Do You Recognize the Trailblazing Women in This Quiz?

In the late 1800s, businesswoman and socialite Bertha Palmer invented the brownie. She had it made in the kitchen of the luxury hotel she owned, the Palmer House in Chicago, as a creation for the 1893 World’s Fair. Though the original recipe is now more than 100 years old, the exact same version of the recipe is still used today to make brownies at the hotel.

Ma Perkins, a widow who ran a lumberyard and offered advice to anyone who wanted it, was a radio character created by actress Virginia Payne. The show ran from 1933 to 1960, moving from just a local Cincinnati station to being broadcast on NBC and CBS. In 1988, after Payne had been dead for 11 years, she and Ma Perkins took their places in the Radio Hall of Fame.

Though Amelia Earhart is perhaps the best-known female aviator, Olive Beech is considered the First Lady of Aviation. She and her husband founded Beech Aircraft Company in 1932, introducing a biplane two years later for corporate travel. When her husband died, Beech became the first woman to run an aircraft business. She worked with NASA in the 1950s, and led her company to all-time-high sales in the 1960s.

The woman behind the cosmetics empire Elizabeth Arden was born Florence Nightingale Graham in 1884. She changed her name in 1914, calling herself “Elizabeth” after her former business partner, Elizabeth Hubbard, and “Arden” after the Tennyson poem “Enoch Arden.” She expanded her business under the new name, and was the first beauty brand to offer in-store makeovers.

Ruth Handler invented the iconic Barbie doll in 1959, and served as president of the toy company Mattel. The idea for Barbie was inspired by two things. Her daughter was always playing with paper dolls, and liked to create elaborate stories about their lives. Handler was also inspired by the Bild Lilli doll, a German doll that she saw in Switzerland, which became the basis of her design.

Throughout the American Revolution, Mary Katherine Goddard was one of the only printers in the city of Baltimore. She began working in printing in 1762 and became a newspaper editor as well in 1774. But her biggest claim to fame is printing the very first copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Estée Lauder loved a good giveaway. When people bought her products, she always included a surprise lipstick — one that women would try on and talk about with their friends. Then their friends would buy a stick for themselves. We may call it word-of-mouth today, but Lauder called it “Tell a Woman” marketing, and it helped make her company a huge success.

In the 1950s and '60s, Tupperware parties were incredibly popular in suburban neighborhoods across the U.S. That was thanks to Brownie Wise, the marketing genius who helped grow the plasticware brand into a multimillion-dollar company that still dominates the market today. In 1954, Wise became the first woman to grace the cover of Businessweek magazine.

OWN stands for the “Oprah Winfrey Network," just one example of the producer, actress, and entrepreneur’s singular skill for promoting herself as a brand. Oprah also appeared on the cover of every issue of her magazine, “O, The Oprah Magazine,” until it ceased printing in December 2020.

Have you heard of Mrs. Fields cookies? That “Mrs. Fields” is Debbie Fields, a real entrepreneur and the founder of the Mrs. Fields company. Fields grew up in a large family without much money. She would often refuse to eat meals and instead would bake cookies using imitation chocolate and butter — finally using the real thing when she became a teenager. In 1977 she turned her cookies into a business, and the rest is history.