Lady Daredevils
While women may often have been left out of historical accounts, they were never left out of history—and some women got themselves into the books in remarkable (and unusual) ways. Match the pictures of each of the following women with the descriptions of their accomplishments in the drop-down menu:
1. Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Jane Cochran). Investigative undercover reporter for the New York World and globe traveler. Lived 1864-1922.
2. Annie Smith Peck. Amateur American archeologist of Greek antiquities, and world's most famous mountaineer. Scaled Mt. Shasta, the Matterhorn, Popocatépetl, Orizaba, and Huascarán, among others. Lived 1850-1935.
3. Marguerite Harrison. Reporter for the Baltimore Sun and spy in revolutionary Russia. First foreign woman to be held by Bolshevists in the Lubyanka prison. Explorer and cinematographer in China and among the Bakhtiari in Central Asia. Lived 1879-1957.
4. Annie Edson Taylor. Unemployed schoolteacher who, at age 63, was the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, on October 24, 1901. Lived 1838-1931.
5. Mabel Stark (Mary Haynie). Daughter of Kentucky farmers. Joined the circus and, during the 1920s, became the world's most famous and skilled tiger and lion trainer, working with up to 18 cats at once. Lived 1889-1968.
6. Sonora Webster Carver. As a teenager in 1923, the first woman performer to dive on horseback 40 feet down into a deep pool of water at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. Regularly performed the stunt for two decades, even after being blinded in 1931 during a dive. Lived 1904-2003.
7. Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick. In 1908, at age 15, became the first woman to use a parachute (from a hot air balloon), then in 1913, the first woman to make a jump from an aircraft. Trial tested parachute designs for the U.S. Army, and in 1914 made the first free fall parachute jump. Made over 1,100 jumps. Lived 1893-1978.
PBS' American Experience series of documentaries includes Around the World in 72 Days, on Nellie Bly and her 1889-1890 journey around the world. The full text of Bly's account of her experiences, Nellie Bly's Book: Around the World in 72 Days, can be found free to download or read online at Project Gutenberg. Her report on time spent undercover in an insane asylum, Ten Days in a Mad-house, can also be found at this site.
In 1902, Annie Edson Taylor published a 17-page booklet recording her experiences: The Internet Archive presents the full text of Over the Falls: Annie Edson Taylor's Story of Her Trip: How the Horseshoe Fall Was Conquered.
Sonora Webster Carver also wrote about her life, in her autobiography A Girl and Five Brave Horses. In 1992, Disney released a film, Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, based on Carver's life—though, as with most films, it presents a highly fictionalized version of a true story.
Try a search in NHEC's Website Reviews—Topic: Women—for websites featuring other remarkable women in American history. From Women in Journalism, archiving interviews with reporters who followed in the footsteps of women like Marguerite Harrison, to the Library of Congress's Votes for Women, preserving material from the fight for women's suffrage, NHEC highlights websites with primary sources suitable for use in the classroom.
- Brooke Kroeger, Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist (New York: Times Books, 1994).
- Elizabeth Fagg Olds, Women of the Four Winds: The Adventures of Four of America's First Women Explorers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985).
- Elizabeth Whitley Roberson, Tiny Broadwick: The First Lady of Parachuting (Gretna, La.: Pelican, 2001).
