Famous Female Firsts Test | World History

Answer: First female over Niagara Falls in a barrel

American born Annie Edson Taylor (1838-1921) had an adventurous streak in her nature, it seems. After she was widowed at a young age, having previously lost her only child shortly after his birth, she decided that school teaching just didn't do it for her. Initially she tried being a dance instructor, but when that proved unsuccessful, she came up with the hare-brained idea of being the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Accordingly, she had a custom made barrel to suit her size and lined it with a mattress, but then ran up against the problem of nobody wanting to sponsor her on her dangerous record setting attempt - in spite of the fact that she had sent an unfortunate cat over the falls in a more or less successful trial run first. Successful depends on one's perspective, of course. The cat was very far from impressed.

Finally, however, the day arrived, and Annie climbed into her barrel, clutching a heart-shaped pillow for luck (I would have chosen a crucifix myself), she was lowered over the side of a rowing boat, the lid was screwed on, and off she went, bobbing merrily along to what seemed would be her death. Surprisingly, she survived, bruised, with a small cut on head, but otherwise intact, but of her famous first, Annie told the press at a later interview that "If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat... I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Falls".

Answer: First female winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was the first female Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, earning this prestigious award for her 1920 work, "The Age of Innocence". She was an exceptionally prolific writer altogether, with her overall literary works comprising more than twenty novels and novellas, three volumes of poetry, sixteen works of shorts stories, and eleven works of non-fiction. Born Edith Newbold Jones into a comfortably off New York family, it is believed, rather interestingly, that her family was the inspiration for the saying "Keeping up with the Joneses". If travelling was the yardstick by which this was measured, they certainly deserved the title. Before she turned ten, this future writer had already travelled all over the European with her parents and her tutors, and could speak several languages fluently. Altogether, in fact, Edith crossed the Atlantic sixty times during her lifetime. She grew up to be an intelligent, witty, articulate young woman who scorned the female fripperies of her day, sold her first work at the age of fifteen, and her a fine literary career already underway.

Marrying at the age of twenty-three to a gentleman of her circle, this marriage proved to be a tragedy, with her husband suffering ever-increasing bouts of mental illness. Finally, the marriage ended in divorce after twenty-eight years. Edith in the meantime, though, had taken a lover for three years, a journalist who matched her wit and intelligence with his own, but whose bisexual and promiscuous life-style put paid to any hope of a second marriage. Following her divorce from her husband, she consequently moved to France, and there she spent the rest of her life, working tirelessly for the French war effort, unemployed women, children and refugees, and mixing with the intellectuals of her age. What a fascinating woman! All that in addition to her writing and picking up a Pulitzer Prize along the way.

Answer: First woman to swim the English Channel

Gertrude Ederle (1905-2003) was not only the first woman to swim the English Channel, but as a competition swimmer and Olympic medallist to boot, she held the world record in five different events at one stage of her very long life, and broke eight world records in her chosen stroke, freestyle. This American born mermaid did her swimming training at a time when women's swimming was still not a recognised sport. It was only reluctantly accorded this right in 1919, on the condition that although women were allowed to remove their stockings before getting into the water, they must immediately put on a robe when they emerged.

Turning professional at the age of twenty, Gertrude, or Trudy as she was known, set about breaking long distance swimming records, or setting them herself, as a matter of course. On her first attempt to cross the English Channel in 1925, she was pulled out of the water against her will by her male coach, a man who had tried - and failed - to cross the Channel more than twenty times himself. Switching coaches, she easily managed this feat the following year, with her record of 13 hours and 20 minutes standing until 1950. For that, and her second successful crossing of the Channel that same year, she was given a ticker-tape parade in New York (with two million spectators), played herself in a movie, toured the vaudeville circuit, met the President of the United States, and had a song and dance routine named in her honour. Trudy went deaf several years after this heady beginning, and spent the rest of her life teaching swimming to deaf children, giving back to the world all that she herself had earned.

Answer: First woman to gain an aeroplane pilot licence

French pilot, Raymonde de Laroche (1882-1919), was the first woman in the world to receive her licence to fly planes. A bit of a rev-head as a girl, she also liked fast cars and motorcycles as well, so, following the Wright Brothers successful venture into the skies in the early 20th century, it was a matter of course that she should decide to take up flying as well. Oh my goodness, planes at that stage of the era only had room for one pilot - so Raymonde took the plane to the air by herself while her teacher shouted up instructions to her from the ground below! Her first solo flight covered a distance of some four miles, an incredible distance for the times. By 1910, she was so daring at her new skill that she suffered the consequences with a crash so severe it almost killed her. Did that stop this female daredevil? Not on your Nelly.

