---
title: "The Women Leaders WPLN Celebrates This Month: August Birthdays — Women's Public Leadership Network"
description: "This month, we're celebrating the birthdays of the following women trailblazers and leaders:     Jackie Ormes , first Black American woman cartoonist (August 1)     Maggie Kuhn , American social activist who founded the Gray Panthers and advocated nursing home reform (August 3)     Gertrude Rush , f"
---

[Blog – Women's Public Leadership Network ](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog)

# [The Women Leaders WPLN Celebrates This Month: August Birthdays — Women's Public Leadership Network](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog/2021/8/23/the-women-leaders-wpln-celebrates-this-month-august-birthdays)

 Written by [WPLN Staff](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog/author/wpln-staff) | Aug 31, 2021 4:00:00 AM

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

- **Jackie Ormes**, first Black American woman cartoonist (August 1)
- **Maggie Kuhn**, American social activist who founded the Gray Panthers and advocated nursing home reform (August 3)
- **Gertrude Rush**, first Black American woman lawyer in Iowa and one of the founders of the Negro Bar Association (now known as the National Bar Association) (August 5)
- **Maggie Gee**, American aviator who was one of two Chinese-American women pilots during World War II (August 5)
- **Florence Bailey**, American ornithologist who wrote what is considered the first modern bird field guide (August 8)
- **Esther Hobart Morris**, America's first woman justice of the peace (August 8)
- **Era Bell Thompson**, American journalist who served as editor of *Ebony *magazine (August 10)
- **Dolores Alexander**, American women's rights activist and lesbian feminist (August 10)
- **Lucy Stone**, American abolitionist, suffragist, and women's rights leader who was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree (August 13)
- **Annie Oakley**, American sharpshooter (August 13)
- **Gerty Cori**, Austro-Hungarian-American biochemist who became the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science (August 15)
- **Marion Bauer**, American composer and writer (August 15)
- **Bridget "Biddy" Mason**, American nurse who was born enslaved, successfully challenged for her freedom, and became a businesswoman and real estate entrepreneur and later philanthropist (August 15)
- **Margaret "Mardy" Murie**, American naturalist and conservationist who has been called the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement" (August 15)
- **Dorothy Parker**, American writer and satirist (August 22)
- **Sarah Frances Whiting**, American physicist and astronomer (August 23)
- **Dorothea Tanning**, American artist (August 25)
- **Althea Gibson**, American tennis player and golfer, the first Black American to win a Grand Slam title, and the first Black American on the Women's Professional Golf Tour (August 25)
- **Elizebeth Smith Friedman**, an American expert cryptanalyst who is believed to be the first American woman cryptanalyst (August 26)
- **Geraldine Ferraro**, American politican who became the first woman vice-presidential nominee on an American major political party ticket (August 26)
- **Bertha Parker Cody**, American archaeologist who is believed to be the first Native American woman archaeologist (August 30)
- **Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin**, American journalist, suffragist, and civil rights activist who edited the *Woman's Era*, the first national newspaper published by and for Black American women (August 31)

[Click here to read the August newsletter in full](https://go.womenspublicleadership.net/wpln-newsletter-august-2021).

[View full post](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog/2021/8/23/the-women-leaders-wpln-celebrates-this-month-august-birthdays)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "WPLN Staff"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2023-11-13T21:58:49.658Z",
  "datePublished" : "2021-08-31T04:00:00Z",
  "headline" : "The Women Leaders WPLN Celebrates This Month: August Birthdays",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 500,
    "url" : "https://8627156.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/8627156/Imported_Blog_Media/August%20Birthdays-3.png",
    "width" : 1500
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog/2021/8/23/the-women-leaders-wpln-celebrates-this-month-august-birthdays",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60,
      "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
      "width" : 60
    },
    "name" : "Blog"
  }
}
```