For more on major U.S. Supreme Court cases, try a search in our 
1941: Pan American Airways began in 1927 with a single engine aircraft and a single route between Key West and Havana. By 1941, the airline flew to 55 different countries, between North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Airline ads in the late 1930s advertised air travel similar to train travel, with sleeping berths and dining cars. When the U.S. entered World War II, the world’s only aircraft that could carry payloads across an ocean were nine Pan Am Boeing 314 flying Clippers, and three that Pan Am had sold to Britain. The U.S. government took over all of Pan Am’s over-ocean aircraft, crews, and operations. Pan American airplanes were used in overt operations by the War Department, and in 1942, 1,445 war planes were delivered to the British army. [1]
1938: Hormel developed canned ham in 1926, and eleven years later produced the first canned meat product that did not require refrigeration, a distinctive chopped ham and pork shoulder mixture, marketed as “spiced ham.” A major advertising campaign started in mid-1937, promoting the product as “miracle meat” and “anytime meat.” SPAM proved effective for the military and because it wasn’t rationed like beef was, it became a major staple for American families during the war. [2]
1956: While passenger service on the Union Pacific Railroad started in 1866, early accommodations were rough and often uncomfortable. The 1890 Overland Limited, a luxury train, ran between Omaha and San Francisco, and by 1921, passenger revenues reached an all-time high. As the Twenties progressed, the automobile became more accessible and necessary, and Union Pacific took some drastic marketing steps to increase business. Luxurious Steamliner passenger trains began operating in the 1930s with opulent furnishings, impeccable service, and total comfort, developing over the next decades with sleeping cars, coaches, diners and lounges, dome coaches, and dome diners, unique to Union Pacific. [3]
1959: Pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton produced the syrup for Coca Cola in Atlanta in 1886. Marketing for the drink began immediately with coupons and souvenir fans, calendars, clocks, urns, and other novelties depicting the trademark. Coca Cola’s first advertisement appeared in 1895, featuring Boston actress Hilda Clark. By World War II, Coke was bottled in 44 countries on both sides of the conflict. From the mid-1940s through 1960, the number of countries with bottling operations nearly doubled. In 1955, the company introduced varying sizes of bottles. Metal cans were not available until after 1960. Campaign slogans include the 1929 “Pause that Refreshes,” “It’s the Refreshing Thing to Do” in 1936, and 1944’s “Global High Sign.” The 1950s produced “Sign of Good Taste,” “Be Really Refreshed,” and “Go Better Refreshed.” [3]
1969: Panasonic was founded in 1918, selling duplex lamp sockets in Japan, expanding rapidly to other areas. By 1961 the company began producing televisions for an American market. In 1962, television started transmitting via satellite, allowing for real-time images changing the industry. In the mid-1960s, television manufacturers competed to make the smallest set.
1932: Parents started giving children pacifiers around 1800. Concern for the way thumbsucking and other such activities impacted physical and social development prompted adults to use such contraptions as the Baby Alice Thumb Guard.
Rubella
Diphtheria 
Smallpox 
Polio
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website provides resources on (largely present-day) health and health practices, but its 
1915
1925
1917 (Note the military accents.)
1905.
1935.
1910.
1940.
1895.
1955.
1960.
[Question 1] The first photograph of either a president or a first lady broadcasting from the White House is of Mrs. Hoover. She began national broadcasts in 1929, even setting up a practice room in the White House where she could "improve [her] talkie technique." Many of her broadcasts were made from President Hoover's country retreat, Camp Rapidan, where she often devoted her programs to speaking to young people, urging girls to contemplate independent careers and boys to help with the housework. Mrs. Hoover had a degree in geology from Stanford University, as did her husband. She had accompanied him to China for two years, where he hadsupervised the country's mining projects. She later used the Mandarin Chinese she learned then to communicate with her husband privately when they were in the presence of others.
[Question 4] Julia Grant, although it happened after her husband was no longer president. Mrs. Grant went down the Big Bonanza silver mine in Virginia City, Nevada with her husband after hearing that he had wagered that she would be afraid to go. The Grants, along with their son, Ulysses, Jr., visited the mine on October 28, 1879, more than two years after Grant had left office. The mine's fabulous production of silver during the Civil War had done much to undergird the Government's financial credit internationally. Lucy Hayes later descended into the same mine with her husband, President Rutherford Hayes. On May 21, 1935, Eleanor Roosevelt made the national news by visiting the Willow Grove coal mine in Bellaire, Ohio, to observe the working conditions of the miners.
[Question 7] Lyndon Johnson, with his wife Lady Bird on one side and Jackie on the other, was sworn in aboard Air Force One less than two hours after JFK's assassination. The ceremony was delayed to wait for Jackie to arrive. The most famous photograph of the event has Jackie in the foreground, standing in a pink suit still stained with her husband's blood, with LBJ in the center with his hand upraised taking the oath, and with Lady Bird in the background.
