American Masters

History Series / 11 Seasons

American Masters, committed to producing comprehensive film biographies about the broad cast of characters who comprise our cultural history.

Watch Latest: S38 E6

52m 55s / TV-14

The First American-Born Chinese Woman Doctor

10m 18s

Margaret Chung (1889-1959) overcame great racism and sexism to become the first American-born Chinese female doctor in 1916. She also helped establish WAVES, the women’s naval reserves, paving the way for women’s integration into the U.S armed forces.

She was a leader of the American labor movement

10m 59s

Rose Schneiderman began working in a factory at age 16, and after experiencing unsafe work conditions and unequal pay first-hand, helped organize an all-women's chapter of a hat makers’ union. She became president of the National Women's Trade Union League, and an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, informing many of his New Deal labor policies.

She was the first Chinese American woman to vote in the U.S.

10m 18s

Tye Leung Shulze resisted domestic servitude and an arranged child marriage to provide translation services and solace to Asian immigrant victims of human trafficking in San Francisco. In 1912, one year after California granted women the right to vote, she became the first Chinese American woman to vote in a U.S. election.

This Astronomer Discovered Over 300 Stars During Her Career

9m 34s

Williamina Fleming went from doing domestic work to being appointed the Curator of Astronomical Photographs at the Harvard College Observatory, making her the first woman to hold a title at Harvard University. She is credited with discovering 10 novae, over 300 variable stars, and 59 gaseous nebulae.

She was an American Cinema Pioneer

12m 12s

Lois Weber was an early film pioneer as the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film in 1913, and one of the first directors to own her own film studio. Infused with the conviction that film could change culture, she directed over 135 films about controversial subject matters such as capital punishment, police violence, birth control, and poverty.

The First Woman to Lead Arctic Expeditions

10m

Louise Arner Boyd was a self-taught polar scientist and photographer, and the first American woman to lead Arctic expeditions, where she mapped uncharted regions of Greenland, creating photographs that provide critical information to climate change researchers today.

Meta Warrick Fuller: Trailblazing African American Sculptor

11m 25s

Artist Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller moved to Paris from Philadelphia in 1899 to study sculpture, where she began creating her expressive and groundbreaking artwork, which celebrated African American heritage and cultural identity, and resisted stereotypical representations in her depictions of the black body. She was the first African American to be awarded a federal art commission.

Anna May Wong: The first Asian American Movie Star

11m 25s

Anna May Wong, the first Asian American woman movie star, had a long and varied career spanning silent and sound film, stage, radio, and television, while resisting racism and typecasting in Hollywood, and the practice of having white actors in yellow face play the roles of Asian characters.

Ynés Mexía: Mexican-American Botanist and Adventurer

9m 17s

An early participant in the environmental movement, U.S.-born Mexican American Ynés Mexía began her scientific career at age 51, leading botanical expeditions across Mexico, Central America, and South America. She became one of the most accomplished plant collectors of her time, discovering over 500 new plant species of which 50 are named in her honor.

Lillian Gilbreth: Pioneering Inventor

10m 20s

Lillian Moller Gilbreth is the first woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the first female engineering professor at Purdue University. She worked to invent time and motion studies with her husband Frank, and elevated women’s labor in the domestic sphere with her design of the L-shaped kitchen and numerous appliances.

Maggie Lena Walker: Civil Rights Activist and Entrepreneur

9m 40s

A full 50 years before the Montgomery bus boycott, civil rights activist and entrepreneur Maggie Lena Walker led a city-wide boycott against segregated streetcars in Richmond, VA, and founded a newspaper, department store, and the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, making her the first African American female bank president in the United States.

Grace Abbott: Social Work Pioneer

9m 4s

Grace Abbott (1878-1939), an architect of social work and an activist in the immigrant rights movement, was the highest ranking woman in government from 1921 to 1934 as chief of the Department of Labor’s Children’s Bureau. She led the fight to end child labor and maternal and infant childbirth death, and also helped draft America's Social Security Act.

Aviator Bessie Coleman

9m 3s

The daughter of sharecropper in rural Texas, Bessie Coleman grew up picking cotton and eventually became the first African American woman aviator. Coleman became a media sensation with her daredevil performances, and was hailed as “Queen Bess” and “the world’s greatest woman flier.” Throughout her brief career, Coleman refused to perform in American airshows where audiences were segregated.

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