HIStory often forgets to record or erases the contributions of women espicially in the 19th century and before when recordkeeping wasn't as good. Then history books love to simplify things, focus on wars and politics or only discuss wives of famous men. So I've lined up 16 groundbreaking American women from the 19th century who often aren't put in history books.

Thanks to this awesome site that had a list of women of color so I could make my own list more inclusive.

1. Margaret Fuller

Writer, Editor of the Transcendentalist journal The Dial

2. Mary Lyon

Founder of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary the first institution for higher education for women in the United States

3. Ida B. Wells

Activist for suffrage and anti-lynching, journalists, one of the founders of the NAACP

4. Alice Paul

Suffragist who was jailed for her protests and activism

5. Nellie Bly

The pen name of Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, writer and investigative journalist

6. Helen Keller

Author, activist, earned a BA degree as a deaf-blind woman

7. Carrie Nation

Fierce, often violent advocate for temperance/anti-alcohol

8. Fannie Fern

Female journalist and novelist who was the highest paid writer in the United States for a time.

9. Madam C. J. Walker

10. Dorthea Dix

Advocate for the mentally ill, Civil War nurse

11. Isabella Stewart Gardner

Boston philanthropist, art collector

12. Sarah and Angelina Grimke

They were from a Southern Slave-owning family who moved north to become Abolitionists and advocates for women's education.

13. Elizabeth Blackwell

While a UK citizen, she was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States and lived a good part of her life in the United States.

14.Cathay Williams

Cross-dressing black Civil War soldier

15. Queen Liliuokalani

Queen of Hawaiian Islands, defender of Hawaiian sovereignty.

(Technically she wouldn't have considered herself American, but I included her as a courageous fighter against American colonialism)