Mary P. Burrill was a celebrated playwright whose works inspired many prominent writers of the New Negro Movement/Harlem Renaissance.

Rosie Lee Tompkins was a renowned Africa American quiltmaker who used dazzling colors and vivid geometric shapes to make amazing works of art. An intensely private person, Tompkins’s work helped bring a new appreciation to the artistic form.

The first woman to join the International Association of Fire Chiefs, “Chief Nancy” led Rode Island’s Cedar Hill Volunteer Fire Department beginning in 1931.

Gerda Lerner, the “godmother of women’s history,” fled Nazi-occupied Austria and became an accomplished historian and advocate for female scholars.