Ballot & Beyond

Rachel Carson changed our world for the better, quite literally, with her 1962 book “Silent Spring,” bringing attention to the contamination of our environment by the use of pesticides. Consequently, Carson gained the title of "the mother of the modern environmental movement." Prior to her groundbreaking book, Carson, was a researcher and biologist at the U.S. Department of Interior. Her self-designed home in Silver Spring, Maryland, still stands and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Join us on this episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Rachel Carson spread environmental awareness through her narrative approach to writing about science. 

Emma Maddox Funck was a Baltimore woman committed to the cause of women's suffrage. One of her major achievements as President of the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association President was successfully lobbying the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to bring their 1906 annual national convention to Maryland. Funck’s legacy lies in her stewardship of the Maryland Woman Suffrage Association through the critical years of the early 20th century, which brought thousands of Maryland women into political and civic life for the first time. 

Sarah Hemminger is the co-founder of Thread, an organization that supports cohorts of struggling students in the Baltimore City's public school system and builds volunteer families around them. This method aims to create a new social fabric for students who are confronting significant challenges outside of their control. Listen to this episode of Ballot & Beyond to hear how Hemminger came to understand the effects of isolation and the benefits of strong social supports.

U.S. Representative Gladys Noon Spellman was a civic-minded Maryland school teacher and PTA advocate when she signed onto a reform slate running for the Prince George's County commission in 1962. She became the first woman on the commission and by 1966. In her legislative tenure, Spellman fought for cost-of-living raises against making the civil-service more vulnerable to political swings. Today, the memory of Gladys Noon Spellman is kept alive by the Maryland stretch of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway named in her honor.

Virginia Hall served the United States and the Allied forces during WWII as an incredibly vital asset. The Nazis called her “the most dangerous of all Allied spies” in Occupied France and called for her elimination. But Virginia Hall, who had a false leg from a childhood incidence, outran the Gestapo and helped secure victory for the Allies. Listen to this episode of Ballot & Beyond for more about the most valuable female Allied spy of World War II.

Mary Bartlett Dixon was a skilled nurse and active suffragist who was one of many arrested while silently protesting and demanding the vote for women in front of the White House in Washington, DC in 1917. As a nurse, Dixon was well-aware of the terrible conditions that imprisoned activists endured during the years of the Women's Suffrage movement. Nevertheless, she persisted. Dixon’s persistent activism and engagement with the public through her writing helped shape the course of Maryland’s suffrage movement. After ratification, Dixon founded the Talbot County League of Women Voters and continued to engage with medical and charitable causes throughout her life.

Bea Gaddy was a great champion and protector of the hungry and homeless in Baltimore, Maryland. While she also sat on the Baltimore City Council for one term, she is perhaps best remembered today for hosting free Thanksgiving dinners for all.

Sally J. Michel was a great champion of protecting the environment and providing access to Baltimore’s outdoors to the city’s youth.Over the course of her impactful life, Michel was on the board over 57 local and state organizations, including being a founding force for the Parks & People Foundation and Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound School.  She lived by the motto: Help us to remember that what we keep, we lose, and only what we give remains our own.

Juanita Jackson Mitchell was the first African American woman to practice law in Maryland. She fought for justice wherever she found injustice. Juanita Jackson Mitchell was also the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Maryland School of Law. Significantly, her example paved the way for African American women in law. Juanita Jackson Mitchell drew from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy, intellect, and determination. Join us on this episode of Ballot & Beyond to learn how Juanita Jackson Mitchell became a leader among women in law.

Estelle Hall Young was a leader of civic and suffrage organizations in Baltimore, Maryland that supported African American visibility and racial equality. In a racially segregated movement, Young organized an African American Women’s Suffrage Club in 1915 to organize and activate Black women in support of the vote. Even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, African American women stayed highly-engaged in civil rights work because unlike white women, Black women still faced legal voting restrictions until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which barred racially discriminatory voting practices.