The gods demand a heavy price for their gifts however, and in 1919, while co-piloting a new and experimental plane, the plane went into a dive, killing both pilots instantly. Raymonde died as she had lived, doing what she loved best. Was she to be envied or pitied, do you think?

Answer: First woman to ride a bicycle around the world

Latvian born Annie Kopchovsky (1870-1947) was another of the free spirited young women beginning to raise the conservative eyebrows of her age. After migrating to the US as a child with her family, she grew up to do the expected thing of marriage and children, but she was restless. Consequently, when the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company offered her the chance of carrying an advertisement sign on a pushbike, changing her name to Londonderry, and pedalling around the world - and paying her $5,000 if she could do this in fifteen months - she grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

Donning a pair of bloomers, carrying a change of clothes and a small revolver, and referring to herself as the "New Woman", off Annie pedalled from her Boston home. Places she visited during this amazing journey, with advertising ribbons and placards dancing madly in the breeze, included Chicago, New York, Paris, Marseille, Egypt, Jerusalem, Yemen, Singapore, Colombo, back to the states at San Francisco, then El Paso, Denver and then home to Boston in 1895 - all within the allotted time slot. Although Annie tasted fame for several months after her epic journey, she was content from that time to live out the rest of her life in comfortable obscurity - and, quite possibly, with a sore bottom as well.

Answer: First woman to win an Olympic medal

English born Charlotte Cooper (1870-1966) was not only a champion tennis player who took out five Wimbledon championships, she was also the world's first female Olympic champion, taking out that title in the year 1900. Playing tennis all her life, Charlotte won her first seniors title at the age of 23, and between that year and 1917, she took part in 21 Wimbledon tournaments, winning the first of her five subsequent championships in 1895. Dressed of course in the long ankle length outfit that women of that era were expected to wear, hot, uncomfortable, and excessively hampering to her movements. Her fifth Wimbledon title was won at the age of 37, when, by then, she had two children of her own.

Aged 42, Charlotte went on to win her first doubles championship at Wimbledon, and followed this up the following year by winning the mixed doubles. This incredible woman was also runner-up on seven different occasions as well! Most amazingly of all, however, Charlotte, who continued to play competitive tennis until she was well into her fifties, accomplished all but one of her titles after she had gone deaf at the age of 26. This had the added disadvantage of not being able to hear the smack of the balls that were hit by her opponents off their racquets to give herself time to react, but having to rely on vision only. A true champion through and through.

Answer: First woman to become a rabbi

Born in Berlin, Regina Jonas (1902-1944) was the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi. Other women prior to Regina had acted as rabbis from time to time, but none had actually reached the further step of ordination. Initially trained as a school teacher, Regina disliked the job so much that she enrolled in the Jewish Institute to try to further her education - and her choices. There she studied courses normally the domain of rabbis, and graduated successfully as a teacher of religious studies. When she tried to take the further step to becoming a rabbi herself though, Regina, as expected, met with opposition from all she approached, mainly because it was feared her ordination would cause an uproar in orthodox communities.

She persevered though, and in 1935, finally achieved her goal when ordained by the head of the Liberal Rabbis' Association in Offenbach am Main. Sadly though, this determined little woman only got to enjoy her role for a few short years. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, she was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. She worked bitterly long hours there for almost two years trying to help people cope with their terrible circumstances, and lecturing whenever she could on her faith and its history, but in 1944, the Nazis moved her to Auschwitz. There she was put to death two month later. Her memory lives on today whenever another female rabbi is freshly ordained to follow in the footsteps Regina Jonas struggled so hard to be allowed to take.

Answer: First woman to climb Mount Everest

Born in 1939 in Japan, Junko Tabei holds the record for being the first woman to climb Mount Everest. She achieved this feat on 16 May, 1975 at the age of thirty-five. Wanting to climb all her life, she took time off long enough to earn her university qualifications in teaching, before resuming her ambitions. In 1969, she formed the Ladies' Climbing Club in the country of her birth, where, naturally enough, one of the first peaks she climbed was Japan's lovely Mount Fuji, before travelling to the Swiss Alps to tackle and conquer the Matterhorn. More climbs, more peaks fell before this determined young woman until she finally set her eyes on the big one - Mount Everest.

