• SINGER
• Born to unmarried parents, her father abandoned them when she was less than a year old, and her mother died when Fitzgerald was a teenager
• Her big break came in 1934 when she won first place in a contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem at seventeen years old
• The following year she was hired by the immensely popular Chick Webb and His Orchestra, and led the band for three years after Webb's death
• ​Worked with all of the big names in the industry, including Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong
• Famous for her energetic "scat" solos, a form of jazz improvisation that is sung on nonsense syllables
• Recorded more than 2000 songs across 200 albums, and sold 40+ million records, earning her the nicknames "First Lady of Song" and "First Lady of Jazz"
• FIRST Black musical artist to win a Grammy (1958) -- at the very first Grammys ceremony! -- going on to win 13 Grammy Awards over her sixty-year career
• Among her many honors are the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and France's Commander of Arts and Letters Award
• Established the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, which assists those in need, particularly children, and supports music programs

Photo by Lewin/ Kaufman/ Schwartz, Public Relations, Beverly Hills [Public domain via Wikimedia Commons]

Bibliography: Doyle, Caitlin. Girls Can Do Anything: From Sports to Innovation, Art to Politics, Meet Over 200 Women Who Got There First. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2016. Print.
Harrison, Vashti. Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Print.
Lee, Chana Kai. “Fitzgerald, Ella.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Oxford University Press, Vol. 2, 2008, p. 316.

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