1920s1929
Virginia Woolf
Modern woman
In 1928, addressing distinguished female
students at the University of Cambridge,
novelist and critic Virginia Woolf de-
clared, “A woman must have money and
a room of one’s own if she is to write fic-
tion.” Replace “write fiction” with any
creative, intellectual or political pursuit,
and in a sentence, Woolf had summed
up millennia of inequality. In her 1929
extended essay “A Room of One’s Own,”
Woolf played with both fiction and non-
fiction, building on the themes of her lec-
tures. She invented the indelible figure
of Judith Shakespeare, sister of William,
who had equal talent but would never
become a world- famous playwright be-
cause she was barred from education and
relegated to the home.
Suddenly, readers imagined a world
history filled with the ghosts of gifted
women and the works they never had
the opportunity to create. Before 1929,
Woolf had established herself with
Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse
as one of the boldest novelists of the
20th century, and then when “A Room of
One’s Own” was published to both cele-
bration and outrage, she became a politi-
cal visionary too. Her essays were—and
still are—a rallying call to women around
the world. ÑLucas Wittmann1928
Anna May Wong
Cinematic trailblazer
Long before Lucy Liu or Awkwafina spoke up about the lack of Asian
representation in Hollywood, Anna May Wong was fighting the same
unjust structures. The native Angeleno, born to second- generation
Chinese-American parents, became a silent-film star in the 1920s on
the strength of her expressiveness. But because of miscegenation laws
that prevented interracial couples onscreen—and rampant yellow face
practices—her opportunities were mostly limited to stereotypes like the
rejected other woman or the villainous dragon lady.
After years of speaking up against racism, Wong moved in 1928 to
Europe, where she found audiences were more receptive to her talent,
regardless of her race. She starred in films, plays and operettas, and
became a global fashion icon. She later returned to the U.S., where she
continued to fight discrimination and, in the 1950s, became the first
Asian American to land a leading role in a U.S. TV series, The Gallery of
Madame Liu-Tsong. With her ingenuity and resilience, she set a template
for generations of Asian Americans to pursue their own artistry and
stardom. ÑAndrew R. Chow
WONG: ARCHIVIO GBB/CONTRASTO/REDUX; WOOLF: MONDADORI/GETTY IMAGES