Powerful Women of the Past

Throughout history, many of the accomplishments in government, education, science, and other STEM fields have been made by women, but they received essentially no credit. In many cases, their work was dismissed or even stolen by their male counterparts. I hope my blog about these brilliant and bold women from the past inspire readers to learn more about other successful women who have been overlooked by the history books.

Rosalind Franklin

English chemist and X-ray crystallographer, Rosalind Franklin was a pioneer in biology. Although Watson and Crick typically receive credit for discovering the structure of DNA, their discovery relied heavily on Franklin's data. Specifically, Watson and Crick realized DNA was a double helix after observing Franklin's "photo 51" shown to them by Wilkins, Franklin's work collegue who had a tense and unfriendly relationship with Franklin. The diffraction picture clearly illustrated DNA's helical property. Armed with Franklin's photo and their own data, Watson and Crick published their work and their famous DNA double helix structure, giving Franklin none of the credit. Furthermore, Franklin died in 1958 as of ovarian cancer, likely a result over x-ray exposure when working. In 1962, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for discovering DNA's structure, but since Franklin had died four years earlier, she did not share the Prize with them because the Nobel Prize cannot be posthumously awarded.

Charlotta Bass

Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass was born in Sumter, South Carolina some time between 1874 and 1880. In 1910 she moved to Los Angeles and began working for the Eagle newspaper. This newspaper, run by John Neimore until he turned the operations over to Bass, proved instrumental for black immigrants relocating to southern California by providing information about housing and jobs in LA. Charlotta Bass renamed the newspaper the California Eagle and took a decisive political and social stance against discrimination by practicing advocacy journalism. Bass' "On the Sidewalk" column discussed social injustices in her community and inspired her readers to seek reform. However, not everyone agreed with Bass' work, which was often dismissed by the white press. She even received multiple death threats, but nothing stopped her from fighting for equality. In 1952, she was the first African American woman nominated for vice president of the United States as a candidate of the Progressive Party. Unfortunately, many people to this day are unaware of the great strides Charlotta made for civil rights and women's rights in the United States. Nonetheless, Charlotta Bass was clearly a trailblazer who courageously used her newspaper to motivate others to join her fight for gender and racial equality.