Born Isabella Baumfree into slavery in New York, Sojourner Truth endured harsh labor and brutal treatment. After escaping bondage in 1826, she renamed herself Sojourner Truth, believing that God had called her to travel and speak out against the evils of slavery.
Truth became a powerful orator on abolitionist and women’s rights circuits. Illiterate yet deeply eloquent, she mesmerized audiences with her rich voice and stirring biblical references. Her most famous speech, delivered in 1851 at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio—often called “Ain’t I a Woman?”—challenged prevailing notions of racial and gender inferiority. Though the popular version of her speech was later stylized, its power endures.
During the Civil War, Truth recruited Black troops for the Union Army and met with President Abraham Lincoln. After emancipation, she advocated for freed people’s resettlement and worked to secure land grants for formerly enslaved families.
Sojourner Truth’s courage in speaking truth to power made her an enduring symbol of intersectional struggle—linking race, gender, and class oppression long before such frameworks were formally articulated. Statues, stamps, and countless biographies have since honored her legacy.
Marie Curie (1867–1934)
The first woman to win a Nobel Prize—and the only person to win in two scientific fields
When Marie Skłodowska Curie arrived in Paris from Poland to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne, she could hardly have imagined how profoundly she would transform science. Alongside her husband Pierre Curie, she embarked on pioneering research into radioactivity—a term she coined.
The Curies discovered two new elements: polonium (named for Marie’s native Poland) and radium. Their painstaking work isolating radium from tons of pitchblende ore advanced understanding of atomic structure and laid groundwork for modern physics and cancer treatments.
In 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie, along with Henri Becquerel, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radioactivity. After Pierre’s untimely death in 1906, Marie took over his professorship, becoming the first female professor at the University of Paris. In 1911, she won a second Nobel Prize—this time in Chemistry—for her discovery of radium and polonium and her studies on their properties.
Despite facing significant sexism in the male-dominated scientific establishment, Curie persisted, famously remarking, “I am among those who think that science has great beauty.” During World War I, she championed the use of mobile X-ray units to treat wounded soldiers.
Marie Curie’s life was marked by sacrifice—she died of aplastic anemia likely caused by prolonged radiation exposure—but her legacy is monumental. Her achievements shattered barriers for women in science and reshaped humanity’s understanding of matter. shutdown123