Tenley Albright
A victim of polio at age eleven, Tenley persisted in following her interest in ice skating to eventually win the first U.S. Championship in 1952. In 1953, she went on to be the first woman to win the World Amateur Figure Skating Championship. And then in 1956, she became the first to win the gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Tenley then "retired" from skating to pursue a medical degree from Harvard. She is now a practicing surgeon and a mother of three children. Read more about Dr. Tenley Albright.

Marian Anderson
As a child, her voice was so stunning that her church set up a special fund for her music education. From the choir of a Black church in Philadelphia, she went on to an exceptional international career as concert and opera singer. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to perform in their auditorium, Constitution Hall, because she was Black. In triump,h she relocated her concert to the steps of the Lincolm Memorial and drew an audience of 75,000 people. Arturo Toscanini said, "A voice like hers comes once in a century." Read more about Marian Andersen.

Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary was the first free-born child of former slaves. (Her parents had 13 children before her birth.) She picked cotton in the fields. Through the generosity of a white, single, female benefactor, she was given a chance for education. She started the first school for black girls in Dayton, Florida. This school, whch practically built with her own hands, eventually developed into Bethune-Cookman College. She was a teacher, crusader, and presidential (FDR's) advisor. Read more about Mary McLeod Bethune.

Nellie Bly
Nellie got her first job writing for a newspaper when she was only eighteen. She took a pen name because in those days it wasn't proper for a lady to have her name in print. In 1889, she became the first woman to travel around the world alone, writing articles about her daring adventures as she went. Read about Nellie Bly's trip around the world.

Margaret Bourke-White
As a photographer who took unusual and memorable photographs of buildings, factories, people and events of her time, Margaret traveled all over the world and became a noted photographer and journalist for some of the most popular magazines in our country. Read more about Margaret Bourke-White.

Margaret Brown
The wife of a miner who struck it rich in Leadville, Colorado, she strove to be accepted into Denver's inner social circle. Disregarded because of her flamboyant taste, she eventually achieved success after her heroic act of rowing hysterical passengers to safety aboard Lifeboat No. 6 during the sinking of the Titanic. She is immortalized in stage and screen as the "Unsinkable Molly Brown." Visit the Unsinkable Molly Brown's house in Denver.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
The youngest of 13 children, Frances was born on July 15, 1850 in Italy. She grew up fascinated by the stories of missionaries and was determined to join a religious order. Because of frail health, she was not allowed to join the Daughters of the Sacred Heart who had been her teachers. In 1880, she founded the order of the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. She went to Rome to visit the Pope and ask permission so she and the seven women in her order could become missionaries. The Pope sent them to New York, rather than China as she had anticipated. She devoted her life to aiding the hundreds of Italian immigrants who found their way to America. Read more about Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini.

Rachel Carson As a young girl, Rachel loved to write and was interested in nature. She made the choice between the two when she went to college. She majored in biology; upon graduation, she sought a job with the govt., only to be told they didn't hire women biologists. She was offered a job as a writer instead. In 1962, her first book, Silent Spring, created an uproar in the pesticide industry. She was vilified. Pres. Kennedy established a commission to investigate her claims that the chemicals could contaminate humans, animals, and the entire "web of life." The result was that she was vindicated and DDT was banned in our country. She is considered "the mother" of the modern environmental movement. Ecology became a respected science. Visit the Rachel Carson Homestead to learn more about her work.
Nellie Cashman
Nellie Cashman was an Irish gal who emigrated to America and found her way to the mining camps of the West. She eventually settled in Tombstone, Arizona, and opened a boarding house. Because of her good works toward the sick, the penniless, the lonely, and even the prostitutes, she acquired the nickname, "The Angel of Tombstone." Visit Nellie's home of Tombstone, AZ.

Bessie Coleman
She lived at the same time as Amelia Earhart and was one of the most popular stunt fliers of her day. She would turn barrel rolls and loop-the-loops in the air. She was the first Black person in the world to be a licensed pilot.

Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter
The daughter of Irish immigrants, she studied architecture as a School of Design. She was the architect and designer of the buildings at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon: Hopi House, Hermit's Rest, Bright Angel Lodge, Lookout Studio, and Desert View, and some of the buildings at the Phantom Ranch. By the use of native materials and colors, Miss Colter harmonized architecture with the natural environment. She also did artistic work at the Union Station in Chicago. In her later years, she designed china and jewelry. Read more about Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter and view pictures of her buildings at the Grand Canyon.

Mary Morse Baker Eddy
The founder of Christian Science suffered from poor health ever since childhood. She credits her recovery from continuing poor health by her "taking up" the Bible. She clarified her thoughts on health and religion in the publication, Science and Health. Her premise is the "mind is the sole reality and the infirmities of the body are susceptible to cure 'by purely mental effort.' " She chartered the "Church of Christ, Scientist" in 1881. Read more about Mary Morse Baker Eddy and the Church of Christ, Scientist.

Gertrude Ederle
She was only 19 when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel, the 35 miles of ocean between England and France. And she did it almost two hours faster than anyone had before. When she came back to the U.S., a huge parade was held in her honor in New York. Read more about Gertrude Ederle.

Ida Wallis Elliot
An Alabama widow, with three small children to support, established "Elliot Tours, " which became the 2nd largest travel agency in the United States. An outstanding civil leader, she personally planted 1000 dogwoods and myrtle crepes along the city streets in her hometown of Talladega.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth
Lillian was a supermom and a pioneer decades before the trend became a way of life American women. She combined a high-powered career with motherhood. She raised a large family. (Her son wrote the book, Cheaper by the Dozen, an account of their family of 12 children.) She earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees; pursued a career as an industrial engineer, consultant, and teacher; authored many articles and several books; and found time to devote her energy to the Girl Scout Movement. She and her husband Frank became known for their work in time and motion management. When she died at age 93, she had accomplished more in her lifetime than most men or women ever dream of achieving. Read more about Lillian Moller Gilbreth.

Ella Tambussi Grasso
Ella served in Congress from 1971-1974, and in 1975 became the first woman to be elected governor in the United State who did not follow her husband into office. In fact, she had a landslide victory, capturing over seventy-five percent of the town votes in the state of Connecticut. Read more about Ella Tambussi Grasso.

Sarah Josepha Hale
A former schoolteacher, who became a widow with five children to support, turned to writing as her only means of support. She wrote "Mary's Lamb" as a plea for kindness to animals. It is she who proposed making Thanksgiving a national holiday; she is credited with bringing about President Lincoln's 1863 proclamation, naming it an annual holiday.Read more about Sarah Josepha Hale and the editorials she published in Godey's Lady's Book.

Sharlot Hall
Pioneer who arrived in Prescott, AZ, via covered wagon at the age of twelve. A poet and one-time state historian, she collected memorabilia about the early settlers. Her collection is now in Sharlot Hall Museum, the former Governor's Mansion. Visit the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, AZ.

Maie Bartlett Heard
Along with her husband, she founded the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ, which houses a collection of basketry, rugs, crafts, and prehistoric Indian artifacts of Native Americans in the Southwest. Visit the Heard Museum.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst
Teacher (briefly before her marriage) and philanthropist, she built kindergartens, libraries and other institutions in the mining towns in which her husband, George, held interests. As early as 1891, she made a large gift to the University of CA in order to endow several scholarships for women students. Later she financed a school for the training of kindergarten teachers. In 1897, she founded the National Congress of Mothers, a forerunner of the National Council of Parents and Teachers. Read more about Phoebe Apperson Hearst and the National PTA.
 

Anne Hutchinson
A courageous critic of Puritan clergy, she was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy, sedition, and "assuming postures to which only men were entitled." She then settled the town of Portsmouth, RI in 1638 and formed an independent congregation there. She helped pave the way for the adoption of religious freedom by our nation. Read more about Anne Hutchinson's courageous life and her exile from Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Jovita Idar
She lived in Laredo, Texas, right on the Mexican border. During the Mexican Revolution, many injured people went there, and she took care of them. She also wrote for Spanish-language newspapers and started schools for Mexican-American children. She co-founded the League of Mexican Women, which focused its work on education for poor children.

Helen Hunt Jackson
Novelist, poet, friend and schoolmate of Emily Dickinson. By the 1870s, she was known as one of the foremost literary women in America. An early crusader for Indian rights, she wrote A Century of Dishonor in which she attacked the United States government's mistreatment of the Native Americans.

