Awesome Women Library
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      • Sonja Henie
      • Florence Griffith Joyner
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      • Ibtihaj Muhammad
      • Annie Smith Peck
      • Wilma Rudolph
      • Junko Tabei
      • Lindsey Vonn
      • Kristi Yamaguchi
      • "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
    • Water Sports
      • Anita DeFrantz
      • Gertrude Ederle
      • Katie Ledecky
      • Ellen MacArthur
      • Dara Torres
  • Authors
    • Ama Ata Aidoo
    • Anna Akhmatova
    • Louisa May Alcott
    • Isabel Allende
    • Maya Angelou
    • Jane Austen
    • Mary Ritter Beard
    • Hildegard von Bingen
    • Nellie Bly
    • Gwendolyn Brooks
    • Octavia Butler
    • Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
    • Tsitsi Dangarembga
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Marjory Stoneman Douglas
    • Lorraine Hansberry
    • Toni Morrison
    • Sappho
    • Harriet Beecher Stowe
    • Ida B. Wells
  • Business & Finance
    • Mary Kay Ash
    • Olive Ann Beech
    • Polly Bemis
    • Marguerite Boucicaut
    • Juana Briones
    • Clara Brown
    • Nellie Cashman
    • Coco Chanel
    • Nicole-Barbe Clicquot
    • Ellen Demorest
    • Katharine Graham
    • Hetty Green
    • Isabella Greenway
    • Annie Turnbo Malone
    • Indra Nooyi
    • Charley Parkhurst
    • Eliza Pinckney
    • Lydia Pinkham
    • Mary Ellen Pleasant
    • Muriel Siebert
    • Madam C.J. Walker
    • Maggie Lena Walker
    • Marie Webster
    • Oprah Winfrey
  • Civil Servants, Teachers, & World Leaders
    • Corazon Aquino
    • Queen Yaa Asantewaa
    • Mavis Batey
    • Mary McLeod Bethune
    • Empress Taytu Betul
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    • Mary Bowser
    • Charlotte Hawkins Brown
    • Gro Harlem Brundtland
    • Nannie Helen Burroughs
    • Empress Catherine II of Russia
    • Violeta Barrios de Chamorro
    • Shirley Chisholm
    • Pharaoh Cleopatra VII
    • Sarah Emma Edmonds
    • Queen Elizabeth I of England
    • Ruth Bader Ginsburg
    • Pharaoh Hatshepsut
    • Noor Inayat Khan
    • Belva Lockwood
    • Patsy Mink
    • Sandra Day O'Connor
    • Deborah Sampson
    • Trung Sisters
  • Computer Science & Math
    • Maria Agnesi
    • Jean Bartik
    • Kimberly Bryant
    • Annie Easley
    • Sophie Germain
    • Margaret Hamilton
    • Grace Hopper
    • Hypatia
    • Katherine Johnson
    • Sofya Kovalevskaya
    • Ada Lovelace
    • Maryam Mirzakhani
    • Emmy Noether
    • Ruchi Sanghvi
    • Dorothy Vaughan
  • Daredevils, Explorers, & Pilots
    • Ann Bancroft
    • Bessie Coleman
    • Amelia Earhart
    • Amy Johnson
    • Sacagawea
    • Freya Stark
    • Bessie Stringfield
    • Valentina Tereshkova
  • Engineers, Inventors, & Scientists
    • 1900 - present
      • Rachel Carson
      • Eugenie Clark
      • Sylvia Earle
      • Dian Fossey
      • Rosalind Franklin
      • Jane Goodall
      • Ruth Handler
      • Mary Jackson
      • Shirley Ann Jackson
      • Stephanie Kwolek
      • Hedy Lamarr
      • Mary Leakey
      • Wangari Maathai
      • Mary Sherman Morgan
      • Ellen Ochoa
      • Sally Ride
      • Stephanie Schwabe
      • Donna Shirley
      • Kathryn Sullivan
      • Ruth Wakefield
      • Peggy Whitson
      • Wu Chien-Shiung
    • 1800 - 1899
      • Hertha Ayrton
      • Florence Bascom
      • Katharine Burr Blodgett
      • Annie Jump Cannon
      • Martha Coston
      • Marie Curie
      • Lillian Gilbreth
      • Margaret E. Knight
      • Lise Meitner
      • Ynes Mexia
      • Maria Mitchell
    • - 1799
      • Mary Anning
      • Marie d'Arconville
      • Laura Bassi
      • Emilie du Chatelet
      • Catharine Littlefield Greene
      • Maria Sibylla Merian
      • Wang Zhenyi
  • Health & Medicine
    • Virginia Apgar
    • Sara Josephine Baker
    • Alice Ball
    • Clara Barton
    • Patricia Bath
    • Elizabeth Blackwell
    • Louyse Bourgeoise Boursier
    • Rachel Fuller Brown
