Robert C Jones

35 Most Influential Women in Missouri History Robert C Jones

There is a long line of influential women in Missouri history, going back to Sacred Sun, Sister Rose Duchesne and Susan Shelby Magoffin. Among the 35 women I've listed herein are politicians (including two senators and a lieutenant governor), several social activists (suffragettes and temperance supporters, such as Phoebe Couzins, Edna Gellhorn, Virginia Minor, and Carrie Nation), three actresses (including the most popular actress of World War II, Betty Grable), several Civil Rights pioneers (including Margaret Bush Wilson and Lucile Bluford), two famous outlaws (Belle Starr and Ma Barker), a noted architect (Nelle E. Peters) and two First Ladies (Julia Dent Grant and Bess Truman). We also have several authors, including Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame, and Margaret Truman; a hero of the Titanic (Margaret Brown), a noted sexologist (Virginia Johnson), the developer of the Kewpie doll (Rose O'Neill), and a woman who sued for her freedom from slavery (Harriet Robinson Scott). And one of the women was a nude dancer who became a heroine of the French resistance in World War II (Josephine Baker).