Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for The Good Earth, the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China" and for her "masterpieces", two memoir-biographies of her missionary parents.
Frances Xavier Cabrini, also known as Mother Cabrini, was an Italian-American Catholic religious sister. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a religious institute that was a major support to her fellow Italian immigrants to the United States.
Eavan Aisling Boland was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of women in Irish history. A number of poems from Boland's poetry career are studied by Irish students who take the Leaving Certificate. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.
Toni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade, was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor.
Rose Cecil O'Neill was an American cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and writer. She rose to fame for her creation of the popular comic strip characters, Kewpies, in 1909, and was also the first published female cartoonist in the United States.
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was a pioneering Black professional and civil rights activist of the early-to-mid-20th century. In 1921, Mossell Alexander was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. and the first one to receive one in economics in the United States. In 1927, she was first Black woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and went on to become the first Black woman to practice law in the state. She was also the first national president of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, serving from 1919 to 1923.
Jessie Willcox Smith was an American illustrator during the Golden Age of American illustration. She was considered "one of the greatest pure illustrators". A contributor to books and magazines during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Smith illustrated stories and articles for clients such as Century, Collier's, Leslie's Weekly, Harper's, McClure's, Scribners, and the Ladies' Home Journal. She had an ongoing relationship with Good Housekeeping, which included a long-running Mother Goose series of illustrations and also the creation of all of the Good Housekeeping covers from December 1917 to 1933. Among the more than 60 books that Smith illustrated were Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and An Old-Fashioned Girl, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline, and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.
Violet Oakley was an American artist. She was the first American woman to receive a public mural commission. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, she was renowned as a pathbreaker in mural decoration, a field that had been exclusively practiced by men. Oakley excelled at murals and stained glass designs that addressed themes from history and literature in Renaissance-revival styles.
Elizabeth Shippen Green was an American illustrator. She illustrated children's books and worked for publications such as The Ladies' Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post and Harper's Magazine.
Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi was the first Indian female doctor of western medicine. She was the first woman from the erstwhile Bombay presidency of India to study and graduate with a two-year degree in western medicine in the United States. She was also referred to as Anandibai Joshi and Anandi Gopal Joshi.
Andrea Lee is an American-born author of novels, short fiction, and memoirs. Her stories are often international in setting and explore questions of race and culture, as well as ideas surrounding national identity and foreignness.
Fredia "The Cheetah" Gibbs, is an American former professional martial artist, kickboxer, and boxer who competed from 1975 to 2005. During her kickboxing career, she held ISKA, WKA, and WKF World Titles. Before her kickboxing career she was an All-American in basketball and track.
Nellie Neilson was an American historian. She was the first female president of the American Historical Association and the first woman to have an article published in the American Historical Review.
Rosemarie Greco began her career in the financial services industry as a bank-branch secretary; rising to be one of the highest-ranking woman in banking in the United States. She currently is co-chairwoman of VISION 2020, a national initiative for women's economic and social equality that works with affiliated organizations to advance issues important to women.
Rachel Littler Bodley was an American professor, botanist, and university leader. She was best known for her term as Dean of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (1874–1888). She helped found the American Chemical Society in New York City.
Mari Tomasi (1907–1965) was an American novelist who portrayed the lives of Italian immigrants in Vermont. Literature professor Thomas J. Ferraro calls her "the first significant Italian American woman novelist." Tomasi also worked as a journalist and local historian, and served a term in the Vermont House of Representatives.
Marion Benasutti was an American writer. The daughter of immigrants from Northern Italy, she was born in Brandy Camp, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Philadelphia. She learned English in school as a child, and never finished high school, yet enjoyed a successful writing career.
Julia Savarese is an American writer. She was born in New York City. After graduating summa cum laude from Hunter College in 1950, she worked as an editor for various publications. Her novels include The Weak and the Strong (1952), which tells the story of an Italian-American family living in New York during the Great Depression, and Final Proof (1971), a novel about the death of a publishing empire. She published several plays and received a Ford Foundation grant for playwriting. She also wrote for television, and in 1968 received the Hallmark Television Award.
Like Lesser Gods is a 1949 novel by Mari Tomasi about the Italian-American stonecutters of Granitetown, and their dedication to the work despite the danger of silicosis. Originally published by Bruce, a small Catholic press, it was republished by the New England Press in 1988 and 1999.
Sara Hawks Sterling was an American schoolteacher and novelist.
