Frieda Caplan’s specialty food company has helped introduce a wide variety of fruits and vegetables to American palates, from kiwis and Asian pears to spaghetti squash and habanero chilies.
Rather than try her fortune directly through prospecting, Fanny Brooks followed the Gold Rush as a teenager and opened a successful general store and boarding house, creating the infrastructure to support other pioneers.
Debbie Stoller has been hailed as a pioneer of “girlie feminism” for reviving interest in traditionally feminine activities like knitting through Bust and Stitch ‘n Bitch.
Inspired by the youth villages that allowed Israel to welcome staggering numbers of orphans after the Holocaust, Anne Heyman created the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village to shelter orphans of the Rwandan genocide.
A longtime star of the Broadway stage, Idina Menzel became the first person ever to claim both a Billboard Top 10 slot (for Holiday Wishes in 2014) and a Tony Award (for Wicked in 2003).
Patricia Arquette has navigated a career path from Hollywood to television and back again, culminating in a landslide of awards for her supporting role in 2014’s Boyhood.
An unconventional CEO with tattoos, a black belt, and a reputation as a radical social activist, Stosh Cotler has mobilized Jewish Americans to fight for immigration reform, racial equality, and workers’ rights.
As a psychologist, Carolyn Goodman created early intervention programs for at-risk families, but when her son, Andrew Goodman, was killed during Freedom Summer, she became a powerful civil rights activist.
Yavilah McCoy is the founder of Ayecha, a nonprofit Jewish organization that provided Jewish diversity education and advocacy for Jews of color in the United States.
As founder of the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, Ethel Stark broke down barriers, becoming the first woman to conduct an orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1947 and welcoming Violet Grant States as the first black woman member of a Canadian symphony orchestra.
Jenette Kahn rebranded National Periodical Publications as DC Comics, reviving the failing company as a proving ground for both experimental titles and reboots of iconic characters like Batman and Superman.
A “Blue Dog” (conservative) Democrat with a gift for cultivating friendships and alliances on both sides of the aisle, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fought to recover from a 2011 shooting and became a gun control activist.
CEO Martine Rothblatt’s fascination with interconnectivity led her to found both GeoStar and Sirius Radio, but it was her drive to save her daughter’s life that led her to create biotech company United Therapeutics Corporation.
As the founder of Radical Doula, Miriam Zoila Perez created a network for birthing coaches to support people of all genders, races, and economic backgrounds through pregnancy, birth, miscarriage, and abortion.
Sara Blakely’s creation and marketing of Spanx made her the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, a success she has paid forward by training aspiring female entrepreneurs.
Jaclyn Friedman voiced new possibilities for sex-positive feminism and a rejection of rape culture as editor of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.
Driven by her own experiences as a teenage mother, Gloria Feldt became an advocate for women's rights and reproductive choice, leading Planned Parenthood for a decade.
Marcy Syms became one of the youngest female presidents of a New York Stock Exchange-traded company when her family’s business, Syms Corp., went public in 1983.
Carol Ruth Silver was one of the first two white women to be jailed in the Freedom Rides, an experience that sparked a career in law and politics, fighting for the rights of others.
Debra Schultz served as an advisor to the Jewish Women’s Archive in creating the Living the Legacy curriculum based on research she had done on the history of Jewish women in the civil rights movement.
Vivian Leburg Rothstein’s early experiences fighting for civil rights led her to a long career advocating for peace, women’s rights, and the labor movement.