Since the early years, women have had the ability to do something on their own, starting from scratch. This was something more difficult than now, because in that world women faced different prejudices, thus leaving them without rights and support.

Even today, doing business is a difficult thing, regardless of gender, especially when its profits reach millions, but there are some women who have succeeded, even 200 years ago. On International Women's Day, we bring the stories of 8 women, who in 8 different fields have managed to reach the top, facing all the prejudices of the time.

Elizabeth Arden

At a time when it was very rare for women to apply makeup, let alone run a business, Canadian Arden opened the first spa on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1910. She hired chemists to create skin care products. In 1922, her company became the first to be recognized globally, while in 1946, she was the first woman to appear on the cover of Time magazine, something that had never happened before. By the end of her life, Elizabeth Arden had more than 100 salons around the world.

Carrie Crawford Smith

Carrie Crawford Smith was an African-American woman who opened an employment agency to help find work for the large number of migrants who were moving from the South to the North. Her business helped white people as well, but she focused especially on black migrants. Smith's agency was more than just a business: she saw it as an opportunity to promote racial progress and dignity.

Cheung Yan

In 2006, with a personal fortune of $3.4 billion, Yan was listed as the richest woman in the world, but she built it all herself. Cheung Yan established her paper recycling company in 1985 in Hong Kong. After a period in the US, collecting used papers, she returned to China and started Nine Dragons Paper, which she is the chairman of together with her husband. This company is now considered the world's largest paper recycling enterprise, with a staff of 18 full-time employees.

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu

Alemu started her business after seeing her friends and neighbors in the Ethiopian village of Zenabwork struggling to make ends meet. After that, she thought of putting their craft skills to work, to create a shoe brand based on a traditional way of recycling tires. Her company "SoleRebels" already produces sandals, slippers, shoes and related boots, all made from local materials, such as plant fibers, recycled tires, or organic cotton. This company is the most famous African shoe company that sells in 30 different countries around the world.

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire media executive, actress and philanthropist. She is best known as the host of her hugely popular show; The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. In 2011, Winfrey launched her own television network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OËN).

According to Forbes magazine, Winfrey was the richest African-American person of the 20th century and the only person to be a black billionaire for three consecutive years. Life magazine hailed her as the most influential woman of her generation. In September 2002, Winfrey was named the first recipient of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. In 2005, Business Week named Winfrey "the greatest black philanthropist in American history." Her charity raised more than $50 million for charitable programs, including girls' education in South Africa and relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Margaret Rudkin

Rudkin began making wheat flour in a stone mill for her son, who suffered from asthma and food allergies, on the family farm in Connecticut. Soon, the boy's doctor began to advise other patients to eat her bread. So Rudkin's husband transported the loaves to grocery stores. As her bread became popular, by the end of 1939 she had sold more than a million loaves and products to Reader's Digest. In 1940, she moved her business from her garage to her own factory, adding cookies to the list of products a decade later. She sold her business to Campbell Soup for $28 million in 1961, becoming the first woman to serve on the company's board of directors.

Lydia Pinkham

In 1875 Lydia Estes Pinkham of Massachusetts turned her homemade herbal remedies into a big business, advertising her products to women and educating them about health. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the most popular remedies of the 19th century. Pinkham was recognized as a powerful voice for women's health at a time when their health needs were not recognized by the medical community. Cooper Laboratories bought the company in 1968, pills and medicinal liquids are still stamped with Pinkahm's name in some pharmacies.

Eliza Lucas Pinvkney

She is known as the first agronomist to introduce the blue indigo dye to North America. While at school in London, Eliza discovered her love of botany. When she was still young, her family migrated to the United States, where her father purchased three plantations. As she grew older and realized that the growing textile industry was creating a need for new dyes, Pinckey began producing the blue dye of very high quality. Thus, she continued to produce quality materials with this dye, becoming the second in export. She became the first woman inducted into the “South Carolina Business Hall of Fame” in 1989.