March is Women’s History Month, and what better way to celebrate than to recognize the hardworking women that are not discussed enough for helping shape our world today?

On December 23, 1867, Madam C.J. Walker was born on a Delta Louisiana Plantation. Soon to become a woman who shaped the culture of hair products for black women, she began her life surviving by picking cotton. At the age of 14, she married Moses McWilliams to escape her abusive brother-in-law. Then, at 29 years old, she had her first daughter, A’lelia Walker. After her husband died in 1887, she moved to St. Louis and joined her brothers who were barbers. Only making $1.50 a day, she eventually collected enough money to send her daughter to public schools. During the 1890s, Madam C.J. began to suffer from a scalp ailment that caused her great hair loss. This caused her to experiment with making hair products; thus was the beginning of her passion and life’s work, impacting millions of women across the globe.

After marrying her third husband, she founded her business and sold “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower,” a scalp conditioning and healing formula. To promote her product, she traveled for a year and a half, going door to door through the South and Southeast. By early 1910, she had settled in Indianapolis, where she built a factory, hair and manicure salon, and training school. A year later, Walker grabbed national headlines in the Black press when she contributed $1,000 dollars to the building fund of the “colored” YMCA in Indianapolis. When she moved to New York in 1916, she participated in many activities like protests, anti-lynching movements, and petitions. By the time of her death, she had helped create the role of the 20th century self-made American businesswoman. Despite the many adversities she faced in her lifetime, her perseverance made her the determined businesswoman she was.

Like Walker, Kalpana Chawla displayed perseverance as the first Indian woman to go to space. Born March 17, 1962, in Karnal of present-day Haryana, India, young Kalpana was always interested in flying. She and her father watched planes together, and she always went to flying clubs. In her education, she received her Bachelor’s of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering, a Master of Sciences degree in Aerospace Engineering, another Masters in 1986, and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering. Her numerous accolades spoke for her intelligence and, in 1988, Chawla began working at the NASA Ames Research Center. There, she would do computational fluid dynamics research, which is research on solving problems that involve fluid flows. In 1993, she became the Vice President of Overset Methods, Inc. which specializes in the simulation of moving multiple body problems. In April of 1991, Kalpana applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps and, four years later, she was selected for her first flight.

Her first mission began on November 19, 1997. She was a part of a six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. She traveled 10.67 million kilometers. Chawla was in space for 15 days, fixing many malfunctions along the way. After her return, Chawla was assigned to technical conditions in the astronaut’s office to work on a space station. Sadly, she was only able to have one successful mission, as her second one failed. In 2001, Kalpana Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of flight STS107. Once in space, the crew did nearly 80 experiments studying Earth and helped advance technology development and astronaut health and safety. However, when Columbia reentered the atmosphere of Earth in February, it disintegrated, killing all the members. Chawla died a national hero in India. Her story, although a tragic one, is very inspiring to those who enjoy learning about space travel. She paved the way in the aerospace industry and is an icon for her strides in India’s understanding of space.

These are just two of many other hidden female heroes in history who helped people all over the world. Although their presence in history may not be well-known, without their accomplishments, our world would not be the way it is today. If anything, let the lifetimes of these trailblazer women in- spire you to do great things, take chances, and work relentlessly at your dreams. Information retrieved from madamcjwalker.com and Kapana Chawla’s biography at space.com.