The Women Who Changed the World Hall of Fame

“None of them planned on changing the world or bettering the lives of untold numbers of people. Instead, each woman got started by noticing just one need. Then she acted to meet that need. Mother Teresa explained it like this: ‘We can do no great things, only small things with great love.’ “ (from So Long Status Quo)

Enjoy reading about the nine remarkable women in the So Long Status Quo: WOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD Hall of Fame.

JANE AUSTEN

Jane Austen

Born: 1775
Died: 1817, at the age of 41
Country: England
Best known for: Writing six much-loved novels

Jane Austen was one of six boys and two girls borne to George Austen, a country clergyman, and his wife Cassandra. Jane was educated at home with access to her father’s large library. Her closest friend was her older sister, Cassandra. Austen began writing in childhood, first comic stories and later a novella, Lady Susan, when she was 19.

In her early twenties she wrote Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, which was first offered to a publisher in 1979 and immediately rejected. Next, she wrote Northanger Abbey, but then took a break from writing to move to Bath, an English resort town, with Cassandra and her parents, now retired. During the five years in Bath, Austen began a novel called The Watsons, which was never finished. After her father’s death, Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved first to Southampton and then to a cottage in Chawton, where Jane began to write in earnest. She never married.

At the age of 35, she published Sense and Sensibility, which identified the author as “a Lady.” Then followed Pride and Prejudice; Mansfield Park; Emma, and Persuasion. Her health began to fail and she died at the age of 41, probably from Addison’s Disease. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Most of what we know about her personal life comes from 160 of her surviving letters, as well as memories written by family and friends. A favorite of readers around the world, her novels have never been out of print.

ELIZABETH I

Born: 1533

Died: 1603, at the age of 69
Country: England
Best known for: Uniting England’s Catholics and Protestants and leading her country into a Golden Age

Elizabeth I was born to King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Her father, disappointed in his hopes for a male heir, had Boleyn executed when Elizabeth was not yet three. She was declared illegitimate and raised by various stepmothers. A gifted student, Elizabeth was highly educated and fluent in several languages.

King Henry died when Elizabeth was still a teen, and her half-brother, Edward VI, took the throne. When he died after a short reign, Elizabeth’s half sister, a devout Catholic, became Queen. Elizabeth was accused of conspiring to seize the throne, and although she protested her innocence, she was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Later released, she lived apart from court and enjoyed hunting, riding, music, dancing, and pageantry. Queen Mary fell ill and died and Elizabeth, now in the line of succession, became queen of England at the age of 25. The new Queen quickly took action to re-establish the Protestant Church and soothe Catholic-Protestant conflict.

Queen Elizabeth never married, although she received legions of proposals which she encouraged and entertained for political purposes. The love of her life seems to have been a courtier named Robert Dudley, who she’d known since childhood. He had a poor reputation and was at one point accused of murdering his wife. Elizabeth endured numerous conspiracy plots and assassination attempts, including one revolving around her half-sister, Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic. After a twenty year imprisonment, Elizabeth reluctantly had Mary beheaded for her involvement. With the execution the threats from Spain intensified and Elizabeth led her country to a rousing victory, aided by disastrous weather, against the Spanish armada, a massive naval fleet intent on invading England. Elizabeth was very popular with her people, and when she died left a united country in peace and prosperity.

ELIZABETH FRY

Elizabeth Fry

Born: 1780

Died: 1845

Country: England

Best known for: Reforming England’s notorious Newgate Prison

Elizabeth Fry was born Elizabeth Gurney at Earlham in Norfolk, England to a Quaker family. As a teen, after hearing traveling evangelist William Savery, she began efforts to help the poor, the sick, and the prisoners. She married Joseph Fry, also a Quaker, at the age of 20. After being challenged by a minister to visit Newgate Prison, she did so and never forgot the horrors she experienced there. She returned for the next three days with food and baby clothes. The next few years were spent raising the first few of her eleven children and dealing with financial difficulties. She returned to Newgate in 1816 and soon founded a prison school for the children who were imprisoned with their parents, as well as a workshop for women to learn marketable skills for when they were released. She founded the Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners and her ideas influenced prison administration all over Europe. In 1818 she testified to a House of Commons committee on British prison conditions, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament. She also campaigned for better conditions for town jails, public hospitals, mental institutions, and workhouses. For most of her life she suffered from emotional problems, but learned how to manage her ups and downs. Although Quakers traditionally do not have a funeral service, over a thousand people stood in silence as her body was buried.

