The Women's L Project Blog

Irene McCoy Gaines

Irene McCoy Gaines

Irene McCoy Gaines (1892-1964), born in Florida, moved with her family to Chicago where she attended elementary and high school. At the age of 16, she began her studies in...

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

A train ride in 1884 turned out to be a turning point in the life of Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) and the beginning of a journey which would last the...

Martha Lavey

As a young girl growing up in Michigan, Martha Lavey (1957 - 2017) set her sights on becoming an actress. After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at Northwestern, Lavey performed...

Helen Valdez

Helen Valdez was a 30-something bilingual teacher at Chicago's Bowen High School in the 1980’s when she and fellow teacher Carlos Tortolero, frustrated by the lack of Mexican cultural education,...

Helen Doria

Helen Doria (1951 – 2012) was a program creator for the Chicago Park District. She founded the Arts Partners in Residency program which led to mini-festivals that introduced Chicagoans to...

Fritzie Fritzshall

Fritzie Fritzshall

Fritzie Fritzshall (1931 - 2021) was a young teenager when the Nazis invaded her Czechoslovakian town and deported the Jews to Auschwitz. Her mother and brothers were murdered but Fritzshall...

Sonia Silva

Sonia Silva (born 1950), born and raised in Chicago, earned a bachelor's degree in education and a master's degree in public policy and urban planning. Having worked as a social...

Viola Spolin

Viola Spolin (1906-1994) was born in Chicago to Russian Jewish immigrants. She had a lively childhood playing with her friends in her Humboldt Park neighborhood and performing plays with members...

Hazel Johnson

When Hazel Johnson (1935-2011) and her husband moved to Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens neighborhood, she did not know that the public housing buildings there had been built over a toxic dump....

Mary Thompson

Mary Thompson (1829-1895), born in upstate New York, graduated from the New England Female Medical College. After receiving further training at the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and...

Emma Lozano

Pastor and community activist Emma Lozano was born in Texas in 1955 where her father was a migrant farmworker. When she was a young girl, her family moved to Chicago....

Vivian Gordon Harsh

Vivian Gordon Harsh

Vivian Gordon Harsh (1890-1960) was born in Chicago, the daughter of Fisk University graduates. After earning an undergraduate degree in library sciences from Simmons College in Boston, she continued her studies...

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