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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.
- 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 ...
A. Annie Heloise Abel (1873-1947) – Historian and professor renowned for her studies of Native Americans and was one of the first thirty women in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in history. Jane Addams (1860-1935) – A pacifist, suffragist, an advocate of social reform, and, in 1931, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Influential actresses and entertainers. Katharine Hepburn 1907-2003. Known for Lion In Winter, On Golden Pond and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Marilyn Monroe, 1926-1962.
- Famous female authors. Jane Austen, 1775-1817. Author of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility and more. Louisa May Alcott, 1832-1888. Author of Little Women.
- Influential women pioneers in medicine, science and math. Ann Preston, 1813-1872. American physician who worked to educate women about their bodies. Mary Edwards Walker, 1832-1919.
- Famous female politicians. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 1989-. Activist, U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district, and the youngest woman to serve in the United States Congress.
- Bella Abzug (1920-1998) Daughter to Russian Jewish immigrants, Abzug was a lawyer specializing in labor and civil rights in 1950s and ’60s New York. With the start of the Vietnam War she became a vocal member of the anti-war movement.
- Abigail Adams (1744-1818) As wife to President John Adams, and her husband’s confidante and adviser, she opposed slavery and pushed for women’s rights and education.
- Julia C. Addington (1829-1875) Julia Addington became the first woman elected to public office in Iowa in 1869 when she became the Superintendent of Schools in Mitchell County—which, though records from the time may be incomplete, likely makes her the first woman ever elected to office in the U.S. When some challenged the legitimacy of her election because she was a woman, the state Attorney General ruled that she was allowed to continue in her role, setting an important precedent.
- Madeleine Albright (1937- ) In 1997, she became the first woman to be Secretary of State, and the highest-ranking woman ever in the U.S. Government. She knew the importance of that work: her Czech parents fled Nazi Germany in 1939, and she became a naturalized citizen while in college, but, having been raised Catholic, it was only as an adult that she learned her family was Jewish and that many relatives had died in the Holocaust.
Feb 26, 2019 · Explore famous firsts and figures in women's history with this timeline. ... American women have long fought for equal footing throughout the nation’s history. And while some glass ceilings have ...
Biographies generously sponsored by Susan D. Whiting. Women have always played an active role in history. Explore some of the historical women and contemporary newsmakers that continue to impact the world. New biographies are added regularly, so check back to discover inspiring new stories!
