Amelia Piper
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.
Amelia Jones
Philanthropist Amelia Hickling Jones (1849-1935) focused on giving that benefited children.
Marie Equi
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.
Rosamond Guinn
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.
Sarah R. Delano
“If you bulldoze your heritage, you become just anywhere,” have become the most repeated words of Sarah R. Delano (1904-1994).
Rosetta Douglass
Abolitionist and social reformer Rosetta Douglass (1839-1906) continued a family legacy of activism that began in New Bedford with her father, Frederick Douglass.
Helen Elizabeth Ellis
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?
Rosalind Poll Brooker
Rosalind Poll Brooker (1928-2016) was a trailblazer for women in the fields of law and politics.
Lydia Grinnell Brown
New Bedford’s Lydia Grinnell Brown (1892-1945) became the first African American graduate of Simmons College in Boston.
Emily Howland Bourne
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.