PROFILES – BY YEAR

The child of Cape Verdean immigrants, Valentina Almeida (1913-2009) is best known for her advocacy work with immigrants within the local Cape Verdean community.

Photographer and artist Theodosia Chase (1875-1972) was a librarian at the old stone Southworth Library in Padanaram, where she sold her photo postcards of residences, children and animals.

Like mother, not so much like daughter. Sylvia Ann Howland Green Wilks (1871-1951), daughter of infamously miserly Hetty Green, willed the bulk of her inheritance to libraries, hospitals and other charities. Although she developed many of her mother’s idiosyncrasies, Sylvia’s final philanthropy allowed most of her mother’s fortune to ultimately work for good.

Once described as the wealthiest woman in New Bedford, philanthropist Sylvia Ann Howland (1806-1865) provided a legacy that benefited not only family members, caretakers, and charitable organizations, but also the residents of New Bedford through trusts to support education and business.

Considered a living saint in New Bedford, Sister Mary Rosellen Gallogly (1930-2018) was a pioneer in developing services for the homeless, notably as director of Market Ministries Meals and Shelter, known today as Sister Rose House.

New Bedford’s Mother Teresa, Sister Aurora Helena Avelar (1903-1999) was a Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to the underserved.

Nineteenth-century New Bedford’s Sarah Rotch Arnold (1786-1860) was dedicated to her community, social reform, religious tolerance, and horticultural beauty.

“If you bulldoze your heritage, you become just anywhere,” have become the most repeated words of Sarah Ashley Delano (1904-1994).

Sara Ann Delano (1854-1941) is best known as the mother of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Abolitionist and social reformer Rosetta Douglass (1839-1906) continued a family legacy of activism that began in New Bedford with her father, Frederick Douglass.

The first African American woman to become a registered pharmacist in southeastern Massachusetts, Rosamond Alice Guinn (1892-1923) graduated from New Bedford High School and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.

Rosalind Poll Brooker (1928-2016) was a trailblazer for women in the fields of law and politics.

From Wareham’s cranberry bogs to New Bedford’s Aerovox assembly line, Rita Alice Lopes (1915?-1999) emerged as a community activist who advocated for children, the elderly and Cape Verdeans.

Peace, love, and understanding were hallmarks of Rachel Howland (1816-1902).

Wedding cakes became the specialty of baker Phebe Hart Mendall (1801-1887), widowed at age 35 when husband Elihu Mendall was lost at sea.

When Nora Ouimette (1909-1987) was born in New Bedford, women could not vote! By the time of her death, she had voted in every election she was eligible for, become a labor union organizer, run for Congress and become one of the first female industrial engineers in companies on both the East and West Coasts.

Dartmouth residents learned kindness from Noelie Lemire Houle (1899-1993), the “Goat Lady of Dartmouth.” Noelie raised as many as 90 goats so that others could experience the benefits of goat’s milk. At first, neighbors complained about her farm, where goats roamed freely. Eventually, the community moved from intolerance to acceptance to celebration.

Deeply rooted in her Azorean heritage, Dr. Mary T. Vermette (1934-2003) worked with the Azorean Maritime Heritage Society and the New Bedford Whaling Museum to promote Azorean culture and the shared whaling heritage between New Bedford and the Azores.

As first chair of the Holocaust Education and Memorial Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Bedford, Mary Schwartz (1920-2015) led efforts that created the Holocaust Monument at Buttonwood Park in New Bedford in 1998.

A leading intellectual and deep religious thinker, Mary Rotch (1777-1848) remained true to her belief in the Light Within.

Confectioner and abolitionist Polly Johnson (1784-1871) specialized in sweets and provided safe lodging to freedom seekers in New Bedford along the Underground Railroad.

Pioneering educator and community activist Mary Hudson Onley (1889-1980) was one of the first African American graduates of Bridgewater State Normal School in 1912.

A U.S. military veteran with overseas tours during three wars, Lieutenant Colonel Mary Elizabeth Hartley (1920-1999) served in the Army Nurse Corps for 25 years, from 1942 to 1967.

The first American woman to visit China and one of the first to circumnavigate the globe, Fairhaven’s Mary Ann Hathaway Tripp (1810-1906) sailed with her husband, Captain Lemuel Carver Tripp, on several merchant voyages between 1833 and 1845.

