevelt, the first female cabinet secretary, the longest serving secretary of labor and one of the architects of Roosevelt’s New Deal economic policies.
Emily Greene Balch was a social worker, reformer, peace activist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1946. She founded the Women’s International Committee for Permanent Peace, later known as the Women’s International League for Peace of Freedom (WILPF), and was better known for her involvement in activist movements for racial justice, women’s suffrage, child labor, working conditions, fair wages, and, in particular, the pursuance of peace.
Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree around 1797 in New York to Mum Bett and Brom, the first enslaved African Americans freed under the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. During her lifetime, she supported the cause of the Underground Railroad, she provided needed clothing, blankets, food, and recruited African American soldiers for the Union’s only Black regiment during the Civil War.
