Login with PatreonAli Stroker: The First Person in a Wheelchair to Perform on Broadway
(what's a "Modern Worthy"? click here to find out!)
Mira Modi
11-year-old cryptographic entrepreneur
When her mother started paying her to generate secure passwords, she realized other people would do the same.Gisella Perl
A Doctor in Auschwitz
"I learned that [pregnant women] were all taken to the research block to be used as guinea pigs, and then two lives would be thrown into the crematorium. I decided that never again would there be a pregnant woman in Auschwitz.''Margaret Crane
Creator of the Home Pregnancy Test
In 1968, the tests to determine whether someone was pregnant were done in labs, and the results sent to a doctor, who would relay it to the patient--a process which could take weeks. Margaret Crane changed that.Egypt “Ify” Ufele
10-Year Old Creator of Plus-Sized, Nigerian-Themed Fashion Line
Ify was bullied at school for her size. In response, she started an Instagram account and a fashion line.Mary Shanley
"Deadshot" Mary
A detective for the NYPD (eventually becoming the fourth woman there to make first-grade detective), Shanley was a frequent subject of contemporary newspapers.Nzingha Prescod
Olympian Fencer
Nzingha is only 23 years old and already competing in her second Olympics.Clementine Paddleford
The Woman Who Revolutionized the Art of Food Writing
Paddleford spent years writing about food in America, traveling all over the country (and the world) to report on regional cuisine.Ida Tarbell
The Journalist Who Took On The Tycoon
30 years after John Rockefeller Sr laid her family low with his shady deals, she laid him low with her journalism.Emily Warren Roebling
The first woman field engineer
When the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge fell ill, his wife took over. For eleven years.Ali Stroker
The First Person in a Wheelchair to Perform on Broadway
Ali Stroker became the first person in a wheelchair to perform on Broadway after her debut as Anna in "Spring Awakening."Related Posts
Esther Morris
50 years before women got the federal right to vote, Esther Morris became America's first female justice of the peace. A contemporary newspaper called her “the terror of all rogues” and said she offered “infinite delight to all lovers of peace and virtue."
Lee Meng
When Singaporean guerrillas tried overthrowing British rule, they turned to this gangster to run their communications. The cat-and-mouse game in which she was caught by a female police officer is riveting stuff.
Gertrude Jeannette
New York's first licensed female cabbie didn't let racism, sexism, or a speech impediment slow her down.
Maureen Mancuso
Without training, this 13-year-old shattered world records for running in 1967 -- unfortunately, it happened shortly after Kathrine Switzer's headline-making Boston marathon entry, and Mancuso's feat was all but forgotten.
Tammie Jo Shults
One of the US Navy's first female fighter pilots took a job with a commercial airline - and then saved the day when an engine exploded mid-flight.
Regina Anderson
Her apartment, which she dubbed Dream Haven, was a “who’s-who of the Harlem Renaissance: artists, poets, writers, songwriters, intellectuals, and activists” - everyone from Zora Neale Hurston to Langston Hughes to W.E.B. Du Bois.
Beate Klarsfeld
Together with her husband Serge, this woman has spent her life tracking down war criminals and bringing them to justice.
Millie Veasey
Part of a WW2 unit that untangled a logistics nightmare, she lived to a hundred and helped run a chapter of the NAACP.
Franca Viola
In the 60s, an Italian woman was abducted and raped - and then pressured to marry her rapist. She instead took him to court and got him tossed into jail.
Georgia Gilmore
She organized the Club From Nowhere - a collection of chefs who helped the effort in anonymity, to avoid reprisals in their personal and professional lives.
Random Princesses
Alice B. Clement
Chicago detective whose crime-busting exploits grew so popular she had her own newspaper series and starred in her own movie.
Anne Farquharson-Mackintosh
When the true king of the Scots came to reclaim the throne, this spirited woman went up against her husband to back her chosen sovereign.
Iara
When this indigenous Brazilian warrior mermaid proved too awesome for her tribe, she just took up residence in the water, and started an aquatic harem of passers-by.
Anahit
This Armenian folktale princess saved her hapless beau - by making him get a job.
Riina
When flying cannibal ghosts kidnapped two women, there was no man that could save them. But there was a woman.