MARY MAGDALENE

Mary Magdalene

Born: 1st century CE
Died: Unknown
Country: Born in Magdala, in Galilee. Later lived in Ephesus or Asia Minor
Best known for: Being the first to person to see the resurrected Christ

Mary Magdalene was a Jewish woman from the town of Magdala on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, four miles north of Tiberias. The Jewish historian Josephus described Magdala as a city of 40,000, but today it is a sleepy village of a few hundred.

When Mary Magdalene first appears in the Gospel accounts, she is listed as one of a group of women who traveled with Jesus and supported him financially. It also mentions that she was delivered of seven demons. She was most likely single, as a husband is not mentioned. Mary Magdalene was one of the women present at the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

She was the first person to see and speak to the risen Jesus, and he instructed her to go and tell the disciples what she had seen. Mary obeyed, and was dubbed by Hippolytus, an early Church Father, the “apostle to the apostles.” Legends say that Mary Magdalene lived afterwards in Ephesus, Asia Minor, or France. Over the last 2000 years her role in the life of Christ has been celebrated, revered, debated, misunderstood, and sometimes co-opted by a variety of groups fascinated by this woman so devoted to Jesus.

PERPETUA

Born: Unknown

Died: 202 or 203 CE, at the age of 22
Country: Carthage, Africa
Best known for: Writing an account of her arrest, trial, and Christian martyrdom at the hands of the Roman empire

Perpetua was an educated, upper class Roman woman who lived in a cosmopolitan Roman city in Northern Africa called Carthage. Although she lived in a very pagan culture, she converted to Christianity in her early twenties. She was soon arrested, along with five others, and sentenced to be torn apart by beasts in the arena.

Nothing is known of her husband, but she did have an infant son at the time of her arrest. In jail she had three mystical visions, which she recorded in an autobiographical account called The Passion of Perpetua. She went to her death with dignity and great joy.

Her story is the earliest existing piece of writing by a Christian woman. Perpetua is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox church, and the Anglican church. In ancient Carthage, a basilica was erected over the tombs of the martyrs and an ancient inscription bearing Perpetua’s name has been discovered inside.

ROSIE THE RIVETER

Born: 1943

Died: 1945
Country: United States
Best known for: Symbolizing the millions of women who did wartime work in the factories and shipyards during World War II

Rosie the Riveter is now probably best known for the iconic image of a female worker flexing her bicep with the slogan “We Can Do It!” Rosie represents the six million women who took over work in factories and manufacturing plants for American men who left to fight in World War II.

Rosie the Riveter was the name of a popular song released in 1942. It was also associated with a real woman named Rose Will Monroe, born in Kentucky in 1920. She worked as a riveter at an aircraft factory in Michigan. The U.S. government used the Rosie the Riveter image to create films and posters to encourage women to go to work to support the war effort. For the first time, married women were encouraged to work outside the home, opening the work force for women. The wages earned both motivated women to continue working and helped boost the economy.

However, after the war was over many of the women were discharged and their jobs given back to returning soldiers. In 2000, the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park was opened in Richmond, California, where four Kaiser shipyards employed thousands of Rosies from around the U.S.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

Born: 1884

Died: 1962, at the age of 78
Country: United States
Best known for: Traveling around the world as the eyes and ears of her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he was crippled with polio

