Test Your Knowledge of Herstory
What better way to celebrate Equality Day -- or to remember the women who fought long and hard for the right to vote -- than to test your knowledge of the forbidden subject of herstory?
I lifted this portion of a quiz from the National Women's History Project. Short answers are in the comments, longer answers here.
1. Which mother led a 125–mile march of child workers all the way from the mills of Pennsylvania to President Theodore Roosevelt’s vacation home on Long Island?
2. One of the most important Union spies and scouts during the Civil War was a Black woman who had escaped from slavery. Can you name her?
3. Before the 1960s, farm workers in the U.S. were not paid even the minimum wage, and had no influential representatives to fight for their rights. What part did Dolores Huerta play in changing this situation?
4. The line of beauty products she created for African–American people made her the first Black woman millionaire in the United States. Who was she, and when did she do this?
5. She came to the U.S. when she was a teenager to study science and stayed to become “the world’s foremost female experimental physicist.” Her most famous experiment disproved what had been thought to be a fundamental scientific law. Who is this outstanding Asian–American scientist?
6. She took her job as “First Lady” seriously, traveling the country and the world to gather information about the problems and concerns of workers, children, minorities, and the poor. She wrote a daily newspaper column and made frequent radio broadcasts. Who was this active wife of a president?
7. When the Mexican Revolution of 1910 reached the Texas border, she and her friends organized La Cruz Blanca, The White Cross, to take care of the wounded. They nursed people from both sides of the fighting. She was also known as a journalist and community activist. Who was she and where did she live?
8. Who was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands, deposed when American business and military interests wanted to annex Hawaii to the U.S.?
9. She opened “Hull House” in a run–down Chicago neighborhood, a community center to improve conditions for poor immigrants. The program of English–language classes, childcare, health education and recreational opportunities soon inspired hundreds of other settlement houses throughout the country. Her name?
10. Daughter and granddaughter of Paiute Indian chiefs from Nevada, she lobbied Congress, wrote extensively, and traveled across country during the late 1800s lecturing on the hardships brought upon Native Americans by the U.S. Government. Her name?
11. Her 1939 Easter Sunday concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial drew a crowd of 75,000. Who was she, and why was she singing there?
12. Who printed the first copy of the Declaration of Independence that included the signers’ names?
Gender Politics Women's History Feminism Herstory Equality Day
