The Florida Historical Society is presenting the original theatrical production “Female Florida: Historic Women in Their Own Words,” Sunday at 2:00 pm at the Rossetter House Museum and Gardens in Eau Gallie.

The production was created using oral histories and autobiographical writings by businesswoman Caroline P. Rossetter, writer Zora Neale Hurston, environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and educator Mary McLeod Bethune.

Caroline P. Rossetter, at the tender age of 23, listened at the keyhole as a debate took place behind closed doors at the Standard Oil Company office in Louisville, Kentucky. Upon her father’s death, Carrie Rossetter requested that she be allowed to take over his Standard Oil Agency in Brevard County, Florida. That request sparked a heated discussion.

The year was 1921, and women had received the right to vote in the United States just months before. The idea of a woman being able to run a business was preposterous to some.