March 2025
In Honor of International Women’s Month, from stay-at-home moms to career women, here are eight women
Matilda Roedde
As the Matron of the house, Matilda ran a tight ship. Born on the tiny island of Heligoland, Matilda immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, where she would meet Gustav Roedde. Well known for her baking, she learned from her father, who was a professional baker.
Image provided by Roedde House Museum
Anna Catherine Roedde
Anna Catherine was Roedde’s sixth child and third daughter. She decided to become a Nurse, which was seen as an honourable occupation for young women, though Mr. Roedde didn’t approve. She was sadly killed while on duty in 1925; she was only 28 years old.
Image provided by the Roedde House Museum
Mary Ann Shadd
Mary Ann Shadd was born in Delaware to a prominent abolitionist family. She studied teaching and opened a school for Black children when she was 16 years old. In 1850, she moved to Ontario and started another school, as well as The Provincial Freedman, the first newspaper in North America to be edited by a Black woman. She used the newspaper to promote and aid anti-slavery efforts, as well as creating a place where Black women’s accomplishments and perspectives could be shared.
Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Shadd
Ga’axstal’as (Jane Constance Cook)
Ga’axstal’as was born in 1870 and belonged to the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw people of the Pacific Northwest. As well as being a midwife, she was an activist and used her fluency in Kwak’wala and English to participate in many important events as a translator. In 1912, she testified before the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs, arguing for the rights of Indigenous people to retain their unceded lands. She was the only woman on the executive board of the Allied Tribes of British Columbia, an organization made up of 16 tribes which fought for land rights.
Ga’axsta’las
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was a prominent journalist and civil rights advocate in the late 19th and early 20th-Century. Born to enslaved parents but freed as an infant, she took to teaching as a young adult to keep her family together. After she published an article about being forced off a train for refusing segregation, she became a well-known journalist. She used her reach to publish multiple investigations on lynchings and to advocate for non-segregated schools, as well as many other social causes relevant to Black women.
image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells
Mary Edwards Walker
Mary Edwards Walker was an American surgeon who graduated from medical school in 1855. She was hired by the Union army as a contract surgeon and sent to the front lines. After multiple years of service, she was captured by the Confederate army and sent to a prison camp; and at the end of the war, she was awarded a medal of honour and is still the only woman in U.S history to receive it. She spent the rest of her life campaigning for women’s right to vote and was arrested multiple times for wearing men’s clothing, which she did for most of her life.
Mary Edward Walker, image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Edwards_Walker
Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind was a Swedish opera singer born in 1820. She was very famous in the 1840s and 50s, known as the “Swedish Nightingale” for her beautiful voice. In the 1850s, she went on a tour of America that made her $350,000 (over $13,000,000 today!). She became a national sensation, spawning Jenny Lind paper dolls, gloves, handkerchiefs, and more that were sold in cities she visited. She is thought to be the inspiration for some of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, including The Snow Queen, which was written after she rejected his marriage proposal.
image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Lind
Queen Victoria
While Queen Victoria was known as the Grandmother of Europe, or even for her love towards her husband, Prince Albert, many people don’t know that she was also quite the foodie. Part of her love for food was the strict diet she was put on as a child. In particular, she really loved Potatoes and Indian Cuisine. An average dinner would be soup, fish, cold boiled chicken or roast beef, dessert and fruits. Queen Victoria would rule Great Britain and the Commonwealth for 63 years.
Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria