Topics Related to Women in History

On December 31, 1900, renowned sculptor Selma Burke was born in Mooresville.Fascinated by African ritual objects and other sculptural pieces, Burke made sculpture by shaping white clay from her parents' farm as a child. After being educated at what is now Winston-Salem State University and trained as a nurse at St. Agnes Hospital Nursing School in Raleigh, Burke moved to New York City to work as a private nurse.

On December 28, 1976, legislator and U.S. comptroller general Lindsay Warren died.A Washington, N.C. native, Warren became involved in Democratic politics at a young age, serving as chair of the Beaufort County Democratic Party before being elected to the state Senate in 1917. In Raleigh, Warren was closely associated with O. Max Gardner’s political machine.

On December 24, 1937, writer and cultural leader Mary Van Landingham died in Charlotte.Born in Charlotte in 1852 to a family with deep roots in the area, Van Landingham made a name for herself by becoming active in several civic and cultural organizations, including the Daughters of the American Revolution, North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames and North Carolina Folklore Society.

On December 24, 1922, Ava Gardner was born in Grabtown, a small farming community near Smithfield in Johnston County.

On December 24, 1960, fiddle and banjo player and old-time ballad singer Sarah Samantha Biddix Bumgarner died.Born in Tennessee in 1878, Bumgarner grew up in Dillsboro in Jackson County. Her father was the well-known fiddle player Has Biddix, and when he was not around Samantha used his fiddle to teach herself how to play. She also taught herself how to play the banjo.

On December 22, 1965, Ruth Cannon died, bringing an end to a life of extraordinary dedication to preservation and to North Carolina history.Born Ruth Coltrane into a banker’s family in Cabarrus County, she married Charles Cannon, longtime president of Cannon Mills Company in Kannapolis. A history major at Greensboro College, Cannon was a stalwart member of heritage groups including the Colonial Dames and the Daughters of the American Revolution.

On December 15, 1836, Confederate spy Emeline Jamison Pigott was born in Carteret County. Living on a farm on Calico Creek, near what is now Morehead City, she witnessed many of the hardships the Civil War brought on, when Confederate, and later, Union soldiers were encamped nearby.

On December 4, 1994, Charlotte Smith, then a member of the UNC Tar Heels women’s basketball team, became the second collegiate women’s player ever to dunk. The first dunk had come nearly 10 years earlier when West Virginia University player Georgeann Wells accomplished the feat in a game against the University of Charleston.

On November 9, 1979, Louise Thaden, early aviation pioneer, died of a heart attack in High Point.One of the first women to make flying her business, Thaden flew her first solo flight and received her pilot’s license in 1927. By 1928 she set the woman’s altitude record at 20,260 feet, and the next year she claimed the woman’s endurance record after flying for 22 hours, 3 minutes and 28 seconds. That same year she was the first woman to win the National Air Races.

On October 25, 1774, women in Edenton resolved to stop buying English tea and cloth to protest taxation without representation. The event became known as the Edenton Tea Party.