The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, From the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement

Maria de Lopez was “smart” and independent. She was probably the first Latina professor at the University of California, Los Angeles; she traveled abroad alone, drove her own car, and was an expert teacher and translator. Maria was involved in at least six women’s clubs and worked as an organizer for a number of different social causes. She began passing out suffrage pamphlets written in Spanish and wrote an article for the Los Angeles Herald arguing that both men and women have souls and that this makes them equal. As World War I began in Europe, Maria felt compelled to help. She took a train to New York, where she learned to be an ambulance mechanic. She began learning to fly airplanes and soon headed to France, where she worked as an ambulance driver, just like other notable Americans including Walt Disney and Ernest Hemingway.

During the war, the United States refused to send female doctors into war zones. Determined to help, a group of around 80 women organized their own funds and set up a hospital in France, where their help was gladly accepted. Around 1918, Maria arrived in France and was assigned to a woman-run hospital. She first began working at an old chateau that had been converted to house wounded soldiers. Not long after she arrived, the chateau was bombed by the Germans. She and a number of other women ran toward the bombs and gunfire to save the wounded soldiers, surprising many men who doubted their bravery. Maria stayed in France for the duration of the war and drove an ambulance, usually alone. Upon the war’s end, she was awarded a medal of bravery by the French government.

Rebecca Brown Mitchell was part of the generation of women before Maria and Inez who worked tirelessly to pave the way for a national suffrage movement.

Rebecca was living in Illinois in the 1850s when her husband passed away, leaving her the widowed mother of two young sons. According to Illinois coverture laws, women needed a man to “oversee” them; they could not own their own property. Therefore, all of Rebecca’s possessions belonged to her husband and became property of the state following his death. If Rebecca wanted to keep any of her things, she would have had to buy them back, which she did not have the means to do. 

Rebecca longed to become a minister but struggled against the oppressive gender roles she encountered in the Church. Finally, frustrated and destitute, she decided to start a new life in the West. Rebecca’s sons were already adults when she left for Idaho in 1882 with her teenage daughter, Bessie. Upon their arrival, they found nothing to rent except a dirty shed behind a saloon. Rebecca wasn’t discouraged. She and Bessie cleaned the shed as well as they could, and the next day, Rebecca knocked on every door, inviting the townspeople to send their children to her new school. Rebecca began teaching academic and Sunday school classes in her “primitive” school and soon had amassed a class of 40 students. Rebecca remained desperately poor but never doubted that she was doing God’s work. She named her school Providence Mission.

Rebecca spent two years raising money to build a small chapel for her mission. She obtained a teaching certificate and began helping neighboring communities open their own schools. With Bessie finally grown and married, Rebecca decided to try her hand at government. She hoped to raise girls’ age of consent in Idaho, seek women’s suffrage in the state, and reform the state’s prison and parole system. McMahon points out that Rebecca’s desire for change derived from her own experiences with inequality and discrimination. Along with these issues, Rebecca became involved with the temperance movement. Temperance “was inextricably linked to suffrage” (116-17). Many women believed that alcohol harmed women and families, but they knew that men would never vote to make alcohol illegal, so women gaining the vote was an essential part of the project. Rebecca became president of Idaho’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union and traveled across the region, giving lectures on temperance and suffrage.

On election day in 1896, 66% of the men who voted in Idaho voted to give women the right to vote. Rebecca celebrated this victory, but she was far from done. She wanted to be an elector in the Electoral College and the chaplain of the Idaho legislature. Such a thing was “unheard of,” but Rebecca asked, “Why not do the unheard-of thing?” (120). It’s human nature to fear failure and judgment, but Rebecca had seemingly limitless energy and drive. She was constantly judged for her failures and unconventional lifestyle, but she persevered. She didn’t get the chaplain job, but she tried again the next year and succeeded. From there, Rebecca used her personal book collection to establish the Idaho Falls Public Library, started a Civic Improvement Club to beautify the city, and began to document Idaho Falls’ history.

