Books in Signature Lives: Modern World series

By the time he was 9 years old, Booker T. Washington had already witnessed the horrors of slavery, civil war, and racism. At the age of 16, Washingtons lifelong passion for learning was ignited, and when he turned 25, he established the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. The school was open to African-American students who wanted to learn vocational skills as a part of their education. Washington also became a leading spokesman for the African-American community.

Elizabeth Dole has spent most of her life serving the public. She held U.S. Cabinet positions as secretary of transportation and secretary of labor, and served as president of the American Red Cross. Her husband, Bob Dole, was a U.S. senator and was the Republican Party nominee for the presidency in 1996. While her husband lost his race, Elizabeth Dole won many admirers traveling the United States on the campaign trail. In 2002, she was elected U.S. senator, representing her home state of North Carolina.

Madame Chiang Kai-shek was a powerful figure in Chinese politics. As wife of the Nationalist leader, she helped modernize China through the New Life Movement of the 1930s. She was educated in the United States and developed a unique understanding of American culture. She used this background to win U.S. support for the Nationalists in their struggles against Japan and the communists. Her diplomatic skills won her many admirers, but others criticized her obvious wealth at a time when most Chinese suffered from great poverty.

Amelia Earhart gained worldwide fame in 1928 when she became the first woman to fly an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean. Her lifelong accomplishments as an aviator influenced pilots in the United States and throughout the world. Her bravery encouraged women to learn to fly and fulfill their dreams. On her attempt to circumnavigate the globe at the equator, Earhart and her plane vanished and were never found. But her memory endures as a symbol of adventure, courage, and perseverance.

Sixteenth-century geographer Gerardus Mercator was born in 1512 in Rupelmonde, Flanders. He lived during a time of religious strife and for a time was imprisoned for heresy. Mercator began his career as a maker of mathematical instruments, but he won lasting renown with his world map of 1569, which introduced a new way of showing the spherical earth on a flat sheet of paper. This method, called the Mercator projection, is still used today. His 1585 book, titled Atlas, was the first to use that word to describe a collection of maps.