A “second mother to many South End boys” in New Bedford, Mary Ann Flanagan Hayden (1873-1946) founded the Donaghy Boys Club, becoming the first female director of a Boys Club in America.

Known as the “Mother of the 54th,” Martha Bush Gray was an African American Civil War nurse who served the troops of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments in the South.

Born in 1838 to Black abolitionists, Martha Bailey Briggs (1838-1889) realized at a young age that education was essential to ending slavery.

New Bedford prepared physician and political agitator Marie Equi (1872-1952) for a lifetime of social justice advocacy. Marie’s Oregon medical practice and nationwide activism were influenced by her working class experiences while growing up in New Bedford.

Marian Shaw Smith (1866-1913) sailed the world’s oceans as a whaling captain’s wife, log keeper, photographer, navigator, correspondent, and business partner.

New Bedford educator Marial Harper (1934-2016) positively impacted numerous lives at New Bedford High School and was the first woman and minority to be appointed a Housemaster there.

Unitarian church leader Maja Capek (1888-1966) served New Bedford’s North Unitarian Church, where daughters of immigrant mill workers from Central Europe could meet for games and classes in sewing, millinery, and cooking.

Feelings of “saudade,” love, loss and longing, were created when Maria Fernandes Alves (1924-2008) sang fado, traditional Portuguese folk music, throughout the South Coast and beyond.

Educator and labor leader Margaret A. Duggan Ryckebusch (1940-1998) was a professor, department head, and union leader at Bristol Community College.

New Bedford’s Lydia Grinnell Brown (1895-1945) became the first African American graduate of Simmons College in Boston.

Optimistic that, as she insisted, “The world isn’t going to hell in a handbasket,” lifelong volunteer Louise Endicott Strongman (1912-2004) made sure that services were available for Dartmouth residents to become their best.

A dedicated activist who advocated for New Bedford’s neighborhoods, Loretta Bourque (1920-2018) was referred to as “Mayor of the South End” for her special commitment to this section of the city. Through the Cove Street Neighborhood Association, Loretta led efforts against such problems as negligent absentee landlords, crime and drugs. Loretta’s influence was a key factor that led the New Bedford City Council to pass the city’s Problem Properties Ordinance.

A Renaissance woman who served as president of the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra for 18 years, Lillian B. Lamoureux (1921-2017) was an accomplished pianist, devoted Francophile, and skilled business partner at Lamoureux Funeral Home.

From immigrant textile mill worker to Ivy League student to pioneering New Bedford educator, Laurinda C. Andrade (1899-1980) overcame barriers of tradition, poverty, language, and discrimination to establish the first high school Portuguese language department in the United States at New Bedford High School.

Acushnet’s Laura Keene (1826-1873) is best known as an actress who starred in Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater the night President Lincoln was assassinated.

Dartmouth educator and author Kathleen Comiskey Roberts wrote a history for children in 1959 so that students could learn about their town.

Dr. Juan Bennett Drummond (1864-1926) was the first African American woman licensed in the state of Massachusetts to practice medicine.

The War on Poverty initiatives of the 1960s had a dedicated New Bedford foot soldier in Jennie Horne (1920-1998).

A summer visitor to Mattapoisett, Huybertie Hamlin (1873-1964) enjoyed living in the little town but thought that life here could be even better.

Known as both “The Witch of Wall Street” and “The Queen of Wall Street,” Henrietta “Hetty” Howland Robinson Green (1834-1916) was the richest woman in the world, her worth estimated at over $100 million, the equivalent of about $2.5 billion today.

Although she began her career as a painter, Helena de Kay Gilder (1846-1916) increasingly dedicated her considerable energy and talent to advocating for art, artists, and women, according to her own vision.

A pioneering doctor and champion of physical activity for women, New Bedford’s Helen Worthing Webster (1837-1904) graduated from New England Female Medical College in Boston as a Doctor of Medicine.

What do a tea room in Westport, a bookstore in New Bedford, special exhibits at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, and a children’s museum in Dartmouth all have in common?

Writer, abolitionist and educator, Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897) is the only African American woman known to have left writing documenting her enslavement.

Considered the matriarch of New Bedford’s working waterfront, Harriet Didriksen (1943-2019) advocated for fishermen, their families and the fishing industry.

Geraldine “Gerry” A. Gomes (1938-2011) was the first minority woman to run for political office in New Bedford.

