Josephine Butler was born in 1920 to parents who were sharecroppers on a tobacco farm in the Brandywine area of Prince George’s County, Maryland. At age 14 she moved to D.C., lied about her age, and…

Born into slavery in Virginia, Elizabeth Hobbs learned to sew from her mother. She became so skilled that her owners hired her out to other families, pocketing the money she earned. By 1855 she’d…

When Katharine Meyer’s father, retired banker Eugene Meyer, bought the Washington Post out of bankruptcy in 1933, her future was sealed. While still in college, she worked at the paper during summers,…

Born into wealth in Memphis—her father, Robert Church, was the South’s first black millionaire—Mary Church had earned two degrees from Oberlin by 1888. She moved to Washington to teach at the M Street…

Julia Ward Howe was a poet, author, composer, abolitionist, suffragist and more—but she is most remembered for writing the lyrics to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Born in New York City in 1819,…

Alice Paul was born to wealthy Quaker parents who believed in gender equality, education for girls and women, and working to better society. As a young girl she accompanied her mother to woman…

Flora Rollins Molton took up music as a young child in rural Louisa County, Virginia. Her father was a preacher, and it was in his church that she learned to sing and play the organ and accordion. The…

Alma Thomas was 15 years old in 1907 when she and her family left Columbus, Georgia for Washington, D.C. They were part of the Great Migration, when many African American families left the South to…