​"I'm going to speak when and where I wish. No man will stop me."

• DOCTOR & WOMEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVIST
• Daughter of Italian and Irish immigrants
• Started working in a textile factory at 8 years old, but left when she was 17 to live with relatives in Florida and Italy because she was suffering from tuberculosis
• Once recovered, she moved in with her girlfriend, Bessie Holcomb, in Oregon and then San Francisco to study medicine
• Attended to victims of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, earning a commendation and a medal from the California governor and the United States Army
• Focused her medical practice on women's reproductive health, offering birth control and abortion services despite it being illegal in the United States
• Treated women of all races and classes, charging wealthy women more so she could afford to take care of those who couldn't pay
• ​Equi strongly supported women's suffrage, and protested often for better working conditions for women and children
• Arrested under the Espionage Act for protesting US involvement in World War I, she spent much of her ten months in San Quentin Prison providing medical treatment to the other 31 women inmates

So. Very. Awesome.

~ In 1893, while still living with Bessie, Equi confronted Reverend Orson D. Taylor, demanding that he pay Bessie the remaining $100 of her teacher's salary. When he refused, she drove him through the town with her horsewhip, letting everyone who saw know what was going on. Many of the town residents had been cheated out of money by him also, and showed their support for Equi by raffling off her horsewhip (giving the proceeds to Bessie) and paying her $250 bond when she was charged with assault and battery. Taylor may not have paid Bessie what she was owed, but he got what was coming to him when he was arrested later that week for embezzling $50,000.

~ When confronted by a representative of the Multnomah County sheriff's office about her illegally performing abortions, she called him out as the hypocrite he was, pointing out that she had provided an abortion for a young woman he had brought to her.

~ In 1916, as she (along with her friend Margaret Sanger) was being arrested for distributing pamphlets about birth control, she stabbed the officer dragging her away with a pin, claiming -- falsely -- that it was poisoned and that he would "die a slow, lingering death."

Bibliography: Maggs, Sam. Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2016. Print.

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(this is an awesome book, but it incorrectly states Equi's birthplace as New Bedford, CT -- it's New Bedford, MA)

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