History Makers – Women from the Merrimack Valley
Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888)
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo’s Boys.
Harriet E. Wilson (March 15, 1825 – June 28, 1900)
Harriet E. Wilson was an African-American novelist. She was the first African American to publish a novel on the North American continent. Her novel Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black was published anonymously in 1859 in Boston, Massachusetts, and was not widely known.
Alice Standish Allen (1907 – April 5, 2002)
Alice Standish Allen was the first female engineering geologist in North America. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Allen was raised in the nearby village of Newtonville, Massachusetts, then in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Ellen Garrison Clark – (April 14, 1823 – December 21, 1892)
Ellen Garrison, the daughter and granddaughter of men who had been enslaved, spent her life educating newly freed people and fighting for their civil rights. Born and raised in Concord, she followed in her mother’s footsteps as an antislavery activist. After the Civil War, Ellen taught newly freed people during Reconstruction and tested the nation’s first Civil Rights Act in court after she was prevented by authorities from desegregating a train station waiting room in Baltimore.
Doris Kearns Goodwin (born January 4, 1943)
Doris Kearns Goodwin is an American biographer, historian, former sports journalist, and political commentator.
Harriett Lothrop – (June 22, 1844 – August 2, 1924)
Harriett Lothrop was an American author also known by her pseudonym Margaret Sidney. In addition to writing popular children’s stories, she ran her husband Daniel Lothrop’s publishing company after his death. After they bought The Wayside country house, they worked hard to make it a center of literary life.
Clara Hapgood Nash (January 15, 1839 – March 18, 1921)
Clara Holmes Hapgood Nash was an American lawyer who was the first woman admitted to the bar in New England.
Clara Endicott Sears (1863–1960)
Clara Endicott Sears was a New England author, preservationist, and philanthropist.
Barbara Washburn (November 10, 1914 – September 25, 2014
Barbara Washburn was an American mountaineer. She became the first woman to climb Denali on June 6, 1947. She was the wife and climbing partner of mountaineer and scientist Bradford Washburn.
Agnes Anne Abbot (1897 – 1992)
Agnes Anne Abbot was active/lived in Massachusetts, Colorado / Germany. Agnes Abbot is known for Landscape, figure, genre, educator. Known for her paintings of New England, Agnes Abbot also traveled West where she painted western scenes, spending time in Colorado Springs in 1929, and in Taos in 1940.
Mary Daly (October 16, 1928 – January 3, 2010)
Mary Daly was an American radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian. Daly, who described herself as a “radical lesbian feminist”, taught at the Jesuit-run Boston College for 33 years.
Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850)
Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli was an American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women’s rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first American female war correspondent, writing for Horace Greeley’s New-York Tribune, and full-time book reviewer in journalism
Historic Women Trailblazers of Massachusetts
Women-owned and Women-run businesses in the Merrimack Valley
Local Businesses to Support
Crafty Yankee
https://shopcraftyyankee.com/
Higgins & Ross
https://www.facebook.com/HigginsRoss/
Cobblestones
Open The Door
https://www.openthedoor.biz/about
Potager Soap
https://potagersoap.com/
Grasshopper shop of concord
http://www.grasshoppershopconcord.com/
Vervaine Design Studio, Inc.
https://www.vervaine.com/
Posh Lash
http://poshlash.net/
Inn at Hastings Park
Verrill Farms
https://verrillfarm.com/
Sikes the Florist
https://www.facebook.com/Sykes-the-Florist-and-Greenhouses-164134987073943/
Kim’s Donuts
https://www.facebook.com/KimsDonutsLowell/
Gallery Z
Lifeasamaven
https://lifeasamaven.com/
Panela
