The Women's L Project Blog

Lucy Parsons

Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) was born in Texas to parents of African, Mexican and Native American descent. Because of oppressive Jim Crow laws in the South, Parsons and her husband moved...

Sister Jean Schmidt

Sister Jean Schmidt

Sports enthusiast Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, BVM (born 1919) played on her San Francisco high school girls basketball team. Following graduation, she entered a convent of the Sisters of Charity...

Ardis Krainik

Ardis Krainik (1929-1997) was born and bred in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Bitten by the theatrics bug, she studied music and drama at Northwestern. In 1951 she became a member of the...

Edna McRae

Edna McRae (1901-1990) grew up on Chicago’s North Side and began her dance training at Schurz High School. After studying with prominent Chicago dance teachers, McRae went east to train...

Mary Koga

After graduating from the University of California in 1942, Mary Koga (1920-2001; born Hisako Ishii) was taken to the Tule Lake interment camp. Her experiences there compelled her to go...

Lynn Martin

Lynn Martin (born in 1939) grew up on the North Side of Chicago. Her first political contest was in 8th grade when she ran against her boyfriend for class president....

Gladys Nilsson

The daughter of Swedish immigrants, Gladys Nilsson was born in Chicago in 1940. From an early age, Nilsson exhibited artistic gifts. First as an elementary school student and then as...

Suze Orman

The daughter of a deli owner and a secretary, Suze Orman (born 1951) grew up in one of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods. After attending the University of Illinois, Orman took...

Chi Che Wang

Chi Che Wang (1894 – 1979), born in Suzhou, China, was educated in Japan before being sent to the US to study at the Walnut Hill School in Massachusetts and...

Irene Hernandez

Irene Hernandez

Irene Hernandez (1915-1997) was born in Texas to Mexican immigrant parents. After her father died, she and her mother moved to Chicago. After working in the Venezuelan and Argentinian consulates...

Roberta Karmel

After Chicago native Roberta Karmel (born 1937) graduated from law school in 1962, she applied for several positions at Wall Street law firms but was told that women were not...

Jacqueline Gorell

Jacqueline Gorell

After serving as a Skokie trustee, Jacqueline Gorell (1930-2017) became the town’s first female mayor in 1997. During her tenure, Skokie experienced growth in its economy and in its diversity...

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