The 120 Strong Women I Know

by Linda Harris Sittig

Back in April 2012, I wrote these words:

Welcome to my blog – Strong Women in History. My name is Linda Harris Sittig, and if you have found your way here, you are most likely also intrigued by the many fascinating women in history whose lives made a difference. I have always been fascinated by the women who dared to be different, those who courageously stood up for what they believed, faced adversarial opponents, and who forged ahead to do something unique with their lives. Join me on the first of every month as I pay tribute to a Strong Woman in History.

In the previous year, I had made two life-changing discoveries.

1. I had finished reading the biography of Cleopatra only to discover that old high school textbooks and Hollywood had warped my entire view of her. Instead, I learned that she was a truly accomplished woman who spoke eight languages, was well versed in military tactics, and believed in the importance of literacy for her people. Not exactly Elizabeth Taylor, who had portrayed her in the movie version.
2. I had also discovered an ancestor, Ellen Canavan, who in 1861 had envisioned a better cloth for soldiers’ uniforms. No one took her seriously, so she partnered with a local factory owner, James Nolan, who was my great-grandfather. Together they created a strong cloth of combined wool and cotton for soldiers’ uniforms and sold the fabric to the U.S. government just as the Civil War exploded. Ellen, however, died a few years later and all the credit and the fortune went to my great-grandfather, who buried her with only his name for identification.

Armed with indignation over Cleopatra and Ellen Canavan, I set out to create a blog that would pay tribute to strong women. I started with Cleopatra but then decided to focus on strong women from history who should have become famous (like Ellen Canavan) but whose accounts had been forgotten.

Over the past ten years, I have profiled 120 women whose stories I brought back to life. I have tried to include women from multiple races, religions, nationalities, and locations worldwide.

It takes me approximately 5 – 6 hours per woman to research, write the first draft, edit, find a graphic, and create the WordPress blog. Some of the women’s stories have been easier to write than others, but each woman has left me with a renewed aspiration to do my part in making this a better world.

You can search the blog on the right sidebar to find previous stories, but here is a sampling of some of my favorites.

Sigridur Tomasdottir of Iceland was still a young woman in 1900 when she devoted her life to preserving the Gullfoss Waterfall from being bought by foreign investors for industrial use of hydroelectric power. Today, the Gullfoss Waterfall is one of Iceland’s most prominent tourist attractions.

Cicely Saunders of England became a doctor in 1957 and focused her energies on working with terminally ill patients. Ten years later, she opened the first public Hospice program and operated the program until her death at eighty-seven. Today, there are Hospice programs on every inhabitable continent.

Ka’ahumanu of Hawaii was one of King Kamehameha’s wives, who in the early 1800s bravely broke the taboo system that kept women subservient in the Hawaiian culture. The taboo system had lasted for over 1,500 years.

Josie Murray, in 1957, challenged the unwritten rule of segregation in her small southern town of Purcellville, Virginia, when she marched into the town library to check out a book. Denied access because of her race, Josie and her husband Sam worked with a lawyer to sue for the right to use a public library. Today all public libraries in the United States are open to everyone.

Edyth Fox was an energetic young woman who had worked for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington D.C. But in 1954, she was a young mother of two boys and diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Refusing to let the disease ruin her life, Edyth became heavily involved with community activities for the next 40 years, earning the accolade of Multiple Sclerosis Mother of the Year.

Irena Sandler of Poland was a social worker in 1939 when the Nazi Army invaded her homeland. She immediately joined an underground network that worked to orchestrate escapes for hundreds of Jewish children trapped in the Warsaw ghetto. As each child escaped, Irena wrote their name on a scrap of paper and put it in a jar. By the end of WWII, Irena had multiple jars buried in a friend’s garden. Her effort was to keep the children’s names alive and hopefully be reunited with family.

Karin Bergöö was one of Sweden’s premier textile artists from the early 1900s. However, her art and her life were overshadowed by her famous husband, Carl Larsson, who is still one of the most well-known Swedish painters. However, if you visit an IKEA store, you will see what is known as ‘new Swedish design,’ the art style that Karin Bergöö Larsson started over 100 years ago.

And there were so many more…

Katie Hall Underwood, Emily Roebling, Margaret Sanger, Katherine Johnson, Susan Koerner, and hundreds more.

But perhaps my favorite was Isabelle Romée. I found her name while on a trip to France in a small, off-the-way museum in the countryside. If anyone deserves the Mother of the Year award, it would be Isabelle. Living in the 1400s, she spent most of her life trying to prove that her daughter had not practiced witchcraft. She petitioned the Vatican year in and year out to investigate her daughter’s case, but she died before learning that not only was her daughter exonerated, she became a saint. Isabelle’s daughter was Joan of Arc.

I salute Strong Women everywhere. In my writing room, I have this quote framed:

Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.

Happy birthday, blog! Onto year eleven!

~ Linda