JANUARY 12: TODAY'S INSPIRING WOMEN

Hattie Wyatt Caraway

Hattie Wyatt Caraway (D-Arkansas) was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. Today in 1932, she became the first woman to chair a Senate Committee and the first to serve as the Senate’s presiding officer.

Caroline Severance

Caroline Severance, an early suffragist and social reformer, women’s clubs pioneer, and first woman to register to vote in California (1911), was born today in 1820.

Margaret Danner was born in 1915 -- and wrote her first prize winning poem in 1923 when she was just eight years old. As a poet, editor, and cultural activist, she was known for her poetic imagery and her celebration of African heritage and cultural forms. She was also the first African American assistant editor at Poetry magazine.

DEEPER DIVE

Read a poem by Margaret Danner:

The Painted Lady

The Painted Lady is a small African
Butterfly gayley toned deep tan and peach
That seems as tremulous and delicately sheer

As the objects I treasure, yet this cosmopolitan
Can cross the sea at the icy time of the year
In the trail of the big boats, to France.

Mischance is as wide and grey as the lake here
In Chicago Is there strength enough in my
Peach paper rose or lavender sea-laced fan?

Source: Poetry Foundation