American Women, Part 1

Back in April I decided to read one short biography (from my Notable American Women encyclopedia) of a famous American woman a day for inspiration. I have a curious idea of giving myself challenges, what can I say...

Here is the list of the first fifteen women I read about:

1. Martha Hill (1900-1995) Dancer and dance educator. Established the dance program at Bennington and founded the dance division at Juilliard.
2. Eva Le Gallienne (1899-1991) Actress and theater director. Starred in Broadway theater and founded the Civic Repertory Theatre, which laid the groundwork for off-Broadway and regional theater after World War II. 
3. Marjorie Phillips (1894-1985) Artist and museum director. Married to museum founder Duncan Phillips, who gave his name to the Phillips Collection in D.C. Became director herself after Duncan's death in 1966, retired in 1972.
4. Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) Photographer known for her black-and-white photographs of New York City in the 1930s. 
5. Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) Poet known both for her own work and her translations of Anna Akhmatova's poetry. For several reasons she reminds me of my godmother...
6. Lila Bell Acheson Wallace (1888-1984). Reader's Digest co-founder and philanthropist who fervently supported the arts and gave millions of dollars to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Juilliars School and other institutions. 
7. Betty Parsons (1900-1982). Art dealer and artist. She started her own gallery in 1946 and took on the artists that Peggy Guggenheim represented when the latter decided to leave for Europe permanently, including Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. 
8. Lynn Fontanne (1887-1983) Actress largely responsible for the Theatre Guild's golden age in the 1920s and 1930s alongside her husband, Alfred Lunt. 
9. Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) Journalist who reported on the Spanish civil war and World War II, novelist, short-story writer, and Ernest Hemingway's second wife. 
10. Hanya Holm (1893-1992) Choreographer and dance educator. Was appointed as one of the founding faculty of Bennington by Martha Hill. One of four pioneering American modern dance artists. 
11. Janet Flanner (1892-1978) New Yorker staff writer and journalist, well-known for her reporting from Paris in the 1920s.
12. Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) Artist who painted enlarged flowers and New Mexico landscapes, married to Alfred Stieflitz until 1946, moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949 (I miss Santa Fe...)
13. Joan Crawford (1905-1977) Oscar-winning actress with a hardscrabble childhood known for her portrayal of characters transcending their beginnings and femmes fatales. Title role in Mildred Pierce (1945).
14. Anni Albers (1899-1994). Textile designer and fiber artist associated with the Bauhaus school in Weimar, fled Germany in 1933 with her husband, played a key role in Black Mountain College in North Carolina where her husband was invited to teach before moving to Yale in 1950.
15. Irene Sharaff (1910-1993). Broadway and Hollywood costume designer. In the same way that Jerome Robbins has had a hand in most ballets in movies and musicals of a certain time period that have withstood the test of time, Sharaff is responsible for the costumes of many well-known shows (especially movies in early Technicolor) such as West Side Story and The King and I.