Arts & Literature Archives - Lighting the Way, Historic Women of the SouthCoast

Ruby Devol Finch

Westport’s Ruby Devol Finch (1804-1866), whose works can be found in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg and the American Folk Art Museum, is considered to be one of the most uniquely creative female American folk artists of her time.

Nancy Holt

Internationally-acclaimed artist Nancy Holt (1938-2014), with family roots in New Bedford that informed her life and art, worked in sculpture, landscape design, video, and other media.

Minna Littmann

A well-respected journalist in southeastern Massachusetts and beyond, Minna Littmann (c. 1893-1984) was a staff writer for The Evening Standard and later The Standard-Times from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Ida M. Eliot

Educator, author, and entomologist Ida Mitchell Eliot (1839-1923) taught throughout the United States, co-edited the much-celebrated Poetry for Home and School in 1877, and co-authored one of the first books on caterpillars and moths in 1902.

Marie A. Nelson

Committed to social justice through music, Marie A. Nelson (1937-2020) was Director of Music Education at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMD) for 27 years.

Ruth S. Atkinson

Devoted to sailing and the arts, Ruth Showalter Atkinson (1920-2013) appreciated the beauty of the South Coast.

Alberta Simmons Brownell

Alberta Simmons Brownell (1882-1918) used book knowledge and personal experience to write articles on the social problems of the day.

Ora Inge Maxim

Born in Lynchburg, Virginia on April 22, 1895, Ora Inge Maxim (1895-1982) began her serious study of art in New Bedford at the Swain Free School of Design in 1926.

Cordelia Vien

At the peak of her career as a local businesswoman, Cordelia Dragon Vien (1853 -1928) owned property valued at $250,000, equivalent to nearly $6.5 million today, in New Bedford’s North End.

Mary Ricketson Bullard

Accomplished historian and author Mary Ricketson Bullard (1926-2014) wrote scholarly articles, books and even a libretto as part of an opera based on the life of Elizabeth “Zabette” Bernardey, the biracial common law wife of Cumberland Island, Georgia plantation owner Robert Stafford.