Rebecca died in 1908, and though no statue commemorates her life, her “monuments” consist of the schools, libraries, and churches she opened across the state, along with the countless lives she touched. Rebecca was not the kind of woman who wanted “a marble bust of her face in a hushed memorial hall somewhere” (122); she would be happy to know that her legacy lives on in the important work she did.

By 1916, women had gained the vote in 11 Western states. This success was concentrated in the West for a number of reasons. Western states wanted to attract more settlers to gain statehood, and extending voting rights to women was one way to do this. Furthermore, the West was a prime example of various coalitions working together to make change. Despite the success in the West, suffragists would only be satisfied with a constitutional amendment, and they continued to pressure the president with marches and demonstrations.

In the summer of 1916, Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party organized a speaking tour through the Western states to mobilize female voters for the upcoming presidential election. Although she had been feeling unwell, Inez agreed to headline the tour. However, Inez’s health continued to decline, and a doctor diagnosed her with tonsillitis. He advised her to have her tonsils removed as soon as possible, but in the meantime, Inez pushed on with the tour. She “rallied” to go on stage, but afterward, she “wilted and looked like a ghost” (126). The schedule was “grueling,” but Inez drew strength from her belief in the cause.

Partway through California, Inez collapsed onstage. She was revived and continued speaking, but the doctor insisted that she needed immediate surgery on her tonsils and some infected teeth. Inez wanted to continue the tour, but her sister insisted that she go to the hospital. At the hospital, tests revealed that Inez’s poor health was actually caused by aplastic anemia, which causes the body to struggle to make new red blood cells. Her infected teeth were removed, but she was too ill for surgery on her tonsils. She was forced to end the tour and remain in the hospital.

Telegrams poured in for Inez, and her condition was soon national news. Inez’s sister donated blood for two transfusions, and when Inez needed more, four other friends volunteered. Her husband and parents arrived as her condition worsened. Inez died on November 25, 1916, at just 30 years old. Immediately, she became “a martyr” for the suffrage movement, and the National Women’s Party planned “a spectacle of suffrage” with Inez’s memorial service. It was “another area for women to demonstrate their bravery and worth on the world stage” (133), and as the United States entered World War I, women would have even more opportunities to prove their worth. One such example was the Hello Girls.

Entering World War I, the United States’ prime strength was its telecom industry. In the early days of telephones, calls were always placed by operators, many of whom were women. Part of the war effort included sending telecom equipment overseas, including a team of switchboard operators who were fluent in French. Thousands of women applied, but just 23 were selected. While women like Inez Milholland get credit for earning women the right to vote, women like the Hello Girls “move[d] that ball the remaining yards over the finish line” (135). President Woodrow Wilson repeatedly denied women voting rights; however, confronted by the reality of women risking their lives and serving their country during the war, the inequality became harder to justify.

The Hello Girls were given a list of personal items to bring with them to France and were issued a “stylish” uniform, which they had to pay for with their own money: $300, or more than $7,000 in today’s dollars. The women were treated like members of the military; they were promised benefits, swore their oath to the Constitution, and were prepared to risk their lives for their country. However, when they tried to redeem these benefits, they were informed that they were contract employees and not eligible, even though none of them had ever signed a contract.

When the Americans landed in France, the time it took to place a call went from 60 seconds to 20, and men felt hopeful “just hearing an American woman on the other end of the line” (137). In addition to phone lines, soldiers used pigeons to send messages. In one memorable episode, a pigeon called Cher Ami delivered a message despite being shot in the breast by German troops, allowing a battalion of trapped US troops to be rescued. Cher was treated to emergency veterinary services and hailed as a national hero. His remains are preserved in the Smithsonian. McMahon points out that “Cher enjoyed more retirement benefits than the Hello Girls” (141). In fact, the women who served as telephone operators in World War I were not granted their official military status and benefits until 1977.

Despite this delay in recognition, President Wilson recognized American women’s contribution to the war. Two years later, the 19th Amendment was passed and ratified. McMahon argues that suffrage “was not granted, it was seized” (142). It was “not a gift” but “the hard-won harvest of seventy years of toil” (142).