Always the Bridesmaid Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hildegard of Bingen

Mystic, healer, composer of songs and writer of morality plays, adviser to popes and kings, Hildegard von Bingen's accomplishments are astonishing for a woman of her time. Many of her works survive, including one of the largest collections of musical compositions of the period, 100 letters and 70 poems. She also published nine books, including the first known book of medicine written by a woman and several texts of religious visions and theological interpretation. Although the formal process of canonization was never completed, she is venerated and listed as a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Her feast day is September 17th.

Contemporary and fellow visionary, Elisabeth of Schonau corresponded with Hildegard of Bingen. Catherine of Siena was an accomplished nun of 14th c. Italy. The first saint of the Americas, Rose of Lima was canonized in the 17th c.

Answer: Coco Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur 'Coco' Chanel (1883-1971) was literally born in a poorhouse but became a pioneer couturier, creating comfortable, elegant clothes for women ready to abandon turn-of-the-century corset fashions. She had several affairs, most famously with composer Igor Stravinsky, but never married.

Answer: Dian Fossey

A 1989 biopic called "Gorillas in the Mist" (starring Sigourney Weaver) was based on her book of the same name released shortly before her untimely death in Rwanda in 1985. To date, no one has been charged with her murder, though many suspect local poachers of carrying out the killing. Her work continues through the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International.

Answer: Emily Carr

Emily Carr (1871-1945) was one of Canada's first post-impressionist painters. Her early work was frequently inspired by aboriginal culture. She is best known for painting the forests and totem poles of northern B.C. She also wrote several books, including "Klee Wyck" for which she won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction in 1942.

Hortense Gordon and Alexandra Luke were members of the abstractionist 'Painters 11' in Toronto in the 1950's. Mary Dignam was the first president of the Women's Art Association of Canada.

Answer: Mathematics

Hypatia was also pagan philosopher at a time of religious turmoil in the Roman Empire. She is believed to have influenced pagan Imperial prefect Orestes against Christian bishop Cyril. Surviving chronicles agree that she was murdered in the streets of Alexandria by a Christian mob.

Her mathematical works are the focus of a short biography by Michael Deakin, "Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr" (2007). Her life is dramatized in the Spanish film "Agora" (2009) starring Rachel Weisz.

Answer: Elizabeth I

Elizabeth resisted pressure to marry throughout in her reign. It may be that she was reluctant to do so in part because of her father (King Henry VIII)'s poor matrimonial track record. Also, after suffering the trauma of her mother (Anne Boleyn)'s execution, she lost two subsequent mother-figures (Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr) to death in childbirth.

Historian Alison Weir has speculated that as a result Elizabeth viewed marriage as a volatile and dangerous business, best avoided.

Answer: Jane Austen

Born in 1775, Jane Austen received little personal recognition for her novels in her lifetime, but has come to be considered one of the greatest English writers of all time. A key theme in her works--which include "Emma", "Pride and Prejudice", "Sense and Sensibility"--is the necessity for women to marry to ensure their financial security.

Although the situations in her novels are frequently comic and romantic, one senses that she lamented the limitations imposed on women of her time.

Answer: Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins was an outspoken political commentator and humorist, author of several books including "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" (1991); "You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You: Politics in the Clinton Years"(1998) and "Who Let the Dogs In?: Incredible Political Animals I Have Known"(2004). Sadly, she passed away of inflammatory breast cancer in 2007.

Ann Richards was Governor of Texas from 1991-1995. Sandra Day O'Connor was the first female member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Harriet Miers was White House Counsel under George W. Bush.

Answer: Simone de Beauvoir

French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) is best known for "The Second Sex", considered one of the foundational texts of 20th century feminism. In it, she argues that men in society are defined as the norm and women as "the Other"--only understood in terms of how they deviate from a male 'ideal'--and that this flawed assumption must be discarded for the position of women to improve. Though she and Sartre rejected monogamy and marriage, they were lifelong romantic and intellectual partners. They are buried together in Paris.

Daly, Friedan and Dworkin were also prominent "second-wave" feminist writers.

Answer: Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries as a junior aquatic biologist in 1936. Her writings for fisheries brochures led to ongoing work writing articles for magazines (Atlantic Monthly, Nature) and several book deals. Her best-seller "The Sea Around Us" was the basis for the 1953 Oscar winner for Best Documentary Film. "Silent Spring" was published in 1962 and led to the banning of DDT in the U.S. ten years later. Carson did not live to see the results of her best-known work; aged 56, she died of a heart attack while battling cancer in April, 1964.

E.B. White ("Charlotte's Web") is quoted on the opening page of "Silent Spring". He shared her love of nature and concern for the environment.
Marie Rodell was her literary agent.
Carson's call for caution in the use of chemical pesticides drew some to compare her to Frances Oldham Kelsey, the FDA reviewer who had resisted industry pressure and refused to authorize thalidomide for use in the United States in 1960.