    • Mamie Phipps Clark
    • Gertrude Belle Elion
    • Marie Equi
    • Elizabeth Hazen
    • Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
    • Karen Horney
    • Mae Jemison
    • Anandibai Joshee
    • Mary Eliza Mahoney
    • Florence Nightingale
    • Ogino Ginko
    • Mary Seacole
    • Jane Cooke Wright
    • Rosalyn Yalow
  • Performance Artists
    • Alicia Alonso
    • Marian Anderson
    • Josephine Baker
    • Lucille Ball
    • Misty Copeland
    • Dorothy Dandridge
    • Ellen DeGeneres
    • Katherine Dunham
    • Ella Fitzgerald
    • Evelyn Glennie
    • Martha Graham
    • Audrey Hepburn
    • Katharine Hepburn
    • Billie Holiday
    • Nichelle Nichols
    • Annie Oakley
    • Dolly Parton
    • Mary Pickford
    • Ma Rainey
    • Rihanna
    • Yma Sumac
    • Maria Tallchief
    • Rosetta Tharpe
    • Raven Wilkinson
  • Visual Artists
    • Etel Adnan
    • Sofonisba Anguissola
    • Mary Blair
    • Margaret Bourke-White
    • Julia Margaret Cameron
    • Judy Chicago
    • Artemisia Gentileschi
    • Alice Guy-Blache
    • Maija Isola
    • Lois Mailou Jones
    • Frida Kahlo
    • Yayoi Kusama
    • Dorothea Lange
    • Edmonia Lewis
    • Julia Morgan
    • Marianne North
    • Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
  • Picture Book Biographies
  • Bulletin of Awesomosity (aka, the blog)
  • About the Library
  • Awesome Women Resources
  • Contact
  • Home
  • What is an Awesome Woman?
  • Activists & Community Builders
    • Oyinkan Abayomi
    • Jane Addams
    • Fatima al-Fihri
    • Jessie Daniel Ames
    • Susan B. Anthony
    • Inessa Armand
    • Ella Baker
    • Josephine Butler
    • Mary Shadd Cary
    • Septima Clark
    • Dorothy Day
    • Durgabai Deshmukh
    • Nawal El Saadawi
    • Lady Bird Johnson
    • Helen Keller
    • Coretta Scott King
    • Anne Carroll Moore
    • Rosa Parks
    • Alice Paul
    • Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Ghenia Avril de Sainte-Croix
    • Sophie Scholl
    • Doria Shafik
    • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
    • Sojourner Truth
    • Harriet Tubman
    • Malala Yousafzai
  • Athletes
    • Ball Sports
      • Althea Gibson
      • Mia Hamm
      • Billie Jean King
      • Lisa Leslie
      • Nancy Lieberman
      • Cheryl Miller
      • Jackie Mitchell
      • Martina Navratilova
      • Annika Sorenstam
      • Toni Stone
      • Pat Summitt
      • Sheryl Swoopes
      • Serena Williams
      • Venus Williams
      • Lynette Woodard
    • Body Sports
      • Nicola Adams
      • Laila Ali
      • Simone Biles
      • Bonnie Blair
      • Alice Coachman
      • Nadia Comaneci
      • Dominique Dawes
      • Keiko Fukuda
      • Tanni Grey-Thompson
      • Sonja Henie
      • Florence Griffith Joyner
      • Jackie Joyner-Kersee
      • Ibtihaj Muhammad
      • Annie Smith Peck
      • Wilma Rudolph
      • Junko Tabei
      • Lindsey Vonn
      • Kristi Yamaguchi
      • "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
    • Water Sports
      • Anita DeFrantz
      • Gertrude Ederle
      • Katie Ledecky
      • Ellen MacArthur
      • Dara Torres
  • Authors
    • Ama Ata Aidoo
    • Anna Akhmatova
    • Louisa May Alcott
    • Isabel Allende
    • Maya Angelou
    • Jane Austen
    • Mary Ritter Beard
    • Hildegard von Bingen
    • Nellie Bly
    • Gwendolyn Brooks
    • Octavia Butler
    • Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
    • Tsitsi Dangarembga
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Marjory Stoneman Douglas
    • Lorraine Hansberry
    • Toni Morrison
    • Sappho
    • Harriet Beecher Stowe
    • Ida B. Wells
  • Business & Finance
    • Mary Kay Ash
    • Olive Ann Beech
    • Polly Bemis
    • Marguerite Boucicaut
    • Juana Briones
    • Clara Brown
    • Nellie Cashman
    • Coco Chanel
    • Nicole-Barbe Clicquot
    • Ellen Demorest
    • Katharine Graham
    • Hetty Green
    • Isabella Greenway
    • Annie Turnbo Malone
    • Indra Nooyi
    • Charley Parkhurst
