MID-HUDSON – March is Women’s History Month, and there were some prominent women in New York State whose names you may recall, such as Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Lucille Ball, among others. The Catskills and Mid-Hudson have their own list of prominent women.
Sullivan County Historian John Conway said there are several of them.
“Agnes de Mille was a really noteworthy choreographer and dancer. Groundbreaking in many ways, Allison Hodge, who was a U.S. Olympian high jumper in the 1936 Olympics, was famous for Jesse Owens accomplishments, in the face of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi movement,” he said. “Now we had another breakthrough, in that Amanda Ward is not just a woman legislator, and we’ve had a number of those over the years, but the first African-American woman legislator. So we continue to move forward, and I think those are all good things.”
The list seems to be endless. Among the most famous woman to have ties to the region were Ball, who played in Newburgh at the East End Theater that later became the Ritz, where Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee also played in the Hudson River city.
In the world of politics, former Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro was born in Newburgh. And let’s not forget First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived in Hyde Park.
Comments