DID YOU KNOW? for September 19 – October 2, 2023 

Dr. Mary Walker (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919) was the first woman to be employed as a contract surgeon in the US Army. It was a struggle to be hired in this role – after earning a medical degree in 1855 from Syracuse College, Walker sought to volunteer for service as a surgeon or a spy during the Civil War but was turned down. Since the only option offered her was to serve as a nurse, Walker began treating the wounded and sick as a volunteer civilian doctor and finally the Army recognized her skill and hired her as a contract surgeon.

Learn more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Edwards_Walker

DID YOU KNOW? for August 29 – September 18, 2023 

Alice H. Parker (1895 – ?) an African American inventor, revolutionized home heating during the 1920’s by patenting a central heating system using natural gas, paving the way for modern central heating systems. Most homes were still reliant upon wood or coal to heat their homes – which made staying warm indoors a laborious task. Parker’s invention utilized natural gas through a network of ducts and vents that distributed heat through the entire home. Her design also offered users the ability to adjust heat to meet individual preferences.

Learn more at: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/parker-alice-h-1895/

DID YOU KNOW? for August 15 – 28, 2023 

Frederick McKinley Jones (May 17, 1893 – February 21, 1961) invented the first successful system of mobile refrigeration which eliminated the use of ice and salt to preserve food for transport, contributing to the modernization of food transportation services. Jones was the first African-American to be awarded the National Medal of Technology and he patented more than sixty inventions during his prolific lifetime. 

Learn more at:  https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/jones-frederick-mckinley-1893-1961/

AND

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/02/21/how-one-mans-invention-changed-food-access-world-wide

DID YOU KNOW? for August 1 – August 14, 2023

Dr. Lonnie Johnson ((born October 6, 1949), a NASA engineer and founder and president of Johnson Research and Development, invented the Super Soaker while working on spacecraft system designs at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “I was working on a new type of heat pump that would use water as a working fluid instead of freon and I was experimenting…and I machined these nozzles and, I’d hook them up to the sink in my bathroom, and I was looking at the stream of water coming out of a nozzle, and I turned and shot the stream across the bathroom, and I thought jeez it would be neat to have a really powerful toy water gun,” explained Dr. Johnson. 

Learn more: https://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/culture/meet-lonnie-johnson-the-man-who-made-a-splash-in-the-toy-industry-by-inventing-the-super-soaker

DID YOU KNOW? for July 10 – 24, 2023 

Cecilia Payne (May 10, 1900 ­ – December 7, 1979) was the first person to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Radcliffe College, with what Otto Strauve called “the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.” And in 1950’s, Payne became the first female professor and chair of the Astronomy Department at Harvard. Payne’s work is foundational to the modern study of variable stars. She was also awarded the Henry Norris Russell Prize from the American Astronomical Society.

Learn more here: https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/cecilia-payne-profile 

DID YOU KNOW? for June 26 – July 10, 2023 

Patricia Roberts Harris (May 31, 1924 – March 23, 1985) was the first Black woman to sit on the board of a large U.S. public company. With accolades including service as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, U.S. secretary of housing and urban development, and as U.S. secretary of health and human services, Harris made history when she was elected to the board of IBM in 1971. The organization Black Women on Boards recently shed light on Harris’s history-making directorship and this remarkable achievement is now the subject of the documentary OnBoard.

Learn more...

The Patricia Roberts Harris Wikipedia page.

Lila MacLellan, author of Fortune‘s Modern Board newsletter, writes about OnBoard in a new Fortune piece.

DID YOU KNOW? for June 13 – 26, 2023 

Zitkala-Ša, Lakota for Red Bird, aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (February 22, 1876 – January 26, 1938) was a political activist who found work wearing many hats – as a Yankton Dakota writer, editor, translator, musician, and educator. Zitkala-Ša recounted her struggles with cultural identity, emphasizing the friction between the majority culture in which she was educated and the Dakota culture into which she was born and initially raised. Her work helped bring traditional Native stories to a mainstream audience and influenced Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

Learn more….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zitkala-Sa

DID YOU KNOW? for May 30 – June 12, 2023

Alice Ball (July 24, 1892 – December 31, 1916) was a black chemist in Hawaii who at the age of 23 in 1915 discovered a way of treating leprosy before antibiotics. Unfortunately, others claimed credit for it. Scholar Paul Wermager explains, “Not only did Alice Ball overcome the racial and gender barriers of her time to become one of the very few African American women to earn a master’s degree in chemistry, [but she] also developed the first useful treatment for Hansen’s disease. Her amazing life was cut too short at the age of 24. Who knows what other marvelous work she could have accomplished had she lived.” 

Learn more…

https://www.biography.com/scientists/alice-ball

DID YOU KNOW? for May 9 – 22, 2023

The Indian Citizenship Act, established on June 2, 1924, was enacted by Congress to grant citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. However, some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957. Learn more about the Indian Citizenship Act and its precursor, the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, which had devastating on Native American people and their culture.

Learn more…

https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-02/

DID YOU KNOW? for April 25 – May 8, 2023

Florence Lois Weber (June 13, 1879 – November 13, 1939) was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, producer and director. In 1914, Weber became the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film and in 1917, she became the first American woman director to own her own film studio. Weber has been noted as one of "the most important and prolific film directors in the era of silent films".

Learn more…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Weber