Here’s the list of women who were suggested to me as possible inspirations for songs for my album 13 Women, I’ve included notes that friends added and a few links, in case you want to go down the rabbit hole where I’ve spent the last couple of years: There's a bullet next to the women who inspired the songs in 13 Women. The list is in the order in which the women were suggested to me.
Sophie Scholl (1921-1943) Member of the German anti-Nazi resistance.
Virginia Dare: first person on land
Sally Ride: astronaut
• Josephine Baker: Entertainer, activist, and French Resistance agent.
Clara Bow: the “It” girl
Harriet Tubman (1822 – 1913) – escaped slave, early civil rights activist
Nannita Daisey, also known as Kentucky Daisey
Rosa Parks (1913–2005) American civil rights activist. Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, indirectly led to some of the most significant civil rights legislation of American history.
• Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) aviation pioneer
Clara Barton: started the Red Cross
Sacagawea a Lemhi Shoshone woman who is known for her help to the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Emily Dickinson
Molly Prichard: fought in revolutionary war
Eleanor Roosevelt
Wilma Rudolph
Babe Didrikson
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Mary Elizabeth Lease
Ada Lovelace
Grace Hopper.: a crusty old broad, a chain smoker, mother of the COBOL programming language and higher level programming laguages, ultimately became an Admiral in the Navy.
Christine Jorgensen
Sarah and Angelina Grimke http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/abolition/
Catharine Beecher and Lucretia Mott: you can learn about them in "The Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk
Kidd.
Natalie Wood
• Peace Pilgrim, aka Mildred Lisette Norman. For over 50 years, she criss-crossed the USA on foot with only a toothbrush—no money, no other possessions—spreading love, kindness, and compassion over countless miles of two-lane rural highway.
Cindy Walker
Carol Kaye: A gun slinger with a bass. She’s played on over 10,000 recordings And she hung with the baddest of the badasses in the Wrecking Crew.
Bessie Stringfield
Angela Cochran
Dorothea Dix
Mary Woolstencraft
Dorothea Lange
Georgie White, the queen of the Colorado River guides.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Jane Goodall
Jane Addams
Mary Cassatt painter, American exile in Paris
Georgia O’Keefe
Sojourner Truth
Mary Lou Williams
Louise Bourgeois
Maya Angelou
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Carrie Chapman Catt
Katharine Hepburn
Bette Davis
Angela Davis
Patty Hearst
Squeaky Fromme
Hedy Lamarr
Frances Langford
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Ida Tarbell: the first muckraker. A journalist around the turn of the century (19th into 20th that is) who practically invented the expose. An early investigative reporter, she wrote extensively about Rockefeller.
Marjorie Stoneman Douglas
Mabel Mercer
Corita Kent: ex nun, contemporary artist, social justice activist:
Sarah Biffin and more: this site has a slew of women who refused to behave:
Nina Simone
Odettta
Katherine Johnson: NASA mathematician
Cornelia Fort: was a Nashville pilot who got famous being the first to spot attacking Japanese planes over Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941, while working as a flight instructor.
Dr. Mary J. Ruwart
And not to ignore the men completely, here are some of the suggestions I’ve received:
Crazy Horse
Sitting Bull
Einstein
Oscar Wilde
Walt Whitman
James Watson (discovered DNA with Francis Crick),
the Wright Brothers
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas Watson
Bruce Jenner
Davy Crockett
Henry Burn: Tennessee’s role in passing the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote— great story — we were the 36th and final state needed to ratify — passed by a single vote... a legislator, Rep. Henry Burn, changed his vote because his mom asked him to.
FDR
Peter McWilliams
Tonie Nathan
John Perry: cop who was signing his retirement papers to go to law school when the first plane hit at 9/11.