    • Eliza Pinckney
    • Lydia Pinkham
    • Mary Ellen Pleasant
    • Muriel Siebert
    • Madam C.J. Walker
    • Maggie Lena Walker
    • Marie Webster
    • Oprah Winfrey
  • Civil Servants, Teachers, & World Leaders
    • Corazon Aquino
    • Queen Yaa Asantewaa
    • Mavis Batey
    • Mary McLeod Bethune
    • Empress Taytu Betul
    • Queen Boudicca
    • Mary Bowser
    • Charlotte Hawkins Brown
    • Gro Harlem Brundtland
    • Nannie Helen Burroughs
    • Empress Catherine II of Russia
    • Violeta Barrios de Chamorro
    • Shirley Chisholm
    • Pharaoh Cleopatra VII
    • Sarah Emma Edmonds
    • Queen Elizabeth I of England
    • Ruth Bader Ginsburg
    • Pharaoh Hatshepsut
    • Noor Inayat Khan
    • Belva Lockwood
    • Patsy Mink
    • Sandra Day O'Connor
    • Deborah Sampson
    • Trung Sisters
  • Computer Science & Math
    • Maria Agnesi
    • Jean Bartik
    • Kimberly Bryant
    • Annie Easley
    • Sophie Germain
    • Margaret Hamilton
    • Grace Hopper
    • Hypatia
    • Katherine Johnson
    • Sofya Kovalevskaya
    • Ada Lovelace
    • Maryam Mirzakhani
    • Emmy Noether
    • Ruchi Sanghvi
    • Dorothy Vaughan
  • Daredevils, Explorers, & Pilots
    • Ann Bancroft
    • Bessie Coleman
    • Amelia Earhart
    • Amy Johnson
    • Sacagawea
    • Freya Stark
    • Bessie Stringfield
    • Valentina Tereshkova
  • Engineers, Inventors, & Scientists
    • 1900 - present
      • Rachel Carson
      • Eugenie Clark
      • Sylvia Earle
      • Dian Fossey
      • Rosalind Franklin
      • Jane Goodall
      • Ruth Handler
      • Mary Jackson
      • Shirley Ann Jackson
      • Stephanie Kwolek
      • Hedy Lamarr
      • Mary Leakey
      • Wangari Maathai
      • Mary Sherman Morgan
      • Ellen Ochoa
      • Sally Ride
      • Stephanie Schwabe
      • Donna Shirley
      • Kathryn Sullivan
      • Ruth Wakefield
      • Peggy Whitson
      • Wu Chien-Shiung
    • 1800 - 1899
      • Hertha Ayrton
      • Florence Bascom
      • Katharine Burr Blodgett
      • Annie Jump Cannon
      • Martha Coston
      • Marie Curie
      • Lillian Gilbreth
      • Margaret E. Knight
      • Lise Meitner
      • Ynes Mexia
      • Maria Mitchell
    • - 1799
      • Mary Anning
      • Marie d'Arconville
      • Laura Bassi
      • Emilie du Chatelet
      • Catharine Littlefield Greene
      • Maria Sibylla Merian
      • Wang Zhenyi
  • Health & Medicine
    • Virginia Apgar
    • Sara Josephine Baker
    • Alice Ball
    • Clara Barton
    • Patricia Bath
    • Elizabeth Blackwell
    • Louyse Bourgeoise Boursier
    • Rachel Fuller Brown
    • Mamie Phipps Clark
    • Gertrude Belle Elion
    • Marie Equi
    • Elizabeth Hazen
    • Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
    • Karen Horney
    • Mae Jemison
    • Anandibai Joshee
    • Mary Eliza Mahoney
    • Florence Nightingale
    • Ogino Ginko
    • Mary Seacole
    • Jane Cooke Wright
    • Rosalyn Yalow
  • Performance Artists
    • Alicia Alonso
    • Marian Anderson
    • Josephine Baker
    • Lucille Ball
    • Misty Copeland
    • Dorothy Dandridge
    • Ellen DeGeneres
    • Katherine Dunham
    • Ella Fitzgerald
    • Evelyn Glennie
    • Martha Graham
    • Audrey Hepburn
    • Katharine Hepburn
    • Billie Holiday
    • Nichelle Nichols
    • Annie Oakley
    • Dolly Parton
    • Mary Pickford
    • Ma Rainey
    • Rihanna
    • Yma Sumac
    • Maria Tallchief
    • Rosetta Tharpe
    • Raven Wilkinson
  • Visual Artists
    • Etel Adnan
    • Sofonisba Anguissola
    • Mary Blair
    • Margaret Bourke-White
    • Julia Margaret Cameron
    • Judy Chicago
    • Artemisia Gentileschi
    • Alice Guy-Blache
    • Maija Isola
    • Lois Mailou Jones
    • Frida Kahlo
    • Yayoi Kusama
    • Dorothea Lange
    • Edmonia Lewis
    • Julia Morgan
    • Marianne North
    • Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
  • Picture Book Biographies
  • Bulletin of Awesomosity (aka, the blog)
  • About the Library
  • Awesome Women Resources
  • Contact

