EDITH WHARTON (quill or biro?)- was the first female Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, earning this prestigious award for her 1920 work, “The Age of Innocence”. Her overall literary works comprising more than 20 novels, 3 volumes of poetry, 16 works of short stories and 11 works of non-fiction. Before she turned 10, this future prolific writer travelled all over Europe with her parents, she could speak several languages frequently and sold her first work when she was just 15. Later in her life, moved to France, working tirelessly for the French war effort, unemployed women, homeless children and refugees. What a fascinating woman. All that in addition to her writing and picking up Pulitzer Prize along the way.
GERTRUDE EDERLE (itsy bitsy teenie weenie?)- was the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926, with a record of 13 hours and 20 minutes standing until 1950. She was an Olympic medalist, held the world record in 5 different events at one stage, and broke 8 world records in her chosen stroke- freestyle. This American born mermaid did her swimming training at a time when the women’s swimming was not still recognized as a sport. She spent the rest of her life teaching swimming to children, giving back to the world all that she herself earned.
ANNIE KOPCHOPSKY (new woman?)- First woman to bicycle around the world in 1895. The Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company offered her the chance of carrying an advertisement on the pushbike, and paying her US$ 5000 if she could do it within 15 months. She grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Some of the places she visited in this amazing journey are Boston, Chicago, New York, Paris, Marseille, Egypt, Jerusalem, Yemen, Vietnam, Singapore and Colombo-all within the allotted time slot. Although she tasted fame for several years after her epic journey, she was content from that time to live out the rest of her life in comfortable obscurity- and, quite possibly, with a sore bottom as well.
CHARLOTTE COOPER (Laurel Leaves?)- She won 5 Wimbledon championships, and the world’s first female Olympic Champion. Her fifth Wimbledon title was won at the age of 37, when, by then, she had 2 children. At 42, she went on to win her first doubles championship, and followed this up the following year by winning the mixed doubles. She was also runner-up on seven different occasions as well. Most amazingly of all, continued to play competitive tennis until she was well into her fifties. She had gone deaf at the age of 26 and this had the added disadvantage of not able to hear the smack of the balls that were hit by her opponents off their racquets to give herself time to react,but having to rely on vision only. A true champion through and through.
ALOHA WANDERWELL (most, widely travelled?)-This lecturer and film maker was the first woman to circle the globe in an automobile, starting at the age of 16, in a Ford Model-T. She recorded her adventures on film, which include the first footage of Bororo people of Brazil. She journeyed 380,000 miles to 80 countries in the 1920s with her husband. She also became a member of French Foreign Legion.
ADA LOVELACE (enchantress of numbers?)- Wrote the first published computer program. Her program to compute Bernoulli numbers was published in “Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs”. More precisely, it was an algorithm, tailored to run on the Analytical Engine designed by Charles Babbage, regarded as the world’s first computer, at least in theory. Alas, the machine was never built, and her code never tested.
AMELIA EARHART (queen of the air?)- First female pilot to fly solo over the Atlantic. She was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. Whilst attempting the circumnavigate the globe in 1937, her plane disappeared over the Pacific never to be found. She is ranked ninth on Flying's list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation
HANNAH SLATER: (a stich in time?)-This early American pioneer and inventor wanted to help her husband’s textile business and ended up becoming the first person to file for a patent- a new method of producing sewing thread from Cotton. This was in 1793.
ELIZEBETH BLACKWELL (not so easy to be pioneer?)- Born to a wealthy family, she became the first woman to graduate from medical school and work as a medical doctor in 1849. Although originally worked as a teacher, she began seeking admission in medical schools, turned down by all of them except for Geneva Medical College in New York, and graduated at the top of her class.
QUEEN ISABELLA (new world, possible?)- Appeared in a US postage stamp in 1893 and was not only first Queen to do so, but also the first woman. She unified Spain through her marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon she financed the expedition of Christopher Columbus leading to the discovery of Americas.
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