This month, we're celebrating the birthdays of the following women trailblazers and leaders:

• Deb Haaland, one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress who serves as Secretary of the Interior, making her the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary (December 2)

• Mary Frances Thompson ("Te Ata Fisher"), actress, interpreter, and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation (December 3)

• Ellen Swallow Richards, engineer, environmentalist, and the first woman in America accepted to any school of science and technology (December 3)

• Jeanne Manford, teacher who co-founded the support group organization Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (December 4)

• Patsy Mink, the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress and the first woman elected to Congress from Hawaii (December 6)

• Jane Swisshelm, suffragist and the first woman reporter admitted to the reporters gallery of the House of Representatives (December 6)

• Libbie Hyman, zoologist (December 6)

• Susan Collins, politician who represents Maine in the U.S. Senate and is the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate (December 7)

• Julia Robinson, mathematician who was the first woman mathematician to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the first woman to be elected president of the American Mathematical Society (December 8)

• Grace Hopper, computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral (December 9)

• Angie Turner King, mathematician who taught NASA employee Katherine Johnson (December 9)

• Emily Dickinson, poet (December 10)

• Annie Jump Cannon, astronomer (December 11)

• Ella Baker, civil rights activist and leader (December 13)

• Margaret Chase Smith, politician who represented Maine, was the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress, the first woman to represent Maine in Congress, and was the first Republican woman to be nominated for the presidency (December 14)

• Margaret Mead, anthropologist (December 16)

• Harriet Taylor Upton, suffragist, activist, and the first woman to serve as vice-chairman of the Republican National Committee (December 17)

• Sarah Breedlove ("Madam C.J. Walker"), businesswoman whose business line of hair and beauty products for black women made her the wealthiest black American businesswoman and wealthiest self-made American woman in her lifetime (December 23)

• Marsha Gomez, activist and sculptor (December 24)

• Clara Barton, nurse who founded the American Red Cross (December 25)

• Genevieve "Audrey" Wagner, baseball player, pilot, and doctor (December 27)

• Burnita Matthews, suffragist and the first woman appointed to serve on a United States District Court (December 28)

• Thea Bowman, nun and the first black American woman to receive an honorary Doctorate in Religion from Boston College (December 29)

Click here to read the December newsletter in full.