Annie Smith Peck

Annie Smith Peck was a forty-four-year-old professor of Latin at Smith College in Massachusetts when she took up mountain climbing. From then on, her determination to climb and break records made her a celebrity in her day. She traveled the world, reaching summit after summit; her ascent of the Matterhorn in 1895 brought her fame. In 1911, at the age of sixty-one, she claimed Mount Coropuna in Peru. At the summit, she planted a pennant that reads: “Votes for Women.” Like sister adventurer Amelia Earhart, Peck supported her passion by lecturing and writing for magazines. Her last climb was up Mount Madison in New Hampshire. She was eighty-two.