MARCH 30: TODAY'S INSPIRING WOMEN

Mary Elizabeth Bowser

Mary Elizabeth Bowser was born today in 1839. A former slave, Bowser served as a undercover agent for Ulysses S. Grant by working as a servant in the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. With the racial prejudice of the day, the assumption that slaves were illiterate and not intelligent, and the way slave servants were trained to seem invisible, Mary was able to glean considerable military intelligence by simply doing her job.