Remembering Pioneering Women Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cyclist

The Italian cyclist, Alfonsina Morini Strada (1891-1959), was born into a family of farmers. There are no reliable reports about her family's living conditions during her childhood. What is known is that she grew up as a tomboy, playing with boys and riding her father's bicycle. At age 10 she got her first bicycle and at age 13 she won her first race. She won almost every girls' and boys' race in which she entered. In 1909, she received an invitation to ride the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

In 1911, Alfonsina moved to Turin and won numerous races. She was called the "queen of pedals" and made headlines in the 1920s when she competed in the 1924 Giro d'Italia bike race - a race in which only men could participate. She signed up as Strada, Alfonsin, with the absence of a final "a" in her first name hiding her gender. When the organizers discovered that she was a woman, it was no longer possible to prevent her from competing. Alfonsina was never allowed to ride the Giro again but she gained fame and respect among athletes and reporters. She participated in events in several countries and broke several records.

She showed courage and opened the doors of cycling to the women who came later.

Answer: Ballerina

Alicia Alonso (1920-2019) was born in Cuba and began studying ballet as a child. In 1937, she moved to New York, where she began attending the School of American Ballet. The following year she made her stage debut in the musical comedy "Great Lady". From the age of nineteen Alicia was afflicted with an eye condition. In 1941, she was diagnosed with a detached retina; she underwent several surgeries that were followed by periods of inactivity, periods in which she was prohibited from dancing. In these periods her husband, also a dancer, sat next to her and used their fingers to teach her classical ballet pieces.

In 1943, with only partial sight in one eye and no peripheral vision, she was called to replace the prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet Theater. From then on, she began a highly successful career as a ballerina and later with her own ballet company. Two things were fundamental to her success: her tenacity in the face of unforeseen events and the help of her dance partners who were trained to be exactly where she needed them to be in order to compensate for her significant vision impairments.

Answer: Motocross racer and stunt performer

Ashley Fiolek (1990) was born deaf in Dearborn, Michigan. Her parents only noticed it when she was around 3 years old. When she was 8 years old the family moved to Florida so she could attend the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. She stayed at this school until she completed eighth grade, and from then on was educated at home.

At the age of 3, Fiolek received a Yamaha PW50, the bike suitable for very young riders, and rode it for many years. At age seven she started competing. She is culturally deaf and uses American Sign Language to communicate. Fiolek became famous as the first deaf professional motocross racer - female or male- and for winning four AMA (American Motorcyclist Association) women's motocross national championships. In 2014, she began working as a motorcycle stunt performer for a touring Marvel Universe Live show. When she retired from professional racing, she decided to set up a motocross school.

Answer: Animator, director, screenwriter, storyboard artist

According to American, Brenda Chapman (1962), she has been drawing since she could hold a pencil and she always knew that she wanted to do something that allowed her to draw. There were other areas to which she could have turned, but animation for the screens captured her imagination. She began her creative career at Lincoln College in Illinois and later studied at the California Institute of the Arts, which offered a specific character program. One of her jobs at the Institute was her passport to Walt Disney Feature Animation Studios, at a time when animation was re-emerging. Over time she has also worked for DreamWorks, Pixar, Universal, Sony, Lucasfilm, and Fox. She has worked as an animator, screenwriter, storyboard artist, and director. In 1998, she became the first woman to direct an animated feature from a major studio. In 2012, she co-directed the Disney/Pixar film "Brave", becoming the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Brenda changed the narrative about girls in animated films. She has shown, through the characters she creates, that girls can have big dreams and make them come true, unlike traditional heroines whose happiness depends on a fairy godmother or a prince.

Answer: Racing and Formula One driver

Maria Grazia 'Lella' Lombardi known as Lella Lombardi (1941-1992) was an Italian racing driver who participated in 17 Formula One World Championship Grand Prix. She was born in Italy and developed her interest in driving from an early age. She drove the delivery van for her father's establishment. Her racing career began with karting, and, in 1965, she moved on to Formula Monza and Formula Three until reaching Formula One. In 1975, Lombardi became the first woman, after Maria Teresa de Filippis in 1958, to qualify for the Grand Prix. In her second race, at the Spanish GP, an accident occurred, and the race was stopped on the 29th lap. Lello Lombardi finished in sixth becoming the only woman in Formula One to score championship points.

Lombardi qualified, competed, and won several other types of races. Her life inspired other women to become racers and influenced the way people view women in racing activity.

