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- Chrissy Clark
- Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). Alcott worked to support her family through financial difficulties at an early age, and managed to write “Little Women,” one of the most famous novels in American history.
- Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906). Anthony played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. In 1878, she and co-workers presented an amendment to Congress that would give women the right to vote.
- Clara Barton (1821-1912). Barton founded the American Red Cross and served as its first president. She was a nurse during the Civil War for the Union Army.
- Nellie Bly (1864-1904). A journalist, she launched a new kind of investigative reporting. She is best known for her record-breaking trip around the world by ship in 72 days.
- Lady Deborah Moody. Religious freedom, leadership. 1586-1659. Brought settlers seeking religious freedom to Gravesend at New Amsterdam (later New York). She was a respected and important community leader.
- Anne Marbury Hutchinson. Religious freedom of expression. 1591-1643. Banished from Boston by Puritans in 1637, due to her views on grace. In New York, natives killed her and all but one of her children.
- Pocahontas. Native and English amity. 1595-1617. She saved the life of Capt. John Smith at the hands of her father, Chief Powhatan. Later married the famous John Rolfe.
- Abigail Adams. Politics and writing. 1744-1818. She wrote lucidly about her life and time in letters, and exerted political influence over her famous president husband John, and son, John Quincy.
Nov 8, 2020 · 50 Famous Women that made an impact on History. 1. Marie Curie (1867-1934) Marie Curie is one of the most influential scientists in history. Credited with the discovery of radium and polonium, she was the first person to receive two Nobel prizes, dedicating years of her life to the study of radioactivity.
- Lifestyle Editor
- 1 min
- Maya Angelou. From her powerful poetry to her moving autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou forever changed the literary world and opened doors for Black authors everywhere.
- Lucille Ball. While she was an undeniable light onscreen in I Love Lucy, Ball was an extremely powerful figure off camera as well. She was the first woman to own a major studio, called Desilu Productions.
- Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth II served as head of the royal family for 70 years, making her the longest-reigning monarch in British history. She celebrated her Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, just three months before she passed away at 96 years old.
- Rosa Parks. Parks famously became a leader in the 1950s Civil Rights Movement when she refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white passenger. Her bravery sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a major factor in the end of legal segregation.
- Emilia Casanova de Villaverde
- Mary Ware Dennett
- Dorothea Dix
- Claudia Jones
- Laura Cornelius Kellogg
- Mary Tape
- Mamie Till-Bradley
- Maggie Lena Walker
- Jane Cooke Wright
Emilia Casanova de Villaverde is known as a patriot in Cuba, but lived most of her life in New York City. An ardent abolitionist and activist leader, she supported Cuba’s independence from Spain during the last half of the 19th century. As the Ten Years’ War(1868-1878) raged in Cuba, she formed the first women’s club, La Liga de las Hijas de Cuba, ...
She was an artist, suffragist, birth-control reformer and anti-war advocate. She began her reform career at the National American Woman Suffrage Association where she served as literature coordinator and wrote a number of influential essays for the movement. In 1915, she founded the first birth control organization in the United States, the Nationa...
A history-making woman I’m trying to know better is Dorothea Dix(1802-1887). The white Bostonian became internationally known for her activism on behalf of asylum and prison reform, and later leader of Union nurses during the Civil War. She traveled tens of thousands of miles, almost always alone, inspecting prisons, jails, poorhouses and almshouse...
Claudia Jones was one of the most influential black radical and feminist intellectuals of the 20th century. Born in Trinidad in 1915, Jones migrated to Harlem during the 1920s and became an active member of the Communist Party. A gifted writer and journalist, Jones worked to broaden Marxist theory by centering women, gender and race. Her groundbrea...
Laura Cornelius Kellogg was an Oneida activist, author, orator and policy reformer, and she was one of the founding members of the Society of American Indians(SAI) in 1911. SAI was the first national American Indian rights organization run by and for American Indians. Other organizations believed that total assimilation into American society was th...
Little is known of Mary Tape’s life in China. In 1868, the 11-year-old Mary immigrates to the United States and ends up as a servant in a brothel in San Francisco. She runs away and takes shelter at the Ladies’ Protection and Relief Society, where she is raised and takes the name ofMary McGladery. One day Mary meets another young Chinese immigrant,...
Photosof the badly disfigured corpse of Emmett Till — the Chicago 14-year-old lynched while visiting family in Mississippi in August 1955 — rocked the globe, but we wouldn’t have seen any of those images if his mother hadn’t insisted on an open-casket funeral for him. She was an everyday black woman who had been confronted with this horrific traged...
Maggie Lena Walkerplayed an important role in making Richmond the cradle of black capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Walker is best known as the first black woman bank president in the United States. She organized and led the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank from its founding in 1903 to her death in 1934. The bank was part of her visi...
A physician and researcher, Jane Cooke Wrightis credited as having been among the cancer researchers to discover chemotherapy. She was the daughter and granddaughter of African American physicians. In 1964, Wright was the only woman among seven physicians who helped to found the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and in 1971, she was the first ...
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Women in American History. Women lead advancements in science, technology, politics, sports and activism—often fighting against inequity and opposition at every turn. In this collection,...
Explore biographies and articles about women making history. Why Women's History? Women's contributions and accomplishments have largely been overlooked and consequently omitted from mainstream culture.