Annie Turnbo Malone

August 9, 1869 - May 10, 1957
(Metropolis, IL - Chicago, IL)
Story of Pride, Power and Uplift: Annie T. Malone
  • HAIR CARE ENTREPRENEUR
  • FIRST to create beauty care products designed specifically for Black women
  • Born Annie Minerva Turnbo, the tenth child of emancipated slaves
  • Pressured to adhere to a Caucasian ideal of beauty, many of the Black women she knew suffered from baldness, burns, and skin lesions caused by using products that were marketed as "guaranteed" to make them look more like white women but were actually toxic, including hair straighteners and whitening pills
  • With no shampoos or styling products designed for Black women, most used lye soap and animal fat, or simply kept their hair hidden under hats and scarves. Even Black men slicked their curly hair flat, cut it off, or wore wigs to imitate white fashions.
  • Based on her own scientific research, Turnbo INVENTED and spent a decade perfecting her Wonderful Hair Grower, a tonic that healed burns and stimulated hair growth
  • Through door-to-door sales, free demonstrations, and hiring local women as sales people, she grew her business from a single tonic to a MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR company that she named Poro
  • By 1914, she was worth an estimated $3 million, and she employed 4,000 people in the US, Cuba, Jamaica, West Africa, Trinidad, and the Philippines
  • Encouraged Black women to see their natural features as beautiful, rather than trying to achieve an unrealistic white ideal
  • Because she only hired Black women as sales agents, she expanded the extremely limited job prospects that were available to this underserved population, and enabled many to raise themselves out of poverty
  • Opened Poro College, a cosmetics training center
  • Donated to several charities, including hospitals and the YMCA
  • Paid for the St. Louis Colored Orphan’s Home (now the Annie Malone Children & Family Service Center) to establish a permanent residence, and served as the president of its Board of Directors for over twenty years

Business or Betrayal?

One of Turnbo's sales agents was a former customer named Sarah Breedlove, whom she met in St. Louis, MO. Breedlove eventually started her own hair product line, citing her formula as divinely inspired through a dream, and adopting Turnbo's sales strategy of hiring local Black women. Breedlove would become famous as Madam C J Walker, the first Black woman to become a self-made millionaire, although some researchers claim that Turnbo should be the holder of that historic title. Turnbo had not patented her formula or trademarked her Wonderful Hair Grower, so she was unable to sue when Breedlove called her featured product "Madam Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower." As Walker's fame increased and her business blossomed, Turnbo's diminished, and her company struggled to remain relevant.
Bibliography: Gates, Jr., Henry L. Madam Walker, the First Black American Woman to Be a Self-Made Millionaire. http://www.pbs.org
Wills, Shomari. Black Fortunes. New York: Harper Collins, 2018. Print.

