When students learn about women’s history they hear the same names and see the same faces over, and over. Names like Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frida Kahlo, are all common in classrooms. However, many women who have made major contributions to society are often overlooked or completely forgotten. Throughout history, women have played crucial roles in science, civil rights, literature, politics, and the list goes on. Even though they were constantly denied their recognition they never gave up.
One overlooked figure is Alice Ball. Ball was a chemist who developed the first effective treatment for leprosy during the early 1900’s. At the age of 23, she created medicine that could be taken and absorbed through the bloodstream saving millions of lives. After her death in 1916, another scientist known as Dr, Arthur L. Dean published her work under his own name calling it the National Geographic Dean method. It was not until 1922 when Dr. Harry T. Hollman published a paper giving her credit renaming her discoveries as the Ball method. Despite regaining credit for her work in 1922, it was not until the 1970’s when she finally began getting the recognition she deserved.
Another overlooked figure is Chien-Shiung Wu. Wu was a physicist whose experiments challenged a major scientific theory that tons of people believed just could not be wrong. The “law of conservation of parity” was a theory stating that physical interaction in the real world should look the exact same in a mirror image world. Wu’s research proved this theory was far from correct. She tested out her own impactful experiment revealing the truth about the parity rule. This led to winning a nobel prize except, that prize never went to her but her male colleagues instead. Though she never got the prize she deserved, many people respected her and she became known as the First Lady of Physics except now her name is rarely mentioned.
Another often overlooked figure is Jovita Idár. Idár was a Mexican American journalist and teacher who fought for civil rights and education during the early 1900’s. She used her skills with writing and her newspaper platform to speak out against discrimination and injustice. Although she faced many threats for her activism her courage and influence lived on but her story is rarely mentioned in history courses or even journalist classes.
These women are just a few examples of how history is often told and shaped by those in power who choose who should and should not be acknowledged.
For years, history classes and historical textbooks have mostly focused on male political and military leaders, leaving out women and other people who are just as important.
Learning about the forgotten women in history is not about rewriting history, but completing it with all its important pieces.
