Women
Mark Twain Wasn’t the Only Famous Person in Hannibal, MO, Part 3: The Unsinkable Molly Brown
To recap: a small local history museum in Hannibal, Missouri, introduced me to Hannibal-born celebrities who weren’t Mark Twain. Two were totally new to me. One I knew. Or at least I thought I did. Margaret Tobin Brown was born in Hannibal, Missouri to poor Irish-immigrant parents in 1867.* And after that, it turns out…
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Women in the Soviet Army in World War II? Let Me Count the Ways
Recently a fascinating story about a real life woman warrior appeared in the Wall Street Journal. To summarize the story: Ukranian-born Olha Tverdokhlibova fought against the Germans in World War Two. She was a skilled markswoman, served as a scout behind German lines, fought her way to Berlin with the Red Army, and was highly…
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Mrs. Ruth Shipley, Chief of the US Passport Office
Every formal communication or article about Ruth B. Shipley, whether written by journalists during her lifetime or by scholars in the decades since her death, refers to her as Mrs. Ruth Shipley. She was formidable. She was powerful. And in the end, she was controversial. In 1951, Time magazine described her as “the most…
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