Over the past year, we’ve explored the inspiring personal stories of twenty-five people who overcame challenging circumstances to achieve great things. As “From Adversity to Achievement” celebrates the first anniversary of its inception, this seems like a fitting time to briefly review the Achievers we’ve looked at so far and refresh our memories of their accomplishments:
Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919)—A child of freed slaves, born into poverty and orphaned at a young age, who made and sold hair-care products at home while raising a young daughter, eventually becoming a hugely successful entrepreneur in charge of one of the United States’ most prominent cosmetics companies.
Pedro Flores (1896-1963)—A Filipino immigrant to the United States and former bellboy who popularized the yo-yo as a children’s toy, eventually helping to jump-start the success of the iconic Duncan yo-yo.
James Whale (1889-1957)—A respected and innovative film director who lived openly as a gay man at a time when doing so was a grave risk to one’s career and even personal safety.
Maria Bergson (1914-2009)—A secretary at Time magazine who spoke her mind about potential improvements to the office and whose suggestions were so successful that they catapulted her into a new career of interior and office design.
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)—A black artist who felt the discomforts and difficulties of the Great Migration firsthand and who later chronicled them in an epic series of painted panels for the Works Progress Administration.
Belle Kogan (1902-2000)—A female industrial designer who struggled against family pressure to do “women’s work” and the disrespect of male clients who refused to treat her as an equal.
Patsy Sherman (1930-2008)—A chemist who helped to invent Scotchgard at 3M, but only after rejecting the advice of a biased career test in school that suggested she choose homemaking over science.
Jack Tramiel (1928-2012)—A mechanic and engineer who survived the Holocaust, traveled to America, and built up a small typewriter repair shop into the monolithic Commodore computer company.
Paul Revere Williams (1894-1980)—An orphan, and the only black child at his school, who grew up to become the first licensed African-American architect in the Western U.S. and a home-builder to the stars.
Emik Avakian (1923-2013)—An inventor and engineer born with severe cerebral palsy who invented ingenious devices to help people with disabilities lead a normal life, including a breath-operated computer.
Bette Nesmith Graham (1924-1980)—A typist who invented Liquid Paper to help fix her own typing mistakes, and who argued with bosses convinced that her invention wasn’t appropriate for office use.
Phoebe Ann Mosey (1860-1926)—Better known as Annie Oakley, a frontier girl who lost her father at an early age and became the family’s breadwinner, hunting wild game with such skill that she eventually became a famous professional sharpshooter.
Randy Shilts (1951-1994)—A reporter who covered issues affecting gay men back in the late ’70s and early ‘80s and who was dedicated to journalistic integrity even when it cost him popularity and affection.
Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)—The first well-known female war correspondent and photojournalist for Fortune magazine, whose work covered subjects from rural poverty to industrial activity across the world.
George Shima (1864-1926)—A Japanese immigrant who worked his way up from farm laborer to farm owner, but faced bitter anti-Asian prejudice from California residents who saw his race as a threat to American society.
Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941)—A pioneering biologist at Howard University who faced racial prejudice outside academia and prejudice against his chosen subject inside it.
Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972)—A time-and-motion expert who brought the customer’s perspective to product design and ran a one-woman consulting firm for several decades.
Jane Sissmore (1898-1982)—A female espionage agent with the British secret service who worked to uncover a notorious ring of double agents, including her own boss.
Frank Capra (1897-1991)—The famous “feel-good film” director who struggled against his own feelings of depression and inadequacy to express the American Dream in his movies.
Jerry Lawson (1940-2011)—A black computer engineer and early video game console designer who defied the stereotypical image of a “computer geek.”
Althea Gibson (1927-2003)—The first professional black women’s tennis player in the U.S., who made it to the top of the U.S. Open despite a prejudiced “points” system that stacked the odds against her.
Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988)—a Japanese-American artist and industrial designer who tried to improve conditions in the internment camps of World War II, despite the indifference of the authorities and the mistrust of his fellow internees.
Antonio Pasin (1897-1990)—The son of a Venetian cabinetmaker who risked everything to market a wooden toy wagon in Chicago, later to become the popular and iconic American Flyer.
Rose O’Neill (1874-1944)—A gifted illustrator and cartoonist who spread a message of love with her “Kewpies” despite her own romantic troubles, and who used her cartoons to make a case for women’s suffrage.
Garrett Morgan (1877-1963)—A tireless inventor and entrepreneur who grew rich from selling cosmetics aimed at African-American beauty needs, then used his fortune to invent safety devices that saved lives.
The first year of “From Adversity to Achievement” is over, but achievement marches on! We’ll be taking a brief one-month hiatus to find more stories to share, and after that the series will continue to be updated on a biweekly basis as it has been. Up to now our focus has been on Achievers from the United States who worked mainly in the 20th century, but after the hiatus we’ll be branching out in both time and space, looking at Achievers from around the world and back farther in time. After all, the history of human advancement is a long one and includes every nation on Earth!
Thanks for reading, and we’ll be sharing more stories with you soon.
