Moms are the unsung heroes of the world. They rise to accept a responsibility that takes hard work and dedication, often sailing under the radar. Chances are that you know plenty of amazing moms (and may even be one yourself) — but it’s important that we also tip our collective hat to all the inspiring mothers of the past.

Take a look at 4 of these powerful & famous women in history to recognize their accomplishments with this in mind — they were mothers, too!

Inspiring Historical Figures (who were also moms!)

These women were leaders, influencers, and women who made differences so substantial they altered the course of history and through it all, they were dedicated and determined mothers, to their own children and beyond.

Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe is best known as the co-founder of the American Woman Suffrage Association but is also a famous abolitionist, suffragist, writer, and of course a mom. One of the most notable things about Julia Ward Howe? She authored the Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World — which would later become infamously known as the Mother’s Day Proclamation.

Marie Curie

Though Marie is known as the mother of physics and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in both Physics and Chemistry, she also played another enormously important role: a mother. Marie had a husband she loved dearly, but he died shortly after her second child was born — leaving her to raise the children on her own.

Not only did she raise and guide her two daughters, but also took it upon herself to homeschool her children, passing along her brilliance. One of her daughters even followed in her footsteps, working alongside her mother and receiving military honors for her work.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Considered one of the leading figures of the early women’s rights movement in the 19th century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is best known for her involvement in the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. Though the suffrage movement was one of her top priorities, Stanton was a dedicated mother to her seven children.

It’s said that it was her love for her children meshed with her frustration of being confined to the home (due to the time period) that motivated her to fight so hard against what she called the “absolute tyranny” men had held women in — she fought for women to own property, the right to vote, the right to divorce husbands without losing custody of children, to earn wages and much more.

Sojourner Truth

Many of us know Sojourner Truth as an abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and evangelist, but she deserves to be honored as a mother too. Truth showed a deep dedication to her own children. When she escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, she was forced to leave her son, Peter, who had been illegally sold into slavery.

She confronted the enslavers, but they didn’t think she could afford to rescue Peter. As Truth says in her autobiography, “I have no money, but God has enough, or what’s better! And, I’ll have my child again!”

With the help of an abolitionist family, she successfully sued the enslavers who took her son and became the first Black woman to sue a white man and win.