The humble philanthropist Florence Waite (1861-1946) left the bulk of her estate worth more than $7.5 million in today’s dollars to be carefully distributed among more than 20 hometown organizations, many of which she had helped for decades.

The only woman to enlist in World War I from Mattapoisett, Florence Eastman (1894-1918) became the Head Army Nurse of the Isolation Hospital at Camp Mills, Mineola, Long Island, with 20 nurses and over 100 orderlies under her supervision.

Emma Louise Piper (1845-1915) was the first African American teacher in Cambridge, MD after the Civil War. Emma was one of 41 New Bedford men and women, both Black and White, who participated in the efforts to educate the newly freed people.

Emily Howland Bourne (1835-1922) showed the same careful planning in her inspired philanthropy as her father Jonathan showed as one of New Bedford’s most successful whaling merchants.

New Bedford’s Ellen Kempton (1840-1865) lost her life while in South Carolina to educate and assist formerly enslaved people.

Fairhaven artist Elizabeth Terry Delano (1845-1933) created still-life paintings, portraits and landscapes in her studio at 91 Pleasant Street.

Known as “Marion’s Fairy Godmother,” Elizabeth Sprague Pitcher Taber (1791-1888) became the town’s most significant benefactress.

Equality was the vision of Elizabeth Carter Brooks (1867-1951) in her work as educator, social activist and architect.

A distant cousin of Nathaniel Hawthorne, prolific writer Elizabeth Stoddard (1823-1902) was born in Mattapoisett.

Active in the local 19th-century art community of William Street, New Bedford’s “Gallery Row,” Eliza Bierstadt (1833-1896) was likely America’s first female art dealer.

The first woman supervisor of branch libraries of the Boston Public Library, Edith Guerrier (1870-1958) included social reform in library programs.

Abolitionist, women’s rights advocate and women’s club founder, Cornelia Grinnell Willis (1825-1904) advocated for and secured Harriet Jacobs’ freedom, making it possible for Harriet to write and publish what became an edifying “slave narrative.”

Charlotte White (1775?-1861), born to a Wampanoag Native American and a former slave, connected with the Native American and African American communities, worked for poor relief, and practiced folk medicine and midwifery during her lifetime in Westport.

Her portraits won prestigious awards, her travels included battlegrounds, and her feminism was pervasive.

When dancer/actress/choreographer Carol Haney (1924-1964) was a young child, a Portuguese fortune teller in New Bedford predicted her stardom. In a critically-acclaimed but short-lived career, Carol won a Tony Award and earned three Tony nominations for excellence on Broadway.

Cara Leland Rogers (1867-1939) purchased the waterfront property at Fort Phoenix, presenting it to the town of Fairhaven in memory of her father Henry Huttleston Rogers.

A New Bedford teacher for more than 20 years, Betsey Baldwin Winslow (1836-1925) was elected to the New Bedford School Committee, serving in that capacity for nearly 39 years – the longest serving member in the history of the School Department.

In 1917, Belmira Nunes (1899-1994) graduated as valedictorian and only Cape Verdean girl from Wareham High School. She attended Radcliffe College where she became the first Cape Verdean woman graduate. Belmira had a distinguished teaching career in the New York City School system.

Awashonks was a Native American woman who served as a chief of the Sakonnet (variations include Sogkonate, Seconit, Seaconnet, etc.) people in what is today Little Compton, Rhode Island before, during, and after King Philip’s War (1675-1676). The name Awashonks appears in official records more than the name of any other Native American woman.

A tireless leader in New Bedford’s Cape Verdean community, Archangela “Canja” Fortes (1919-2009) initiated numerous events that celebrated Cape Verdean women.

Annie Holmes Ricketson (1841-?) accompanied her husband on at least three whaling voyages, chronicled in journal entries filled with details about life as the lone woman aboard ship.

Abolitionist Amelia Piper (1796-1856), as one of the managers of the New Bedford Female Union Society, organized one of the first anti-slavery fairs in New Bedford held on January 1, 1840.

Philanthropist Amelia Hickling Jones (1849-1935) focused on giving that benefited children.

Determined to step outside the norms of her era and model daring independence, Alice Howland Macomber (1874-1961) first traveled alone to Europe at the age of 20 stating, “I travel alone and try anything once.” Her popular travel lectures documented all she experienced during her far-flung adventures.