By Sacha Obaid
Check out 17 women who changed the face of health and fitness. Elizabeth Blackwell is one of them. She was the first to receive an M.D. degree. After she graduated in 1849 from Geneva Medical College, she and some colleagues founded the New York Infirmary to help young women become physicians.
In 1881 Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross after risking her life to help soldiers during the Civil War.
In the 2012 London Games, more U.S. women earned medals than the men and accounted for 44% of all those who participated. Compare that to the year 1900, when there were only 22 women in the Olympic games! One of those women was Margaret Abbott, who became one of the first American women to win an Olympic medal for golf.
Around the turn of the century, Margaret Sanger became one of the inventors of the birth control pill. In 1921 she founded the organization now known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sanger was a nurse who nursed women back to health who had tried to terminate their own pregnancies. This work was what inspired her to invent the pill with scientist Gregory Pincus.
To read more about these amazing women and others who have carved a name for themselves in history, read on!