American RW Stories in Development:

The Remarkable Archeologist, Author and Artist Behind Earl Halstead Morris

Ann Axtell, born February 9, 1900, was a prominent archaeologist, artist, and author. After graduating from Smith College, Ann met Earl Halstead Morris and they married in 1923. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Ann and Earl worked together during extensive multi-year excavations throughout the American Southwest and in Mexico, including five seasons at Chichen Itza, Yucatan in partnership with the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Ann spent much of her time on expeditions recording and painting architecture, petroglyphs and pictographs and landscapes. Many of her recording methods are still used today by modern archaeologists, as they provide context within the sites history and represent the importance of color at a time when archaeologists were using black and white photography.

Along with her artwork, Ann wrote two books about her experiences as an archaeologist and the significance of her findings. Digging the Yucatan and Digging in the Southwest show her extensive knowledge and skill as an archaeologist and provide us a glimpse into the vibrant world of Ann Axtell Morris. She will finally get the credit she deserves in this episode of The Remarkable Women.

The Remarkable Woman Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge: Emily Roebling, is the structural engineer who completed the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband, William fell ill. They kept her involvement in the project a secret, fearful that the investors might back out if a woman was in charge. In 1893, she rode across the completed bridge in a horse-drawn carriage. Today, she has been recognized with a special park, Emily Roebling Plaza, located underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Remarkable Women of the Women Air Force Service Pilots: Nancy Love and Jackie Cochran were young, amateur pilots when they formed the WASPs (Women Air Force Service Pilots) in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. About 1,100 WASPs taught thousands of new recruits to fly all types of military aircraft across Europe and Japan. The women ferried plans from factories to airbases, flight tested aircraft and freed male instructors to fly missions. Despite resistance from Maj. General Henry Arnold, the WASPs proved to be the secret weapon in America’s ability to win the air war. By the end of the war, Arnold finally admitted that “women can fly as well as men.”

The Remarkable Forgotten Designer Behind Jackie Kennedy’s Wedding Dress: When Jackie Kennedy married John F. Kennedy in 1953, her wedding dress was considered the height of stylist elegance. Unfortunately, no credit was given to Ann Lowe, the African American designer who opened a salon on Madison Avenue to serve as a couturier to celebrities and high society matrons. Born in the Deep South, Lowe broke barriers throughout her life, but was not publicly recognized even when Olivia De Havilland wore her Lowe dress on stage to accept the Oscar in 1946. Clients who bought Lowe’s sophisticated ensembles considered Lowe their “best kept secret” because of her gender and race.

The Remarkable Women Behind Jackson Pollock: Lee Krasner and Peggy Guggenheim were behind the success of American modern artist, Jackson Pollock. Krasner, his wife, set her own career aside to support his work, despite his raging alcoholism and self-destructive behavior.  Art collector and gallery owner, Guggenheim, recognized his genius and marketed his work through her innovative gallery in New York City as well as internationally.

The Remarkable Woman Behind Frederick Douglass: Anna Murray Douglass was an American abolitionist, member of the Underground Railroad, and the first wife of American social reformer and statesman Frederick Douglass, from 1838 to her death. She was born in Denton, Maryland and lived in Washington, D.C.

Global Women Stories in Development:

The Remarkable Women Behind Elias Lönnrot

The Remarkable Women Behind Elias Lönnrot, features two remarkable women: Eva Törngren, the poet’s long-term patron, and his devoted daughter, Ida Lönnrot, who served as his assistant for decades. Elias Lönnrot collected and recorded folk tales from Finnish villages. His work, compiled in the iconic Kalevala, is believed to have inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create the Hobbits and other characters featured in his iconic novel, The Lord of the Rings. This episode features Antti Reini, one of Scandinavia’s most popular actors, playing Lönnrot. This compelling story about the women behind the success of the man credited with saving the Finnish language, among other accomplishments, will be told through expert interviews, innovative animation by a team of Finnish animators and scripted scenes featuring period costumes by Jussi award-winning Finnish costume designer, Anu Gould.

The Remarkable Woman Behind Astronomer Jan Heweliusz

Our Polish story is about Elżbieta Heweliusz, a beautiful and well-educated daughter of a wealthy merchant from Gdańsk, who was married at the age of sixteen to the astronomer Jan Heweliusz. Her husband, who was many years older, lived in a luxurious home visited by kings and powerful lords, artists and scholars from all over Europe. Although he married Elżbieta, he remained attached to his mistress. This unhappy marriage may have destroyed the young woman’s hope for true love, but it did provide her entrance to the world of science dominated by men. Elżbieta Katarzyna Heweliusz was recognized as the first female astronomer by the King of Poland, Jan III Sobieski. In fact, he provided funds to continue the research interrupted by her husband's death. 

The Remarkable Women in the Shadow of W.B. Yeats

It may be a surprise to many that the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats and his painter brother, Jack, had two remarkable sisters who were scorned and disparaged for their independent feminist, artistic lifestyle. In fact, James Joyce called them “weird” in chapter one of Ulysses.

Elizabeth and Lily Yeats founded Cuala Press, an arts and craft business and ran it from 1908 to 1940. According to modern historians researching their lives, they lived in the shadow of their brothers, before fading into obscurity. This episode will be written by Roisin Kearney, an accomplished Irish screenwriter and co-produced by Dublin-based Document Films, headed by Caroline Grace-Cassidy. Our London-based associate producer, Daisy Shepherd-Cross will be working on this episode with the Irish creative team.

