By Kate Harrold
COLOURISED images showcase some of history’s most trailblazing women to celebrate Women’s History Month.
One portrait showcased Ellen A. O’Grady who was elected to be the first female police commissioner in New York, USA, and served between 1915 and 1920.
Another featured US author Zora Neale Hurston whose writings explored racial struggles in early 20th century America. Hurston’s most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was deemed to be one of the ‘100 most influential novels’ by the BBC.
In another image, women’s suffrage activist Lucy Burns – known for her work both in the UK and US – sat in Occoquan Workhouse in the US state of Washington. Best known for partly forming the National Women’s Party, Lucy continued to organise women’s rights protests during her imprisonment and repeatedly went on hunger strike despite enduring torture at the hands of guards.
Lucy Burns formed the National Women’s Party alongside Alice Paul who was featured in another photograph raising a glass to the party’s gold, white, and purple flag.
Others featured instantly recognisable figures such as abolitionist and activist Harriet Tubman who escaped slavery and assisted around 70 others in doing so on the underground railroad system, and Rosa Parks who fought for racial equality during the Montgomery bus boycott.
Women’s History Month is celebrated during the month of March in the UK, United States, and Australia – coinciding with International Women’s Day on March 8. The notion gained traction in the late 1970s but has become more prominent in recent years due to the involvement of younger generations on social media.
