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" No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent. If we wait until we're ready, we'd never do anything"

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

American First Lady

Her Name Is Anna

* Anna

..... ( from the Bible) prophetess and the FIRST woman to proclaim Jesus as the Christ

* Anna Atkins

born 1799 died 1871

..... FIRST person to produce a photographically printed book and the FIRST to use it as part of an extensive scientific study of the natural world. The book was called Photographs of British Algae - Cyanotype Impressions ( 12 parts 1843-53) and in 1996 it sold for £133,500

* Anna Bidder

born May 4th 1903 died 2001

..... co-founder and FIRST president of Lucy Cavendish College in Cambridge, the only college at either Oxford or Cambridge dedicated to mature women students. In 1972 it admitted its first undergraduates. It remains one of only two colleges in Cambridge to exclude men from membership altogether and in 1997  received full collegiate status and a Royal charter.  After her own experiences as an undergraduate at Newnham in the 1920s she became convinced of the need for a new women's college. At the time Newnham was one of only two women's colleges at Cambridge, the other was Girton

* Anna Chancellor

..... FIRST woman to be named beer-drinker of the year and the FIRST time that the award has gone to a fictional character - Gladys Althorp whom Anna portrayed in the television advertisement for Boddingtons Beer when she received the award from the Parliamentary Beer Club

* Anna Ford

….. ITN's FIRST woman prime-time newscaster in 1978, FIRST woman President of the student union at Manchester University and in 2001 became the FIRST female Chancellor of Manchester University in its 150 year history

* Anna Goodwin - Lieutenant

….. FIRST female ADC to the Lord High Commissioner when she patrolled the corridors of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, to make sure that guests behaved themselves at the General Assembly for the Church if Scotland

* Anna Grange

..... on 8th April 1994 she became the FIRST woman High Sheriff of Wiltshire after 760 years

* Anna Katherine Green

born 1845 died 1935

..... American who was the FIRST person to have a detective story published. It was called The Leavenworth Case and was the FIRST detective novel by an American writer of either sex. Her novel, although not the greatest, established the formula and the popularity of this new literary form in the USA. By the time she died at the age of 90 years she had written over 30 novels. She was the wife of a furniture manufacturer and said that she considered the writing of a detective novel to be good preparation for her career as a poet

* Anna Hodson

..... FIRST artist-in-residence at Platt Hall's Gallery of Costume in Manchester

* Anna Hofman-Uddgren

born 1868 died 1947

..... FIRST woman film director in Sweden and second in the world ( after Alice Guy Blache). She was also the FIRST person to persuade August Strindberg (misogynist) to agree to her filming his plays

* Anna Greta Leijon

..... FIRST woman to preside at the International Labour Conference in 1984. At the time she was Sweden's Minister of Labour and a record of delegates (1850) representing the 139 member states belonging to the ILO, attended the 70th session of the conference which concluded its work on 26th June 1984

* Anna Leska

..... with Stefania Wojtulanis was one of the FIRST two Polish women pilots. During WW2 they were part of the Air Transport auxiliary under Pauline Gower

* Anna Q Nilsson

 ..... FIRST film star to settle in Malibu Beach when she built a house on a sandy strip of deserted beach just north of Malibu Creek in 1928. Within two years the area was dubbed the Malibu Motion Picture Colony

* Anna Pagan

..... FIRST to wear the gym slip which was designed by Miss Margaret Tait at Hampstead PT College. It became an important factor in enabling girls to participate in team games, giving them the necessary freedom of movement

* Anna Pearce and Lisa Nicholson

..... among six girls who have entered military history when they became the FIRST all-female gun crew formed to fire field howitzers in the British Army in 1992.  They are all members of the Artillery Troop of the Oxford University Officer Training corps - Britain's second oldest army unit - which was celebrating its 350th anniversary

* Anna Bridget Plowden

born June 18th 1938 died 1997

..... English lady who was a leading conservationist and restorer of archaeological discoveries and works of art and was the FIRST conservator to bring a knowledge of modern scientific methods into the private sector in 1965 when she set up her own freelance business which specialised in cleaning excavated bronzes.  She was also the FIRST to shun the abrasive chemical cleaners then in use

* Anna Pollak

born May 1st 1912 died 1996

..... FIRST to sing 'Baba the Turk' on the radio in the FIRST-ever performance in Britain of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress

* Anna Pringle

..... FIRST British woman ambassador to Moscow when she replaced Sir Anthony Brenton in 2008

* Anna Morton Riis

..... with her husband was the FIRST husband and wife team to join the British Airways as pilots - August 1988

* Anna Roden

..... in 1992, with Clive Warman, became the FIRST Jewish couple since the Middle Ages to take part in a betrothal ceremony at Jews Court, Lincoln, the city's synagogue since the 13th century

* Anna Rogstad

..... FIRST woman member of the Storting in Norway in 1911. She was originally a deputy member

* Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

born October 11th 1884 died 7th November 1962

..... American First Lady who was one of the FIRST post-suffragette feminists. She was the FIRST president's wife to take an active part in politics and the FIRST First Lady to vote in a presidential election. She was also the FIRST presidential wife to host a press conference and was one of the FIRST women to take part in the sport of bowhunting

* Anna Howard Shaw

born 1847 died 1919

..... American who was the FIRST woman Methodist Minister

* Anna Sokolow

born 1912

..... founded the FIRST modern dance company in Mexico in 1939 when she formed La Paloma Azul

* Anna Southall

..... FIRST woman director at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales in 1998 and she became only the third woman in the UK to lead a national museum

* Anna Louisa Swynnerton

born 1844 died 1933

..... English woman who was the FIRST woman elected associate of the Royal Academy in 1922 since 1768. She was born Anne Louisa Robinson at Kersal, Salford, the daughter of a solicitor. she studied painting at the Manchester School of Art and also studied in Paris and Rome where she lived with her husband Joseph, a Manx sculptor. Some of her paintings are in the Tate Gallery

*  Anna Edson Taylor

..... in October 1901 she was the FIRST to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel

*  Anna Tomaszewicz-Dobrska

born 1854 died 1918

..... FIRST woman doctor to practice in Poland and the second Polish woman to become a doctor. She had to overcome opposition from the establishment in Petrograd because of her sex and was a founding member of the Society of Polish Culture and an advocate of women's rights

* Anna Wessel Williams

born 1863 died 1954

..... American who was the FIRST physician to travel to Europe to obtain a culture for the rabies virus from the Pasteur Institute in 1896 thereby allowing large scale production to begin in America two years later. She was virtually responsible for eliminating diptheria in the western world and controlling rabies. Her methods are still in use. Diptheria is from the Greek word 'dipthera' and sufferers form a tough yellowish-grey membrane in the throat. She was also the FIRST woman to chair the laboratory section at the American Public Health Association

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