31 stellar women in Cincinnati history, from Annie Oakley to Broadway stars

Last year for Women’s History Month, we listed 31 historic Cincinnati women, one for each day of the month, with a brief explanation of the impact they had.

These women were pioneers and trailblazers who changed the world in a positive way. Politicians and entertainers. Civil rights activists and suffragists. Some women were locally famous, others had been forgotten.

We are highlighting another 31 women and their accomplishments this year. These are introductions only – there is so much more to their stories. This is a starting point to get to know more of the amazing women in our history.

10 Women: These women have been written out of history books. This project is putting them back in

Cincinnati women in the arts

Alice and Phoebe Cary: The sister poets grew up on Clovernook Farm in North College Hill. In 1849, they jointly published an anthology, “Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary,” then later published separately. Their work drew praise from the likes of Edgar Allan Poe.

Dixie Selden: The acclaimed Impressionist painter grew up in Covington and attended the McMicken School of Design (now the Art Academy of Cincinnati), where she was a prize pupil of Frank Duveneck. Her portrait of Duveneck hangs in the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Anneliese von Oettingen: The German-born ballerina, who taught ballet while dodging air raids in Berlin, came to America and opened her first dance studio in Walnut Hills in 1948. She trained generations of young dancers in Cincinnati and helped found the Cincinnati Civic Ballet.

Irma Lazarus: A dynamo arts patron, she founded the Ohio Arts Council and Enjoy the Arts, hosted “Conversations with Irma” on WCET-48 for 35 years and taught Leonard Bernstein how to ski.

M. Louise McLaughlin: The artist, sister to architect James W. McLaughlin, was the central rival to Maria Longworth Nichols Storer in the ceramic arts. She created the glazing technique used by Maria’s Rookwood Pottery.

Edie Harper: The wife of Cincinnati favorite Charley Harper was an accomplished visual artist as well. The Art Academy grad had a solo photography exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center in 1961. ArtWorks made a mural of her “Crazy Cat, Crazy Quilt” piece.

Zaha Hadid: The Iraqi-British architect designed the Contemporary Arts Center building in downtown Cincinnati, which opened in 2003. She was the first woman to design an art museum in America, and the first woman to win the coveted Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Cincinnati women in politics and social movements

Emma Beckwith: The Cincinnati-born suffragist dared to run for the office of mayor of Brooklyn, New York, in 1889, 30 years before women’s votes were counted. She may not have won the election, but she began to break down the barriers.

Lucy Webb Hayes: A graduate from the Wesleyan Female College in Cincinnati, she married local attorney Rutherford B. Hayes in 1852 and they lived in this city until the Civil War. She was noted for tending to wounded soldiers during the war, and was popular for her social service activities as first lady.

Helen “Nellie” Herron Taft: The wife of William Howard Taft led the women’s group that founded the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1894. She was notably the driving force behind her reluctant husband’s political pursuits. As first lady, she helped plant the famous Japanese cherry blossom trees in Washington, D.C.

Delilah Leontium Beasley: The Cincinnati-born journalist was the first Black woman to have a weekly newspaper column, published in the Oakland (California) Tribune in 1925. As a teen she wrote regular columns for The Cincinnati Enquirer. She also wrote the history book, “The Negro Trail Blazers of California.”

Rabbi Sigma “Sissy” Faye Coran: The first woman to become senior rabbi of a Cincinnati congregation headed Rockdale Temple in Amberley Village from 2004 until her death in 2020.

Cincinnati women in science and education

Mary Ann Bickerdyke: Mother Bickerdyke was a no-nonsense Civil War field nurse whom Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman famously said outranked him. She studied homeopathic medicine in Cincinnati in the 1840s, likely at the Botanico-Medical College of Ohio in the former Trollope’s Bazaar building.

Marion Rawson: The self-taught archaeologist joined the University of Cincinnati’s Grecian expeditions in the 1920s and ’30s, including Carl Blegen’s excavations of ancient Troy and King Nestor’s Palace in Pylos. She co-authored the multi-volume works on Blegen’s expeditions.

