Happy Women’s History Month!

Celebrating women’s history is what March is all about! How they invent, explore and blaze trails through every aspect of American life. Here’s to the ladies who persisted, succeeded and achieved in traditionally male-dominated fields, ranging from science, medicine, entrepreneurship, tech, and the arts:

Did You Know?

1715: The first American to receive a patent for inventing a machine was Sybilla Righton Masters. Like most women of that time, she mainly worked at home and was obsessed with finding new ways to make household tasks easier. One of her chores was grinding dried corn between two stones to make flour – a time-consuming task. She invented a mill, a cylinder of wooden posts that when turned, would do it for her. The patent was granted to her husband, Thomas, because women weren’t recognized as independent individuals in that time.
Learn More

1849: In the early nineteenth century, women couldn’t be doctors or lawyers, and women’s health issues were treated solely by men. That is, until Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to earn the letters “MD” after her name. (She was told by male professors that she would be more successful if disguised as a man.) Her sister followed her into the profession, and together they opened the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.
Learn More

1917: Born in 1867 into poverty in the South, and with only three months of formal education under her belt, Sarah Breedlove was losing her hair. There weren’t many products for Black women with such problems, so she got busy and invented them, along with a line of skincare products, and founded the Madame C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Not long after, sales went through the roof, making her the first self-made woman millionaire in the United States.
Learn More

1946:  Nearing the end of World War II, American computer science pioneer Adele Goldstine not only understood the world’s first supercomputer, ENIAC – she was instrumental in programming it, and wrote the manual for others to follow. She was known for her sharp mathematical mind and determination to navigate the barriers of gender bias at the dawn of the computer age.
Learn More


1961: Rita Moreno lit up the screen as Anita in the smash hit, West Side Story a  breakout role that made her an international movie star, and the first Latina American woman to win an Academy Award. Her eight-decade career spanned theater, movies and television, and her many accolades include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2004).
Learn More

1987: As a teenager, Tania Aebi was a bicycle messenger in New York City, feeling restless and bored. So she borrowed money from her dad, bought a sailboat, took her cat and took off, becoming the first American woman (and, at 21, the youngest) to sail solo around the world in a sailboat, the Varuna. She paid her father back with proceeds from the book she wrote after her journey, Maiden Voyage.
Learn More

2020: Ginni Rometti stands tall as a huge figure in tech, and was the first woman CEO of IBM, where she led the company to reinvent itself. She saw the future of the industry, spearheading IBM’s new emphasis on data analytics, IT and artificial intelligence.
Learn More

Each of these women’s achievements, though some are little known, have made the world better, our lives richer and more exciting, and make it clear that women can do anything. Happy International Women’s Day on March 8!

See who’s making history today: https://www.internationalwomensday.com