The Remarkable Women Behind Rabindranath Tagore

Many stories have been told about Rabindranath Tagore in India. Some have been written about him globally. But not much has been told about the remarkable women who influenced his life and his literary work. Tagore had great admirers in William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound.  London's India Society published the work in a limited edition, and the American magazine Poetry published a selection from Gitanjali, the book of poetry that earned him the Nobel prize.  In 1915, He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

India is now at the center of the global interest. It is important to share the story of Tagore’s life, work and the remarkable women who influenced them. But even more important would be to know how he immortalized these ladies and their feisty spirits in his literary work that reflected the society of his time.

The Remarkable Woman Behind Composer Richard Wagner

Cosima Wagner, daughter of Franz Liszt, was a member of music royalty in Germany. Prevented from performing in public by her famous father, she fell in love with his arch rival, Richard Wagner. She bore two children as his mistress before marrying him and providing him with a son. Cosima Wagner is credited with creating and protecting the Wagner legacy with an iron hand. The world famous Wagner Festival is still taking place a century after its inception.

The Remarkable Women of the White Squadron

Our Romanian story is about The White Squad, six bright, young, aristocratic Romanian princesses who painted their small, private planes white with red crosses on the tails and set off across Europe to rescue and transport hundreds of wounded soldiers to hospitals. They organized and flew these dangerous missions, while Romanian Air Force officers received all the credit. Given the way women were treated in the 1930’s and 1940’s it’s no surprise that the women who flew the missions were not given an officer’s rank.

Instead, the rescue squadron was led by male officers, beginning with Capt. Gheorghe Varvar, followed by Lt. Traian Demetrescu, Lt Commander Isaia Popovici and, lastly, Captain Constantin Afenduli.

The White Squadron’s first campaign was the siege of Odessa. The women rescued and flew wounded soldiers from all nationalities to safety behind the front lines where Red Cross medics cared for them.

During their initial campaign, they rescued over 700 people, with a total of 5,000 wounded soldiers transported during the entire siege of Odessa.

This episode will be written and directed by Ilinca Neagu and produced by her creative collaborator, Cristina Tache. Their company, IN Visuals, has offices in Brussels and Romania. They work closely with a Romanian animation and graphics company which will provide all the computer-generated animation sequences to depict the planes in the air. This episode will feature interviews with historians and re-enactments featuring the all-female pilots.

The Remarkable Woman Behind Marc Chagall

In the afterword to Bella Chagall’s autobiographical book First Encounter, the famous painter Marc Chagall wrote: “To whom compare her? She was like no other. She was the Bashenka-Bellochka of Vitebsk on the hill, mirrored in the Dvina with its clouds and trees and houses…”

For Chagall’s many admirers and scholars, Bella’s was an iconic image: an enchanted Bride gliding with her beloved above the magical Vitebsk, the town of their childhood. Her role as a wife and a muse to the great artist has been acknowledged and revered by all. The light of her own talent remained in the shade of her husband’s fame. 

A gifted writer and an aspiring actress, Bella put her dreams aside to follow her husband Marc Chagall into emigration, first to Europe and, when Hitler rose to power,  to the U.S. It is in New York, in safety, but increasingly homesick, that Bella Chagall started to write again. In her two books, both published posthumously, she recreated the Vitebsk of her childhood, and re-lived, in great detail, the most significant encounter of her life. Born in 1895, she died on September 2, 1944 from flu complications. Her last words were: “My notebooks…”

“Will the busy men and women of today be able to enter into her work and her work?” bemoaned Marc Chagall the loss of Bella. In this episode of Remarkable Women, we will do just that. 

The Remarkable Woman Behind Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Mercedes Raquel Barcha Pardo, muse and gatekeeper of the Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who played a crucial role in the publication of his breakthrough novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”   “Mercedes permeates all my books,” Marquez once said. “There’s traces of her everywhere.” Barcha was born on November 6, 1932, in Magangué, Colombia. Barcha is best known for her financial and emotional support of her Nobel Prize-winning husband, the author Gabriel García Márquez. She died in 2020. In 2014, after García Márquez's death, she served as the President Emerita of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Iberoamerican Foundation for New Journalism in Cartegena, Colombia. In 2017, she founded the Fundación Gabo to promote García Márquez's legacy. For nearly 60 years, she was the Nobel Prize-winning novelist’s companion and inspiration, his sharp-witted foil and his chief of staff. Barcha played a crucial role in the publication of his breakthrough novel, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” She pawned the telephone, radio, jewelry, four-wheeler and pawned her hair dryer to pay the postage to send her husband’s manuscript to his Argentinian editor.

Other Episodes in Development:

The Remarkable Woman Behind Alvar Aalto - Aino Aalto was a Finnish architect and a pioneer of Scandinavian design. She is known as a co-founder of the design company Artek. Her husband. Alvar Aalto, was the well- known Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto. Aino Marsio graduated from architecture school in 1920, starting her career as a draftsperson before joining Aalto’s office in 1924. In the 1920’s, women had a very tough time working independently as an architect, so that’s why she agreed to work in partnership with her husband. They worked closely together on many projects, often making it difficult to separate her work from her husband’s.

They often competed for the same projects, submitted different versions of the same project. Most of her works were labeled “Alvar Aalto.” Although she was less famous than her husband, Alvar, even their close artistic friends said she was more talented as a designer, and more profound in her ideas than her husband. She was a respected interior designer and we believe Aino Aalto is a remarkable, talented woman whose personal story needs to be told. We've attached a best-selling Finnish author, Jari Järvelä, who has written a book about Aino Aalto, to serve as a consultant. Finnish director, Leena Kilpeläinen is attached to direct this episode. Her most recent hybrid documentary, Maija Isola: Master of Colour and Form, was produced by Greenlit Productions and has been theatrically released in Finland, Japan and other markets.