When America entered World War I, Law lobbied the government to fly in battle, but Secretary of War Newton D. Baker refused. She wrote a newspaper article that said that if President Woodrow Wilson sent her after the Kaiser, “I should fly away on my bombing mission with not only a free conscience but a glad heart.” Nevertheless, Law became the first woman to wear a noncommissioned officer’s Army uniform and spent her time soaring over the United States, dropping paper “bombs” that advertised Liberty Loans.

“Sabin was always tremendously involved with the greater world while always identifying first and foremost as a scientist,” says Patricia Rosof, who wrote an article about Sabin’s “quiet feminism.” “She had an insatiable curiosity. So many of her actions came out of her involvement in the scientific realm, placed in the context of her awareness of the greater social and political context.”

“Ruth McGinnis was America’s first truly important woman pool player. Keep in mind that women for much of the sport’s history were not fixtures in public poolrooms, nor were they even welcome in them. In fact, many of pool’s followers then believed that women were physically and mentally incapable of excelling at the sport. And then Ruth McGinnis came along and proved all of them wrong, and in the most dramatic way imaginable. She made headlines throughout America as a winning sensation, as a woman who could stand up to the very best men. In this very important way Ruth McGinnis broke down barriers in what had been a quintessentially male endeavor.”

The Pack Horse Library initiative, which sent librarians deep into Appalachia, was one of the New Deal’s most unique plans.