French writer, philosopher, cultural critic, and public intellectual Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908–April 14, 1986) is celebrated as the mother of contemporary feminism. Her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a seminal account of woman’s role as an “other” in a world dominated and defined by male power, framed much of the dialogue on women’s rights and gender equality in the decades that followed, shaping the subsequent work of iconic reconstructionists like Betty Friedan and Gloria...| The Reconstructionists
Celebrated as “the first lady of Civil Rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement,” Rosa Parks (February 4, 1913–October 24, 2005) helped usher in a new era of equality with her iconic act of defiance against injustice: Her refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger on December 1, 1955, became one of the symbolic pillars of the modern Civil Rights movement. Though Parks, raised by a strong mother and nursed on pride in her heritage, was not the first African American ...| The Reconstructionists
By the time she was forty, British social reformer, mathematician, and statistician Florence Nightingale (May 12, 1820 – August 13, 1910) was the second most influential woman in England, after only Queen Victoria. Nightingale pioneered modern nursing during her time serving as a volunteer nurse in the Crimean War, where she became known as “The Lady with the Lamp” for her nightly visits with the wounded in the wards. In 1854, John MacDonald, commissioner of the Times Crimea Fund, desc...| The Reconstructionists
It was under the male pseudonym George Eliot that Mary Anne Evans (November 22, 1819 – December 22, 1880) became one of the most revered voices in literary history – a choice dictated as much by the biases of the Victorian era, in which women writers tended not to be taken seriously for anything beyond romance novels, as it was by Evans’s desire to keep the turbulence of her private life out of the public eye. Evans received little formal education after the age of sixteen, but thanks t...| The Reconstructionists
The longest-serving American First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884–November 7, 1962) endures as one of the most remarkable luminaries in modern history – a relentless champion of human rights, an advocate for working women, and a tireless supporter of underprivileged youth. At the age of seventy-six, Roosevelt collected her life’s wisdom in You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life – an elegant and timeless manual of personal exploration emanating universa...| The Reconstructionists
When Amelia Earhart (b. July 24, 1897) disappeared over the Pacific on July 2, 1937, she left behind a legacy shrouded in legend, glory, and modern-day mythmaking. Celebrated as a pioneering aviator and the first woman to cross the Atlantic on a solo flight, she was also a smart businesswoman, a generous caretaker, and a relentless champion of education. She applied her remarkable tenacity to everything she took on, demanding a great deal of herself and never failing to live up to it, in publ...| The Reconstructionists
Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) has been called an “addict of experience,” a tragic literary blonde, a victim of her generation and her medication. Beneath these partly true yet invariably reductionist labels, however, lies the immutable fact that she was, above all, one of the most celebrated and influential poets of the twentieth century, with a remarkable gift for moving the hearts of millions while struggling to still her own. From an early age, Plath embodied a ...| The Reconstructionists
“The Cuba swim is the greatest endurance feat in human history, but if anyone can do it, I can,” Diana Nyad (b. August 22, 1949) told a New York Times reporter in 1978, shortly after she captured the world’s attention by swimming around the island of Manhattan. She was 28. This declaration of courageous bravado is something one would expect from Thomas Edison or Muhammad Ali, but 35 years later, after four failed attempts and a lifetime of resilience in the face of great emotional and p...| The Reconstructionists