Support these organizations dedicated to preserving her story & mission:

Annie Malone Historical Society
Annie Malone Children and Family Services

Biographies for Kids and Young Adults

Research

Story of Pride, Power and Uplift: Annie T. Malone
Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires
A Friend to All Mankind:Mrs. Annie Turnbo Malone and Poro College

Meet more Awesome Women like this

What did this woman do when she couldn't get her sexist boss to give her a promotion?
This daughter of slaves went on to become the first self-made female millionaire... right?
She had almost 100 poems published -- before she was even out of high school.
Picture Books
Can't decide which Awesome Woman to meet next? Place your fate in the Librarian's hands... if you dare! Mwahahaha!
Pinterest
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  • Home
  • What is an Awesome Woman?
  • Activists & Community Builders
    • Oyinkan Abayomi
    • Jane Addams
    • Fatima al-Fihri
    • Jessie Daniel Ames
    • Susan B. Anthony
    • Inessa Armand
    • Ella Baker
    • Josephine Butler
    • Mary Shadd Cary
    • Septima Clark
    • Dorothy Day
    • Durgabai Deshmukh
    • Nawal El Saadawi
    • Lady Bird Johnson
    • Helen Keller
    • Coretta Scott King
    • Anne Carroll Moore
    • Rosa Parks
    • Alice Paul
    • Eleanor Roosevelt
    • Ghenia Avril de Sainte-Croix
    • Sophie Scholl
    • Doria Shafik
    • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
    • Sojourner Truth
    • Harriet Tubman
    • Malala Yousafzai
  • Athletes
    • Ball Sports
      • Althea Gibson
      • Mia Hamm
      • Billie Jean King
      • Lisa Leslie
      • Nancy Lieberman
      • Cheryl Miller
      • Jackie Mitchell
      • Martina Navratilova
      • Annika Sorenstam
      • Toni Stone
      • Pat Summitt
      • Sheryl Swoopes
      • Serena Williams
      • Venus Williams
      • Lynette Woodard
    • Body Sports
      • Nicola Adams
      • Laila Ali
      • Simone Biles
      • Bonnie Blair
      • Alice Coachman
      • Nadia Comaneci
      • Dominique Dawes
      • Keiko Fukuda
      • Tanni Grey-Thompson
      • Sonja Henie
      • Florence Griffith Joyner
      • Jackie Joyner-Kersee
      • Ibtihaj Muhammad
      • Annie Smith Peck
      • Wilma Rudolph
      • Junko Tabei
      • Lindsey Vonn
      • Kristi Yamaguchi
      • "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
    • Water Sports
      • Anita DeFrantz
      • Gertrude Ederle
      • Katie Ledecky
      • Ellen MacArthur
      • Dara Torres
  • Authors
    • Ama Ata Aidoo
    • Anna Akhmatova
    • Louisa May Alcott
    • Isabel Allende
    • Maya Angelou
    • Jane Austen
    • Mary Ritter Beard
    • Hildegard von Bingen
    • Nellie Bly
    • Gwendolyn Brooks
    • Octavia Butler
    • Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
    • Tsitsi Dangarembga
    • Emily Dickinson
    • Marjory Stoneman Douglas
    • Lorraine Hansberry
    • Toni Morrison
    • Sappho
    • Harriet Beecher Stowe
    • Ida B. Wells
  • Business & Finance
    • Mary Kay Ash
    • Olive Ann Beech
    • Polly Bemis
    • Marguerite Boucicaut
    • Juana Briones
    • Clara Brown
    • Nellie Cashman
    • Coco Chanel
    • Nicole-Barbe Clicquot
    • Ellen Demorest
    • Katharine Graham
    • Hetty Green
    • Isabella Greenway
    • Annie Turnbo Malone
    • Indra Nooyi
    • Charley Parkhurst
    • Eliza Pinckney
    • Lydia Pinkham
    • Mary Ellen Pleasant
    • Muriel Siebert
    • Madam C.J. Walker
    • Maggie Lena Walker
    • Marie Webster
    • Oprah Winfrey
  • Civil Servants, Teachers, & World Leaders
    • Corazon Aquino
    • Queen Yaa Asantewaa
    • Mavis Batey
    • Mary McLeod Bethune
