Caption:
Actress Mary Pickford, a strong supporter of women's rights, buying the first sheet of Equal Rights seals, 1938. Photographed by Louise Pote, College Park, Maryland. Mary Pickford (born Gladys Louise Smith; 1892-1979) was a Canadian-born American film actress and producer. With a career spanning 50 years, she was a co-founder of both the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio (along with Douglas Fairbanks) and, later, the United Artists film studio (with Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and D. W. Griffith), and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who present the yearly "Oscar" award ceremony. One of the earliest stars to be billed under her own name, she was one of the most popular actresses of the 1910s and 1920s, and was known as "America's Sweetheart."