Clara Adams: The Cincinnati-born socialite used her wealth and interest in aviation to popularize air travel – not as an aviator but as a paying passenger. Known as the “First Flighter,” she was aboard the maiden voyages of the Graf Zeppelin, the Hindenburg and the Pan Am Clipper flying boats.

Lt. Cordelia E. Cook: The Fort Thomas native graduated from the Christ Hospital School of Nursing, then joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps as a surgical nurse. Distinguished for her bravery serving in Germany and Italy during World War II, she was the first woman to be awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

Ellen Harding Baker: The Iowa teacher originally from Cincinnati combined three pursuits open to women in the 19th century – teaching, quilting and astronomy – to craft a “Solar System” quilt in 1876 as a visual aide for her astronomy lectures. The quilt is in the Smithsonian.

Cincinnati women in entertainment

Annie Oakley: The famous sharpshooter from Darke County made her legendary debut in a shooting contest against her future husband, Frank Butler, in Cincinnati. It was allegedly at St. Clair Heights Park in North Fairmount in 1875, but the facts point more likely to 1880.

Vera-Ellen: Actor and dancer Vera-Ellen Rohe of Norwood studied at the same dance studio as Doris Day before going to Broadway, then Hollywood. She danced with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Danny Kaye in such films as “On the Town” and “White Christmas.”

Virginia Payne: The Price Hill radio actor spent 27 years on the air as the titular character of “Ma Perkins,” one of the first soap operas, sponsored by Procter & Gamble’s Oxydol soap. The program started on WLW in 1933 before going national on NBC radio.

Louise Beavers: The Cincinnati-born actor appeared in more than 100 films. Stuck mainly playing stereotypical Black roles such as a slave or maid, she drew acclaim in the 1934 film “Imitation of Life” in a role equal to star Claudette Colbert. She also starred in the TV series “Beulah.”

Clara Louise Zinke: The local tennis star reached 18 finals in the Cincinnati Open tournament in the 1920s, winning 12 titles for singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Marguerite Clark: The stage and film actor, born in Avondale, was briefly America’s darling during the silent film era of the 1910s. Although 31 when she made her first film in 1914, she had a child-like appearance that made her a rival of Mary Pickford. Nearly all her films are lost.

Libby Holman: This 1923 UC grad was a famed Broadway actor and torch singer, but also a tragic figure. She endured scandals for her affairs with famous men and women and the mysterious shooting death of her husband, but she was also a friend to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement.

Wanda Lewis: Generations of Cincinnati youngsters knew her as Captain Windy, the superheroine sidekick to her husband, Al Lewis, on “The Uncle Al Show,” which aired on WCPO from 1950-1985.

Cincinnati women in business

Regina Graeter: When Graeter’s founder Louis Graeter was struck by a streetcar and killed in 1919, his wife Regina stepped up to not only continue the ice cream business but expand it from a single shop to the iconic Cincinnati brand it is today.

Margaret V. Longley: The 19th-century journalist, teacher and suffragist edited Women’s Advocate magazine, founded her own shorthand school and wrote a manual introducing her method of eight-finger touch typing.

Frances Jones Poetker: The owner of Jones the Florist in Walnut Hills brought flower arranging to an art. She did the floral decorations for 12,000 weddings and the 1980 Winter Olympics and was the first woman inducted into the Floriculture Hall of Fame.

Louise McCarren Herring: “The Mother of Credit Unions in America” set up more than 500 credit unions in Ohio, starting in Cincinnati in the 1930s for employees of Kroger, Rollman’s, Cincinnati Police and the Cincinnati Teacher’s Association.

Peg Wyant: A leader in gender equality in corporate America, she broke the glass ceiling at Procter & Gamble in 1967 and was the first woman to become head of branding. She is also the founder and CEO of Grandin Properties.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Annie Oakley debuted here. 31 stellar women in Cincinnati history