Immigrant American Women Role Models: Fifteen Inspiring Biographies, 1850-1950

In August 1832 Elizabeth Blackwell immigrated from England; 17 years later she was the first woman to graduate from an American medical college. Mother Francesca Saveria Cabrini arrived from Italy in 1889 to establish convents, schools, orphanages and hospitals to serve Italian immigrants.

These two women and 13 others (Lilly Martin Spencer, Maria Kraus-Boelte, Anna Howard Shaw, Mary Adelaide Nutting, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Mary Pickford, Evangeline Cory Booth, Senda Berenson, Helen Rubinstein, Sophie Loeb, Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca, Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori and Eva Le Gallienne) overcame the hardships of moving to a new country and societal stigmas of gender to make a difference.