Gerda Lerner
Teacher
Survivor of the holocaust who used her experiences to found the academic field of women's history.
She remembered the bond she shared with women who helped her survive imprisonment by the Nazis, and used that memory to fight long and hard for recognition of women's history.
She created a women's history graduate program in Sarah Lawrence College, collecting and publishing source material like diaries and letters from women of centuries past.
She grew up in Vienna, Austria, where her father worked as a pharmacist.
She and her husband co-wrote the film Black Like Me, starring James Whitmore.