In spite of receiving funding at the last moment from the local media, it still cost each member of that historic party the equivalent of a year's salary to make that attempt. This in spite of doing everything they could to save costs. Then followed months of training beforehand until the great day arrived. The path Junko and her party took up the highest mountain on earth followed the 1953 trail-blazing footsteps of Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay, the first two men to ever conquer Everest. In spite of an avalanche burying them under the snow along their way, and having to be dug out by their brilliant Sherpa guides, they struggled on - and they made it. It was Junko Tabei who had the honour of reaching that mighty summit first. Seventeen years later, in 1992, Junko subsequently became the first woman on the planet to conquer the famous Seven Summits, the tallest mountains on each of the world's continents. Incredible, isn't she?

Answer: First US woman to practice dentistry

Born in the United States, Emeline Roberts Jones (1836-1916) was the first women to not only practice dentistry in that country, but also the first to own her own dental practice. Perhaps she had a bit of help along the way, as her husband was a dentist as well. Emeline though, who had married him when she was still a teenager, didn't start learning the trade until several years after her wedding. When she did, she took to it like a set of dentures at a piece of steak.

Mind you, she had to fight her husband first for the right to practise dentistry. He was firmly convinced that women were not strong enough for the job because their fingers were too "frail and clumsy". The nerve! So what did Emeline do to change his mind? She studied dentistry in secret, and then, when she was good and ready, produced a jar filled with hundreds of teeth she had extracted during her studies, along with a list of all the teeth she had filled. He fell like the walls of Jericho before this evidence, and took her on as his assistant. I should think so. After her husband died in the 1860s, Emeline continued to work in the trade, eventually setting up and running her own very profitable dental practice in Connecticut. In 1994, now with nothing left of Emeline but her skeleton and its teeth, this determined woman was elected to Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame.

Answer: First female to run for US President

This is long, but the woman is completely fascinating. Born in Ohio in 1838, the most conservative thing Victoria Woodhull did was to become the first woman to run for the Presidency of the United. People have debated back and forth ever since whether she had the legal right to do so, because she was six months under the age of 35, the mandated requirement to throw one's hat into the ring. What a silly thing to argue about. She didn't win in any case. Which is just as well. Victoria was a bit over the top in everything she did, to put it mildly.

Her father was a disgusting animal who regularly beat, starved and sexually molested her when she was a young girl. This saw her turning to a spiritual guide very early in life as a form of escapism, one she referred to as Demosthenes, who she said encouraged her in her later belief of free love. In 19th century America? When she was seven, she was blamed for a cupola that was burned down in her area. Whether she was innocent didn't seem to enter into the debate. She was blamed anyway. It was probably her father in any case, for, several years later, he was run out of town for burning down his gristmill after insuring it heavily. Good riddance. The scandal, however, saw the rest of the family leaving town, and Victoria never completed her formal education, in spite of the fact that her teachers stated that she was highly intelligent.

She married three times, the first time at the age of fifteen, to an alcoholic and a philanderer, who sent her out to work for the family. Following the birth of two children, she divorced him to marry a Union soldier. The older she grew, the more feminist became her views, leading her to become one very forthright speaker on women's rights, including that of their own sexuality. Oh dear, again. After she and her sister moved to New York, and set up their own brokerage firm and newspaper there, she grew even more radical, using the paper to write many articles in support of legalising the sex trade - oh dear, oh dear! - sex education, free love, eugenics, women's suffrage (to Susan Anthony's horror), short skirts (swoon!) and spiritualism, she published the first English translation of "The Communist Manifesto" for distribution in the US (to Karl Marx's alarm), and, rather peculiarly so, considering her other interests, touted the benefits of vegetarianism.

Finally, this most fascinating of women so far ahead of her time, ran for President of the United States. During her campaign, she spoke out against the government being run by only men, proposed a new constitution, nominated ex-slave and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, as her Vice-President (he ignored it, but it caused an uproar anyhow), pushed for Equal Rights, and got herself jailed for six months on the charge of obscenity for outing the adulterous affair of a top clergyman of the time who had attacked her free love campaign. This effectively ended her campaign for the top position in the land. After this, now divorced, she moved to England to set up a new life - but that's another story.