Lost to History
Articles and obituaries of people lost among the white men who get all the attention.
By title A-Z
Overlooked No More: When Hazel Ying Lee and Maggie Gee Soared the…
Lee and Gee never met, but as the only two Chinese-American women pilots during the war, their lives ran a strikingly similar…
Ada Lovelace, Mathematician Who Wrote the First Computer Program
Lovelace thought of math and logic as creative and imaginative, and her writings about computing in the mid-1800s earned her…
Alfred Hair, Whose Collective Created a Path for Black Artists
Part artist, part businessman and all charisma, Hair started a movement that would allow African-American artists to make a…
Amrita Sher-Gil, a Pioneer of Indian Art
With her paintbrush, Sher-Gil explored the sadness felt by people, especially women, in 1930s India, giving voice and validity to…
Ana Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed Boundaries
Mendieta’s art, sometimes violent, often unapologetically feminist and usually raw, left an indelible mark before her life was…
Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Author, Photographer and ‘Ravaged Angel’
A Swiss heiress, she was an adventurous traveler whose writings, along with her androgynous glamour and troubled life, made her a…
Annie Edson Taylor, Who Tumbled Down Niagara Falls Into Fame
She was the oldest person — and the only woman — to attempt going over Niagara in a barrel alone, but the glamour that followed…
Barbara Johns, Who Defied Segregation in Schools
At 16, Johns led a strike by the student body that ultimately became one of five court cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of…
Beatrice Tinsley, Astronomer Who Saw the Course of the Universe
An insurgent who challenged the academic establishment and became a foremost expert on the aging of galaxies, she was eventually…
Belkis Ayón, a Cuban Printmaker Inspired by a Secret Male Society
She worked by applying materials to a printing plate rather than carving into its surface, in a palette of grays, to express the…
Bessie B. Stringfield, the ‘Motorcycle Queen of Miami’
In the 1950s, when women were relegated to housework, Stringfield revved and roared through Florida’s palm-tree-lined streets on…
Bessie Blount, Nurse, Wartime Inventor and Handwriting Expert
Blount invented a feeding device and taught amputee veterans to write with their teeth and their feet. She later became a…
Bette Nesmith Graham, Who Invented Liquid Paper
A struggling secretary created a concoction that relieved her and others around the world from the pressure of perfection.
Bill Larson, Who Became a Symbol of Gay Loss in New Orleans
Larson died in the city’s deadliest fire ever, at a gay bar called the Up Stairs Lounge, but his death — and those of the 31…
Charley Parkhurst, Gold Rush Legend With a Hidden Identity
A swashbuckling, one-eyed stagecoach driver lived her life disguised as a man. After her death, the revelation that she was a…
Charlotte Brontë, Novelist Known for ‘Jane Eyre’
She was fearless — so fearless that she paid to have a volume of poems by her and her younger sisters published under pseudonyms,…
Clara Lemlich Shavelson, Crusading Leader of Labor Rights
Shavelson ignited a huge strike by women garment workers that helped galvanize the labor movement. She went on to fight for…
Claude Cahun, Whose Photographs Explored Gender and Sexuality
Society generally considered women to be women and men to be men in early-20th-century France. Cahun’s work protested gender and…
Debra Hill, Producer Who Parlayed ‘Halloween’ Into a Cult Classic
Hill rose through Hollywood’s ranks, setting an example as a successful Hollywood producer at a time when there were few women in…
Diane Arbus Called Her Portraits ‘A Secret About a Secret’
A daughter of privilege, she photographed those on the outside, and her work has been hailed as brave and reviled as freakish.
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