Eleanor was born into a wealthy family, but was a shy and awkward child made even more so by her parents’ unhappy marriage and her father’s alcholism. As a teen, her confidence grew with her successful stint at a French boarding school, and she came back home to the States to marry a distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The marriage produced six children and for a time Eleanor concentrated on being a wife and mother, although she struggled with a domineering mother-in-law. Their marriage became more business arrangement than love affair after FDR’s adulterous relationship with his secretary, and observers have noted that Eleanor had very close, if not intimate relationships, with both a female friend, and later a male friend. Although they led separate but parallel lives, Eleanor always supported FDR’s political career, especially after he was paralyzed by polio in 1921. Her encouragement and campaigning helped him win the governorship of New York, and later the presidency of the United States. Her causes included the poverty relief, the Red Cross, unemployment relief, women’s suffrage, education, financial aid for students, job training, child labor, trade unions, civilian volunteerism during the war, and civil rights. After FDR died in office in 1945,  she became a delegate to the United Nations and was instrumental in drafting the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor was popular with the press and wrote numerous magazine articles, had her own radio show, and wrote an extensive autobiography. At her funeral, Adlai Stevenson asked, “What other single human being has touched and transformed the existence of so many?”

MOTHER TERESA

Born: 1910

Died: 1997, at the age of 87
Country: Born in Albania, lived in India
Best known for: Creating the Missionaries of Charity to feed and care for poor and dying people in India

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojahiu in the town of Skopje, Macedonia. Raised Roman Catholic, she felt a call to missions when she was twelve; she was particularly fascinated with the country of India. At 18 she left home and joined the Sisters of Loreto, which operated missions in India. She trained in Ireland, then traveled to India where she took her vows. She took her Catholic name from Saint Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta, where the poor lived in slums outside the convent walls. In 1946 while traveling by train for a spiritual retreat, she received a “call within a call” and decided to devote herself to working among the Calcutta poor.

She received permission from the church, and started with an open air school for slum children. Later, she started her own order, the Missionaries of Charity to aid in her efforts. Today there are 5,000 nuns and 450 brothers in the Missionaries of Charity, which today has over 600 missions in 120 countries.Mother Teresa’s work among the poor and the dying has expanded to encompass orphanages, leper rehabilitation, vaccination centers, and aid to the blind, disabled, alcoholics and refugees, as well as international disaster relief. Mother Teresa received countless awards and honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize (1979), the Albert Schweitzer International Prize, and the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize.

Even in her latter years she kept up a punishing workload, and died in 1997 after several years of declining health. Her life and legacy were not without controversy. She has at different times been criticized by cultural, political, and religious critics, the most vehement being Christopher Hitchens, responsible for a harshly critical book and film. Much has been made of Mother Teresa’s “crisis of faith,” which came to light when letters she wrote to her confessors and superiors were published after her death.

HARRIET TUBMAN

Harriet Tubman

Born: 1820
Died: 1913, at the age of 93
Country: United States
Best known for: Leading 300 slaves to freedom along the fabled Underground Railroad

Probably the most famous of the Underground Railroad conductors, Harriet Tubman, also known as “Moses,” led 300 slaves to freedom over a ten year period. She was born a slave; her parents were Rit and Benjamin Ross. She had ten brothers and sisters. Beginning when she was six, Harriet was rented out to local farmers. As a teen, she suffered a serious brain injury while trying to protect another slave. This set the pattern for the rest of her life as she sacrificed her time, talents, and resources to care for others. She also served as an army scout, spy, and nurse during the Civil War, bringing official commendation.

Later in life, she became an accomplished public speaker and drew large crowds with her presentations at antislavery meetings. She never had children, but was married for a time to John Tubman, a free black man who lived in the South and married Harriet when she was still enslaved. He declined to follow her to the North, even when she made a special trip to meet him. She was crushed when she found out he had already taken another wife. Harriet rescued her entire family and continued to financially supported her aged parents, who lived in Canada. Harriet finished out her life in Auburn, New York, where she opened her doors and took in a number of people who were too weak or ill to support themselves.

She never received a paycheck or a pension for her wartime service, although many admirers applied to Congress on her behalf. Frederick Douglass said, “Excepting John Brown — of sacred memory — I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman].” And John Brown, who conferred with “General Tubman” about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that she was “one of the bravest persons on this continent.”