BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — Throughout March, we're celebrating Women's History Month to highlight the many contributions women have made in the past and in modern-day times.
I took a trip to the Buffalo History Museum to explore some very important historical figures from Western New York.
“We have the stories of the ordinary and the extraordinary and sometimes those ordinary stories are extraordinary,” said Melissa Brown, executive director of the Buffalo History Museum.
Brown told me about some Buffalo women who influenced the Civil Rights Movement over a few decades.
“Mary Talbert, when you think of her and how iconic she is to the Civil Rights Movement – the founder of the Niagara Movement that led to the NAACP, she moved to Buffalo with her husband,” I asked.
“She did in the 1890s, she was a human rights leader and international human rights leader,” Brown replied.
In 1936, Eva Bateman Noles was the first African American to become a nurse in Buffalo and later became the director of nursing at Roswell Park.
“She had to basically petition to be allowed into school due to issue, you know, racism, essentially,” said Brown. “She's the one who petitioned to the governor in 1970 to create an annual Nurse’s Week, and that's something that's still honored today.”
"A Black female trying to become a nurse at that time, she broke that barrier,” I questioned.
“She did," Brown responded. "She broke it, and then she catapulted from there. She's an incredible story."
Another iconic female that we can't forget is the "Spirit of Niagara," the painting and the woman behind it.
"The artist behind the Spirit of Niagara was Evelyn Rumsey Cary and she is a known Buffalo artist," said Brown. "Her work is very desired still today. This painting – which becomes the center of an advertising poster circulated in the millions at that time period to advertise the exposition that was coming in 1901. To have the original work that the painting is based on is really one of the most iconic pieces in the collection.”
In our modern times, Linda Bogdan, daughter of former Buffalo Bills owner, the late Ralph Wilson, played a major role in the Buffalo Bills success in the 1990s.
"She was a trailblazer – in the fact that she was the first full-time female scout in NFL history,” said Brown.
Bogdan died in 2009, but a collection of her championship items was donated to the history museum.
"Her prowess and her astute judge of football talent really led to significant recruits," Brown said. "And eventually these championship rings. It's a beautiful collection that speaks to an iconic era of Buffalo's football history and certainly the Bills legacy era, but also this woman who was working behind the scenes and making magic happen.”
