History tends to shine its spotlight on a select few – and usually men – often leaving out the women who helped shape the world in big, meaningful ways. These women made real contributions through science, politics, activism, and more, but their names didn’t always make it into the books. Let’s change that, by taking a look at 8 of the most powerful women in history.
Claudette Colvin
Most people know about Rosa Parks, but few know that Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old Black girl, refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus nine months earlier. Her arrest and bravery were huge, but civil rights leaders at the time feared that her youth and background might not hold up in court or sway public opinion, so she was quietly pushed aside in favor of more strategic faces.
Rosalind Franklin
Thanks to her work in X-ray crystallography, Rosalind Franklin directly led to the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, and her detailed photographs gave Watson and Crick the information they needed to piece together the famous model.
Yet, her contributions were overlooked for years, and she wasn’t even nominated for the Nobel Prize that followed before she passed away at just 37, never fully recognized during her lifetime for the groundbreaking role she played in science.
Sybil Ludington
At just 16 years old, Sybil Ludington rode twice the distance of Paul Revere to warn American troops that the British were coming, and it was her midnight ride that helped mobilize the militia during the Revolutionary War. Her name barely made it into the history books, however, and unlike Revere, there were no famous poems written about her bravery.
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was a glamorous Hollywood actress, and she was also a self-taught inventor behind the scenes, because during World War II, she helped develop a frequency-hopping system meant to prevent enemy interception of Allied torpedoes.
The idea later became the foundation for modern Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology, nevertheless at the time, her contributions were dismissed because she was “just an actress.”
Dolores Huerta
Co-founding the United Farm Workers alongside César Chávez, Dolores Huerta for a long time was overshadowed by her male counterpart, despite being the force behind the slogan “Sí, se puede.” She also led numerous labor strikes and advocacy efforts for workers’ rights, yet regardless, her name isn’t nearly as widely known as it should be.
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was a fearless journalist and anti-lynching activist during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and a woman who risked her life to expose the horrors of racial violence and injustice in the South. There are others who are more often credited with founding the civil rights movement, however, even though Wells laid much of the early groundwork and helped establish the NAACP.
Katherine Johnson
The story of Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician whose calculations were key to the success of the first manned spaceflights, was finally brought to light in the film Hidden Figures. But before that, very few people outside of NASA had heard her name, undermining the fact that she overcame not only racial barriers but also gender discrimination in a field dominated by white men.
Bessie Coleman
Long before Amelia Earhart made headlines, Bessie Coleman became the first African American and Native American woman to hold a pilot’s license, and she was also denied entry into American flight schools because of both her race and gender. This meant she went all the way to France to get her license in 1921 and returned to the U.S. as a stunt pilot, inspiring generations of future aviators.
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