A photographic look at women's history in Georgia

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Flashback photos: Women making history in Georgia

March 8 is International Women’s Day. In honor of that, let’s take a look back at women in Georgia (and Georgia women) through the years. Some are famous, some not so famous, but they’re breaking barriers and changing the world in their own way.

Atlanta socialite and pilot Nell Winship poses on top of a plane in Atlanta in August 1941. AJC file

Photojournalist Carolyn Carter of the Atlanta Journal on a tank, 1950. She was working on a story with reporter Willard Neal, the non-uniformed man standing beside the tank. AJC file

In Douglas, Ga., aircraft technician Emily Ireland appraises the damage done to a wing tap by a 'ground loop' while the cadet pilot anxiously awaits the verdict. AJC file

Alice Walker reading her poetry in her hometown of Eatonton, Georgia, December 17, 1988. Walter Stricklin/AJC

All American Red Heads, a women's professional basketball team, at an exhibition performance in Atlanta in January 1951. Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976. Photographic Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. LBRE006.009m

Students and professor at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, looking through telescope, April 1940. AJC file

From the original caption: "Demonstrating the cab's two way radio is Mrs. Viola Arnold, who is so small she has to sit on a pillow to see over the wheel. April 8, 1951" AJC file

Atlanta Journal writer Celestine Sibley with comedian Groucho Marx in 1952. Sibley would continue to write for the AJC until her death in 1999. AJC file

Charlayne Hunter, first of two African American undergraduate students admitted to the University of Georgia, is walked to class by campus officials, January 1961. Bill Young/AJC

Coretta Scott King at the temporary Martin Luther King Center, 1975. AJC file

Dixie Fun Barn Gang bass player Dixie Lee at WAGA studio in Atlanta on November 22, 1948. LBCB114-007b, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976. Photographic Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

Atlanta mayor Hartsfield welcomes Dorothy Kirby after she won the Women's National Amateur golf tournamen in 1951. Guy Hayes/AJC

Champion Dorothy Kirby practicing her golf swing, 1941. Kenneth Rogers/AJC

Two opposing sides meet as pro-Equal Rights Amendment protesters line-up outside a Stop ERA meeting at the Atlanta Civic Center in the early 1980s. Bud Skinner/AJC

The original caption, from 1959: " The girls on our cover are members of a fencing class at Agnes Scott College in Decatur. The school isn't bent on teaching young ladies to defend themselves in this manner but offers fencing because it develops poise, stamina and agility. The young ladies, foils in hand, are Peggy Jo Wells of Monticello, Fla.; Beth Magoffin of Kingsport, Tenn., and Sarah Kelso of Atlanta. Photo by Kenneth Rogers."

Fire Station No. 7 firefighter Debbie Creech on the scene of a fire in Atlanta, October 17, 1986. Billy Down/AJC

Flannery O'Connor at her home in Milledgeville, Georgia, 1962. Joe McTyre/AJC

Flannery O'Connor sitting on the steps of her home in Milledgeville, Georgia, September 22, 1959. Floyd Jillson/AJC

Betty McNabb in her airplane which she uses to fly around the state setting up medical libraries, 1955. AJC file

Author Margaret Mitchell with a few of the translations of "Gone With the Wind," sometime in the late 1940s. AJc file

Street car operator watching a man mop the kitchen floor in Atlanta in January 1945. AJC file

Motorcycle road racer champion Bessie Allen, 1957. Kenneth Rogers/AJC

The original caption in 1944: "Private Marie McMillin, of Fort Benning, has made 396 parachute jumps; she once bailed out at 24,000 feet." McMillin made the jumps prior to her enlistment in the WACs." Photo from theUnited States Army Signal Corps.

Uniformed policewomen get briefing from chief on Monday duties. Evelyn Chalker (from left), Louis Sartain, Sybil Hawkins, Evelyn Whitehead and Mildred Faulkner. February 26, 1950. AJC file

Audrey Saffel accepting her trophy for winning the Belle's Classic race in Gainesville, 1957. Floyd Jillson/AJC

Women at the Augusta Arsenal assemble weapons for World War II troops, 1943. AJC file

Roller derby at Atlanta Municipal Auditorium in 1937. LBME3-019b, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976. Photographic Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

Rosa Parks (right) signs autographs after her and two other speakers finished their seminar on women and constitutional changes in Atlanta in February 1988. John Spink/AJC

In early May 1961, Annie Ruth Dennis and Erma Lee Williams were among the students applying to transfer to schools that had previously been all-white in Atlanta. Bill Wilson/AJC

A female street car conductor arrives at work in Atlanta, January 1945. AJC file

Trolley car driver Helen Flournoy with her male coworkers, in the 1940s. AJC file

University of Georgia girls playing baseball in Athens, 1946. LBCB112-089a, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976. Photographic Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

The original caption that accmpanied this photo in 1958: "The sharp-shooting WAC on our cover is Major Katherine Sutherland. She had never fired a hand gun until a year and a half ago and now has so many medals and trophies she has trouble finding room for them in her apartment at the WAC officers' quarters at Fort McPherson. One prized trophy is the first medal ever awarded a woman in a shooting match with guards at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. In August she was one of 30 women who competed with 1,470 men at the National Rifle and Pistol Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio. In our photo the major models an advance fashion, the new drip-dry WAC uniform authorized for wear next summer."

A roll of film from 1937 found in the Lane Brothers Collection. The Federal Theatre Project and the Atlanta Studio Group invited the Big Bethel A.M.A. to perform its "Heaven Bound" pageant at the Atlanta Theatre. The play opened on August 10, 1937 and ran for a week. The play returned in January 1937, and again in 1938. And it's still being performed yearly. LBstrip038p, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

A roll of film from 1937 found in the Lane Brothers Collection. The Federal Theatre Project and the Atlanta Studio Group invited the Big Bethel A.M.A. to perform its "Heaven Bound" pageant at the Atlanta Theatre. The play opened on August 10, 1937 and ran for a week. The play returned in January 1937, and again in 1938. And it's still being performed yearly. LBstrip038cc, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

Go-kart race winners stand next to their trophies, 1961. J.C. Lee/AJC

Elizabeth Herndon and Diane Michel, Georgia Tech's first two women students, in 1952. Frank Tuggle/AJC

Race car driver Janet Guthrie climbing into her car at the Atlanta 500 qualifying race in 1978. Louie Favorite/AJC

Fifth congressional district representative Helen Douglas Mankin, 1946. Mankin was the first woman elected to Congress from Georgia. AJC file

Barbara Jordan addressing conference on "Women and the Constitution: A Bicentennial Perspective" in Atlanta, February 11, 1988. William Berry/AJC

Mary Frances Early, who was the first African-American to graduate from the University of Georgia, plays piano at her mother's Atlanta home before reporting to the University of Georgia in the summer of 1961.

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Atlanta socialite and pilot Nell Winship poses on top of a plane in Atlanta in August 1941. AJC file

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