She ran for the U.S. Senate before most American women could vote. Your audience will meet her in person.
"Unsinkable Molly Brown" was invented after her death by a newspaper columnist, a romance magazine writer, and later Broadway and Hollywood. That version is loud, lucky, and a little ridiculous.
Margaret Tobin Brown spent her life fighting for other people's rights: young people in the courts, miners and their unions, education and literacy, women's right to vote, and even men's right to an equal place in the lifeboats. She chaired the Titanic Survivors' Committee and was awarded the French Legion of Honor. She was never called Molly in her lifetime.
That gap between the caricature and the real record is the heart of this keynote. Plenty of capable women have watched their own story get told for them. Margaret did too, and she kept working anyway.
She worked with Judge Ben Lindsey to support Denver's juvenile court, the first west of the Mississippi and a model for the juvenile court system the country uses today.
After the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, she went to Colorado to help the families affected. She told the Denver Post she had joined the union herself.
As a founding member of the Denver Woman's Club, she backed literacy and education for children and adults across Colorado.
In 1914 she helped organize an international women's rights conference at Marble House in Newport. In 1927 she led a delegation that urged President Coolidge to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
After the Titanic, she argued that "women and children first" was wrong. If women asked for equal rights on land, she said, they should accept equal rights at sea.
In Edwardian costume and full voice, Diana brings Margaret into the room to tell her own story. Then the lens turns to your audience. Each part of her life carries a lesson leaders can use on Monday.
In 1914 she launched a campaign for the U.S. Senate, six years before the 19th Amendment. She didn't wait for the rules to change first.
No one put her in charge on the rescue ship Carpathia. By the time it docked in New York, she had helped organize a survivors' committee, been elected its chair, and raised nearly $10,000 for passengers who had lost everything.
The press called her a heroine, then a punchline. Margaret used the attention to speak about labor rights, children's welfare, and women's equality. Leaders who are misread can still decide what their visibility is for.
“I am a daughter of adventure.”Margaret Tobin Brown, Denver Post, 1923
Diana is a master presenter, and every program is customized to your audience, your theme, and your time slot.
The full performance with audience Q&A. Diana can answer in character as Margaret or step out and speak as herself about the history and the leadership lessons.
Follow the keynote with a working session for women leaders, built on Margaret's choices and paired with a participant workbook.
Before or after the program, Margaret mingles in character, greets guests, and holds court on anything from Titanic to politics.
Diana Brittain is the founder of Leading Intelligence, a leadership and team training company that helps professionals in healthcare, law, and corporate settings communicate and lead with more confidence.
She created the Heroes Leaders Champions curriculum, which was endorsed by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, former president of the American Psychological Association. Her TEDx talk on creating a heroic identity grew out of that work, and so did this keynote. In Margaret, Diana found a real woman who built a heroic identity long before anyone had a name for it.
Diana also brings Margaret to life for visitors at the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver, in the home where Margaret lived.
Yes. The keynote is built from Margaret's own words in newspaper interviews and letters, along with the research of historians and the Molly Brown House Museum. Where the legend and the record disagree, the audience hears both.
Women's leadership conferences, professional associations, corporate events, and civic groups. It works especially well for International Women's Day and Women's History Month programming.
Yes. Diana shapes the length and focus to your theme, audience, and time slot.
Diana is based in Denver and travels for events. Share your location in the form below.
Share your event, audience, and date. Diana will follow up within two business days.