March is Women’s History Month! We asked around the office for inspiration of women we looked up to or thought their lives were pretty awesome. It’s amazing to look back in history and see how groundbreaking these women were (and still are.) So buckle up, buttercups, here is Corwin’s inspiring ladies! ?

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Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533 – 1603)

A troubled childhood (to say the least) created a strong first female ruler of England. She was an illegitimate Protestant who inherited the throne of a Catholic dominated country. She rebelled against marriage and claimed to be married to England (granted she did love a childhood friend but due to political reasons didn’t pursue further.) Elizabeth’s reign became known as the Elizabethan Era. The period is famous for the flourishing of English drama led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and for English adventurers such as Francis Drake. 

We recommend the following books if you’re looking for more information about the Queen:

• The Faerie Queene
• Elizabeth I: Translations, 1544-1589
• Representing Elizabeth in Stuart England: Literature, History, Sovereignty

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Chien-Shiung Wu, dubbed “the First Lady of Physics” (1912-1997)

Chien-Shiung is what Google doodles should be made out of. Prior to moving to the United States of America she was a scholar with a passion for protesting for the Chinese government to take a stronger stand against Japan. For those that are not history buffs, Japan was an axis power (the bad guys) in World War II, and was already carrying out horrific acts towards the Chinese people prior to 1945.

Once settled in the U.S., The Chinese-born, American-trained physicist worked on the Manhattan Project, which helped the United States develop the atomic bomb during World War II. She also performed game-changing experiments in physics that disproved the law of conservation of parity.

Due to the Chinese Civil war, she would never see her family again and became a U.S. citizen in 1954. Her successful career continued in 1967, she became the first female president of the American Physical Society. Wu all the way! ?

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Creola Katherine Johnson (1918-2020)

•  She was handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools.
• In 1957, she provided some of the math for the 1958 document Notes on Space Technology, a compendium of a series of 1958 lectures given by engineers in the Flight Research Division and the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD).
• She did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight.

The work she was most known for: ?

In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Johnson was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for. The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network, linking tracking stations around the world to IBM computers in Washington, Cape Canaveral in Florida, and Bermuda. The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission from liftoff to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine.  “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space.

In 2015, at age 97, Johnson added another extraordinary achievement to her long list: President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. Y’all should watch Hidden Figures, if you haven’t, THIS QUEEN IS AMAZING! Could we write a book on how influential Katherine was? Duh!

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933 – 2020)

The “Notorious RGB” didn’t get her nickname from sitting on the sidelines. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton, replacing retiring Justice Byron White, and at the time was generally viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court. During her tenure, Ginsburg wrote notable majority opinions, including United States v. Virginia (1996), Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), and City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005).

What did Ruth do for women? ?

1. Before  Ginsburg, state-funded schools didn’t have to admit women
2. Women couldn’t sign a mortgage or have a bank account without a male co-signer
3. Ginsburg helped women make strides towards equal pay
4. Her presence on the court preserved a woman’s right to choose
5. She pushed to protect pregnant women in the workplace
6. Ginsburg argued women should serve on juries
7. She was a key vote in granting same-sex marriages
8. Ginsburg made it cool to be a confident, hard-working female leader (this is just our opinion but we totally stand by it.) ?

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Dolly Rebecca Parton (1946- Present)

A singer/songwriter/actress/business woman/philanthropist from humble beginnings, Dolly has become an icon. Numerous awards and known as one of the best female songwriters in history, her true strength is how she gives back to her community and nation. We also love a good “Dolly-ism” as she is known for being witty and real.

How does Dolly give back?

• Since the mid-1980s, Parton has supported many charitable efforts, particularly in the area of literacy, primarily through her Dollywood Foundation. Her literacy program, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which kicked off in Rotherham, United Kingdom, a part of the Dollywood Foundation, mails one book per month to each enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter kindergarten. Currently, over 1,600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to almost 850,000 children each month across the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia and the Republic of Ireland.
• The Dollywood Foundation, funded from Parton’s profits, has been noted for bringing jobs and tax revenues to a previously depressed region. DollyWood has approximately 4,000 people on its payroll, making it the largest employer in the community.
• In 2003, her efforts to preserve the bald eagle through the American Eagle Foundation’s sanctuary at Dollywood earned her the Partnership Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• In response to the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, Parton was one of a number of country music artists who participated in a telethon to raise money for victims of the fires. In addition, Parton hosted her own telethon for the victims on December 13 and reportedly raised around $9 million.
• In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Parton donated $1 million towards research at Vanderbilt University and encouraged those who can afford it to make similar donations. In November 2020 it was announced that Parton’s COVID-19 donation had helped fund the research that produced Moderna’s vaccine.

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Check out https://womenshistorymonth.gov/ for more information and lesson ideas. Do you have any to add to our list? Let us know in the comments! ?

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