Mae C. Jemison
She was the first black female astronaut in the U.S. and in the world. She traveled into space in August, 1992. She earned a B.S. in chemical engineering and a B.A. in African and Afro-American studies simultaneously from Stanford. She graduated from Cornell Medical College and then traveled to Cuba, Kenya, and Thailand to work and continue her medical training. After graduating from medical school, she joined the Peace Corps and worked in Africa. She was a general practitioner in Los Angeles. Out of 2,000 applicants, she was one of 15 chosen by NASA for their astronaut-training program. Read more about Mae C. Jemison.

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
Formerly a teacher and seamstress, "Mother" Jones set out on a new career as labor organizer at the age of 50. Primarily concerned with the plight of children working in the textile mills in the East and that of the coal miners in the West, she spent the last 50 years of her life in a crusade to organize the workers, to support strike efforts, and to bring public attention to the cause. She traveled constantly, often living without permanent home or income, moving from one industrial area to the next, wherever she was needed. She is most famous for leading miners' wives, armed only with brooms and mops, to chase off strikebreakers in Colorado and for organizing a march of Pennsylvania child mill workers all the way to President Roosevelt's home on Long Island in an effort to dramatize the evils of child labor. See a bibliography of books about Mary Harris Jones and read more about Mother Jones, the Worker's Angel.  Read "Civilization in Southern Mills", an article written by Mother Jones.

Billie Jean King
The most successful woman in professional tennis, Billie Jean was top-ranked 5 times and was in the top ten for 17 years. She was the FIRST woman athlete to earn $100,000 a year, the first woman to coach a professional team, holder of the most Wimbledon titles ever, and the most influential person in tennis. She has fought for equality for women athletes. Read more about Billie Jean King.

Emma Lazarus
A timid poet of Portuguese-Jewish ancestry, she led a cloistered life in the New York City home of her father, a wealthy business man who earned his fortune in the sugar industry. He protected his wife and four daughters from the world that lay beyond their familiar walls. She immersed herself in writing and in translating the works of Alexander Dumas and Victor Hugo into English. At age 27, she left N.Y.C. for the first time. She had never spent a day away from home before. She visited Emerson, with whom she had carried on a voluminous correspondence and who had critiqued her poetry. After she and a group of women toured Ward's Island, a detainment center for Jewish refugees, she used her pen militantly on their behalf. She is immortalized in her sonnet, "The New Colossus," the words of which speak of her idealistic vision of our land and are inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.

(a portion):

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Nancy Lopez
In 1978, Nancy became the first woman to win five straight Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tournaments. By the end of the 1980s, she had won over forty tournaments. Read more about Nancy Lopez and see her current results on the Ladies Professional Golf Tour.
 

Juliette Gordon Low
Juliette became deaf as a result of faulty medical treatment. She overcame her disability and traveled extensively. While in England, she became familiar with the Boy Scout Movement. On March 12, 1912, she started the first Girl Scout troop in her home in Savannah, Georgia. In 1915, she founded the national organization known as Girl Scouts of America. Read more about the Girl Scouts and about Juliette Gordon Low and visit the Juliette Gordon Low National Center.

Sybil Ludington (1762-1839)
She was 15 years old when the Revolutionary War began.Late one rainy night, she made a dangerous, 40 mile ride through the countryside to warn the colonists that the British were attacking the nearby town of Danbury, Connecticut. Read more about Sybil Ludington.

Wilma P. Mankiller
The daughter of a full-blooded Cherokee and a white mother, she became the first woman to be installed as a principal chief of a major Native American tribe in 1985. She is the leader of the 2nd largest U.S. tribe, the Cherokee in Oklahoma. Her main concern is the tribe's economic development. Read more about Wilma Mankiller and Rebuilding the Cherokee Nation, a speech given by Wilma Mankiller on April 2, 1993, at Sweet Briar College.
 

Maria Martinez
She learned to make coiled pottery from her aunt when she was a young girl. Later, she rediscovered the method her ancestors employed to give pots their beautiful shiny black finish. After she taught the method to others in her village, her work became famous and increased in value.

