Lois Weber, Hollywood Shero

Lois Weber was early Hollywood’s original shero.  In a career that spanned almost three decades at the beginning of moviemaking, Weber wrote and directed more than 40 features and over 100 shorts.  She was the first woman to direct a feature film in the US –The Merchant of Venice in 1914, the first woman admitted to the Motion Picture Directors’ Association in 1916, and in 1917 she became the first woman to run a Hollywood studio.

In her time Weber was considered one of the three “great minds” in early film-making, alongside D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. While her male peers have long been celebrated as the fathers of American cinema, Weber has been largely forgotten.

Cathay Williams; female Buffalo Soldier

Cathay Williams was the first African American woman to serve in the US Army, she did so by pretending to be a man and going under the pseudonym, William Cathay.

Cathay was born in Independence, Missouri in 1844. Her mother was a slave and her father a ‘free man of colour’. She was born into servitude, working in the home of a plantation owner. When the Union Army came to her town in 1861 slaves were considered ‘contraband’ property. It was routine for them to be forced into the army to work for them, and this is what happened to Cathay. She was to serve as a cook and laundress, against her wishes, as she recalled:

Katherine Dexter McCormick; Godmother to the birth control pill

Katharine Dexter was the first woman to get a science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in biology in 1904. The curriculum was research heavy and besides the demanding work, she had to petition the college twice—once for permission to work in chemistry laboratories without a hat and again to be allowed to wear a shorter skirt. The reason for the later—she didn’t want her dress to drag across the unclean floors.  Her plan was to go into medicine.

Margaret Morris, Pioneer of Movement

Margaret Morris was a prolific dancer, choreographer, artist and the founder of the international Margaret Morris Movement (MMM). Today, very few people know about the Margaret Morris Movement and fewer still are aware of who Margaret Morris was.  But in its hay day, the MMM was widely known, with a series of schools across the world. And during Margaret Morris’s lifetime, she was celebrated as a pioneer in the field of movement, dance and physical culture.

Freda White

For a short time in the sixties and early seventies I had two great female friends. I was in my twenties, Frances Gordon in her fifties and Freda White in her late seventies. I had recently graduated from Glasgow University and was accumulating educational qualifications; Frances had a degree from the LSE gained in the 1930s and was a linchpin in the political and cultural life of Edinburgh; Freda was among the first graduates from Somerville College, Oxford, an author, journalist, campaigner and lecturer of international renown.