Immigrant American Women Role Models: Fifteen Inspiring Biographies, 1850-1950

By Moira Davison Reynolds

In August 1832 Elizabeth Blackwell immigrated from England; 17 years later she was the first woman to graduate from an American medical college. Mother Francesca Saveria Cabrini arrived from Italy in 1889 to establish convents, schools, orphanages and hospitals to serve Italian immigrants.These two women and 13 others (Lilly Martin Spencer, Maria Kraus-Boelte, Anna Howard Shaw, Mary Adelaide Nutting, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Mary Pickford, Evangeline Cory Booth, Senda Berenson, Helen Rubinstein, Sophie Loeb, Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca, Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori and Eva Le Gallienne) overcame the hardships of moving to a new country and societal stigmas of gender to make a difference.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786404094
• ISBN13: 9780786404094
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: McFarland Publishing
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

short bios of interesting women

The author selected women who were brave and self-actualizing in an era when the barriers to that were high. The time span, 1850-1950, covers a vast revolution in all facets of society and in the status of women in particular. Each biography is several pages long, and most include a picture of the woman described. The writing is clear and should be readable for high-school students up, possibly for bright junior-high. The tone is level; the author appreciates these women but lets each story stand on its own. This is not a hagiography or a feminist tract in any way, but simply history well-told.