Answer: Geneticist

American Nettie Maria Stevens (1861-1912) graduated from Westford Academy, and sought further training in both the United States and Europe. She received a grant to develop research on genetics related to Mendel's Laws, specifically in sex determination.

Like other women scientists her name has been virtually forgotten, although she did fundamental work to explain the process of sex determination. Working with mealworms she discovered that sex is inherited as a chromosomal factor and that males determine the gender of the offspring. Her revolutionary work was published in 1905. Although Nettie Stevens and Edmund Beecher Wilson (1856-1939) worked on chromosomal sex determination simultaneously, many authors have credited the discovery solely to Edmund Wilson.

She passed away at age 50, only nine years after completing her Ph.D., having published around 40 papers. Today, Nettie Stevens is recognized as one of the first American women to have made discoveries that changed science and genetics.

Answer: Aviator

Mary Anita Snook Southern, also known as Neta Snook (1896-1991) revealed her interest in machines from a young age, due to the influence of her father who worked with cars. At university, she took courses in mechanical drawing, engines, and farm machinery repair. Having come into contact with aviation literature she decided to fly. She applied to the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station, in Virginia, but she was not accepted because she was a woman. In 1917, she was accepted for her training. Classes were interrupted when civilian flights in the United States were banned for the duration of World War I. Neta bought a wrecked Curtiss JN-4 "Canuck" plane and spent two years rebuilding it. In 1920, she received her pilot's license. In California, she went to work at the "Kinner Airplane & Motor Corporation". After a brief trial period, she began to run a commercial airfield.

In December 1920, Kinner Field's most famous student, Amelia Earhart, took her first flying lesson with Neta Snook. Although Amelia Earhart is known worldwide, we cannot forget that Neta Snook was the first woman to fly in Iowa, the first woman to be accepted as a student at the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia, the first woman aviator to run her own aviation business and the first woman to run a commercial airfield.

Answer: Astronaut and doctor

Mae Carol Jemison (1956) knew from a young age that she wanted to study science and go to space. The television show "Star Trek", in particular the black actress Nichelle Nichols who played Lieutenant Uhura, fueled her desire. At age 16 she entered Stanford University where, in 1977, she received degrees in chemical engineering and African studies. That year she entered medical school at Cornell University where she graduated in 1981. After working as a medical officer in the Peace Corps in Africa from 1983 to 1985, Jemison returned to the United States and applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In 1987 she was accepted into NASA. Jemison flew her only space mission from September 12 to 20, 1992, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavor, a joint United States and Japan mission. Aboard the Spacelab Jemison tested products and procedures in the medical field.

At that time she was the only African American woman astronaut. In 1992 she resigned from NASA to open her own business. Her businesses are very varied, she even has an African dance company, which represents one of her passions.

Answer: Painter

Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi (1593-c. 1656) was born in Italy. She was very young when her mother died and was raised by her father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi, practically in a painting studio. From an early age, she learned to draw, mix colors, and paint. At the age of 18, her father already considered her an exceptional artist, as can be seen in her work "Susanna and the Elders" (1610).

She painted mainly strong female figures, which appear in the Bible or mythology. Many of the figures had already been painted by other artists but she gave them a different characteristic, of strength and non-submission as can be seen in her most famous painting: Judith beheading Holofernes (1612-1613).

Despite her talent, her life was not easy. At 18 she was raped by the painter Agostino Tassi. She denounced him and he was convicted but society was against her. She also suffered rejection in the artistic world for being a woman and saw many of her works attributed to her father and other contemporary artists. Her talent can be proven by the fact that she was the first woman accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

After she died in the 1650s she was forgotten and was only recognized by critics in the second half of the 20th century. Today she is considered to have been an excellent painter and a feminist icon.

Answer: Architect

Zaha Mohammad Hadid (1950-2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist, and designer, recognized as one of the great architectural figures of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She was born to an upper-class Iraqi family and once mentioned that the trips she took in her childhood to the ancient Sumerian cities in southern Iraq sparked her interest in architecture and made her decide to become an architect.

Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and in 1972 enrolled in the Architectural Association School of Architecture, UK. In her career, she found alternative systems to traditional architectural design. She was described by "The Guardian" as the "Queen of Curves". Among her great works are the "London Aquatics Center" and the "Guangzhou Opera House". Several of her projects were in progress at the time of her death.

She was the first woman to receive the "Pritzker Architecture Prize" (2004), and countless others. She used to say: "I don't think that architecture is only about shelter... it should be able to excite you, to calm you, to make you think".