    • Empress Taytu Betul
    • Queen Boudicca
    • Mary Bowser
    • Charlotte Hawkins Brown
    • Gro Harlem Brundtland
    • Nannie Helen Burroughs
    • Empress Catherine II of Russia
    • Violeta Barrios de Chamorro
    • Shirley Chisholm
    • Pharaoh Cleopatra VII
    • Sarah Emma Edmonds
    • Queen Elizabeth I of England
    • Ruth Bader Ginsburg
    • Pharaoh Hatshepsut
    • Noor Inayat Khan
    • Belva Lockwood
    • Patsy Mink
    • Sandra Day O'Connor
    • Deborah Sampson
    • Trung Sisters
  • Computer Science & Math
    • Maria Agnesi
    • Jean Bartik
    • Kimberly Bryant
    • Annie Easley
    • Sophie Germain
    • Margaret Hamilton
    • Grace Hopper
    • Hypatia
    • Katherine Johnson
    • Sofya Kovalevskaya
    • Ada Lovelace
    • Maryam Mirzakhani
    • Emmy Noether
    • Ruchi Sanghvi
    • Dorothy Vaughan
  • Daredevils, Explorers, & Pilots
    • Ann Bancroft
    • Bessie Coleman
    • Amelia Earhart
    • Amy Johnson
    • Sacagawea
    • Freya Stark
    • Bessie Stringfield
    • Valentina Tereshkova
  • Engineers, Inventors, & Scientists
    • 1900 - present
      • Rachel Carson
      • Eugenie Clark
      • Sylvia Earle
      • Dian Fossey
      • Rosalind Franklin
      • Jane Goodall
      • Ruth Handler
      • Mary Jackson
      • Shirley Ann Jackson
      • Stephanie Kwolek
      • Hedy Lamarr
      • Mary Leakey
      • Wangari Maathai
      • Mary Sherman Morgan
      • Ellen Ochoa
      • Sally Ride
      • Stephanie Schwabe
      • Donna Shirley
      • Kathryn Sullivan
      • Ruth Wakefield
      • Peggy Whitson
      • Wu Chien-Shiung
    • 1800 - 1899
      • Hertha Ayrton
      • Florence Bascom
      • Katharine Burr Blodgett
      • Annie Jump Cannon
      • Martha Coston
      • Marie Curie
      • Lillian Gilbreth
      • Margaret E. Knight
      • Lise Meitner
      • Ynes Mexia
      • Maria Mitchell
    • - 1799
      • Mary Anning
      • Marie d'Arconville
      • Laura Bassi
      • Emilie du Chatelet
      • Catharine Littlefield Greene
      • Maria Sibylla Merian
      • Wang Zhenyi
  • Health & Medicine
    • Virginia Apgar
    • Sara Josephine Baker
    • Alice Ball
    • Clara Barton
    • Patricia Bath
    • Elizabeth Blackwell
    • Louyse Bourgeoise Boursier
    • Rachel Fuller Brown
    • Mamie Phipps Clark
    • Gertrude Belle Elion
    • Marie Equi
    • Elizabeth Hazen
    • Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
    • Karen Horney
    • Mae Jemison
    • Anandibai Joshee
    • Mary Eliza Mahoney
    • Florence Nightingale
    • Ogino Ginko
    • Mary Seacole
    • Jane Cooke Wright
    • Rosalyn Yalow
  • Performance Artists
    • Alicia Alonso
    • Marian Anderson
    • Josephine Baker
    • Lucille Ball
    • Misty Copeland
    • Dorothy Dandridge
    • Ellen DeGeneres
    • Katherine Dunham
    • Ella Fitzgerald
    • Evelyn Glennie
    • Martha Graham
    • Audrey Hepburn
    • Katharine Hepburn
    • Billie Holiday
    • Nichelle Nichols
    • Annie Oakley
    • Dolly Parton
    • Mary Pickford
    • Ma Rainey
    • Rihanna
    • Yma Sumac
    • Maria Tallchief
    • Rosetta Tharpe
    • Raven Wilkinson
  • Visual Artists
    • Etel Adnan
    • Sofonisba Anguissola
    • Mary Blair
    • Margaret Bourke-White
    • Julia Margaret Cameron
    • Judy Chicago
    • Artemisia Gentileschi
    • Alice Guy-Blache
    • Maija Isola
    • Lois Mailou Jones
    • Frida Kahlo
    • Yayoi Kusama
    • Dorothea Lange
    • Edmonia Lewis
    • Julia Morgan
    • Marianne North
    • Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun
  • Picture Book Biographies
  • Bulletin of Awesomosity (aka, the blog)
  • About the Library
  • Awesome Women Resources
  • Contact