Jacqueline Means
A former high school dropout, daughter of alcoholic parents, and teenage bride, she later earned her GED and became a practical nurse. In 1976, when the General Convention of of the Episcopal Church admitted women to the priesthood, she became the first women to be accepted. (She had been ordained in 1974 in defiance of church law.)

Maria Mitchell
Born in Nantucked Island, Massachusetts, Maria had an interest in astronomy. She worked as a librarian by day and spent her nights scanning the skies. In October 1847, she established the orbit of a new comet and became the first woman to have a comet named in her honor. She became the director of the observatory and the professor of Astronomy at Vassar Female College in New York.

Jean Mollicone
An avid hiker and expert skier, she is a high school math teacher in RI. School and summer vacations are devoted to mountain climbing. Her goal is to reach the highest summit on each of the earth's 7 continents. In 1990, she became the first American woman to climb Vinson Massif (16,067 ft.) in Antarctica.

Julia Morgan
A distinguished Berkley architect, she was hired by William Randolph Hearst to design his living quarters. The result, San Simeon, became one of the most expensive private homes ever built. Read Julia Morgan's biography or visit the Julia Morgan collection at California Polytechnic Institute.

Carry A. Nation
Carry A. Nation spent 10 years lecturing, preaching, and acting on her belief that tobacco and alcohol were evil. She became known as "the ax-wielding Prohibitionist." Read about Carry A. Nation or visit the Carry A. Nation collection of manuscripts and documents at WSU.

Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte:The daughter of "Iron Eye," the chief of the Omahas, left the reservation to become the first Native American to earn a medical degree. She founded a hospital in Walthill, Nebraska, to provide health care for all people without discrimination. When she died, it was renamed in her honor. An official leader of the Omaha Indians, Picotte served as the only doctor on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska.

Laura E. Richards: She began writing at age 10 and eventually wrote some of the best American poetry for children. Her illustrious parents were Julia Ward Howe (wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic") and founder and director of Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston.

Dr. Florence Sabin: A pioneer in the medical profession and an anatomist was not only a graduate of John Hopkins Medical School, but was one of the first women hired as faculty in 1902. She is noted for her research on the lymphatic system, her numerous discoveries regarding the origin and development of blood vessels and blood cells, and research on tuberculosis.

Maria Tallchief: Maria is regarded as the greatest ballerina born in America. She is an Osage Indian whose father was the tribal chief. She began studying piano and dance as a small child on the Osage Reservation in Oklahoma and went on to international stardom as prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet. After a celebrated career of over 23 years, she retired in 1965. Since that time, she has served as artistic director of the Lyric Opera Ballet in Chicago. Read more about Maria Tallchief.

Kateri (Catherine) Tekakwitha: In 1932, She became the first Native American to be proposed for sainthood in the Catholic Church. The daughter of an Algonquin mother and a Mohawk Indian father, she chose to be baptized by Jesuit missionaries. Because of hostility from her community, she sought refuge at a mission and thereafter led a life of chastity and prayer. Read more about Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

Yoshiko Uchida: A Japanese-American who, along with her family, spent the years of World War II in internment camps became a writer of children's books. Most of them detail the lives of young Japanese-Americans.

Madame C.J. Walker: The first self-made millionairess in history and the first Black woman millionaire in the U.S., she created beauty products for Black people. She used her money to help the Black community and hired thousands of Blacks in her factories and as salespeople.

Dr. Mary Walker: Dr. Mary Walker earned her degree 6 years after Elizabeth Blackwell, 1st woman doctor in the U.S. In January, 1866, Dr. Walker became the only woman ever to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor----for her bravery in providing medical care during the Civil War.  When she became a suffrage activitist, the medal was rescinded and never again given to a woman. Trivia: She believed women's fashions in her day were so "inhumane and ridiculous." In protest, she wore men's clothing in all her business dealings. She was berated by both men and women for doing so.

Chien-Shiung Wu: Wu came to the U.S. to study science when she was a teenager. She became "the queen of nuclear physics." As a scientist at Columbia University, she studied the movement of atomic particles. She proved that one of the most basic laws of physics was not true at all. She disproved the accepted law that identical nuclear particles always act alike; this radically altered modern physical theory. Her male co-workers were later awarded the Nobel Prize for physics based on her discovery.