Women in history

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  Elizabeth Blackwell (February 3, 1821 – May 31, 1910) was an English-American physician.

On January 23, 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school and become a  doctor in the United States. She graduated  from Geneva College, NY with the highest grades in her entire  class. 

She went on to start the New York Infirmary for  Women and Children with her sister Dr. Emily Blackwell and colleague Dr.  Marie Zakrzewska, whose mission included providing positions for women  physicians. During the Civil War, she and her sister trained nurses  for Union hospitals. 

In 1868, Blackwell opened a medical  college in New York City and in 1875, she became a  professor of gynecology at the new London School of Medicine for Women.

  Margaret Knight (Feb. 14, 1838 - Oct. 12, 1914) was an American inventor.

When she was working at a textile mill as a young teenager, she invented a shuttle restraint system to prevent worker injuries.

Her safety device became a standard fixture on looms across the country. At the time she was unaware of the patent system and did not receive any compensation or recognition for her invention. 

In 1867, Knight began working at the Columbia Paper Bag Co. in Springfield, Massachusett. She wondered if she could devise a way to automate the bag-making process. She began building a machine that would automatically feed, cut, and fold the paper as well as form the squared bottom of the bag.

Just one year later, in 1868, Knight’s machine was fully operational and had significantly improved both the company’s output and the uniformity of its paper bags.

This time she knew Knight knew she needed to apply for a patent on her machine. However, Charles Annan, a man who worked in the machine shop that manufactured it, attempted to steal her design.

In court, Annan claimed that as a woman, Knight “could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities of the machine.” Knight quickly disproved his argument by providing the original blueprints of the machine’s design. She won the case and received a patent on her invention in 1871.

Knight co-founded the Eastern Paper Bag Co. in Hartford, Connecticut. She continued to invent throughout her life, and by the time she passed away in 1914, she had patented 26 inventions, ranging from a window frame to a sole-cutting machine for shoemaking, to a compound rotary engine. 

Susan La Flesche Picotte (June 17, 1865 – September 18, 1915) was the first Indigenous woman, to earn a medical degree.

She spent her life caring for her Omaha tribal community, serving more than 1,200 patients in the Omaha Reservation area.

She worked to improve the public health of the community, advocated for the interests of indigenous people, and helping other Omaha receive the money owed to them for the sale of their land. 

She also founded the first private hospital on reservation land in Walthill, Nebraska . 

 Hallie M. Dagget (December 19, 1878 – October 19, 1964) was the first woman employed by the Forest Service as a lookout. She started work at Eddy's Gulch Lookout Station atop Klamath Peak (Klamath National Forest) in the summer of 1913. She continued to work as lookout for 14 years.

"Some of the Service men predicted that after a few days of life on the peak she would telephone that she was frightened by the loneliness and the danger, but she was full of pluck and high spirit...[and] she grew more and more in love with the work. Even when the telephone wires were broken and when for a long time she was cut off from communication with the world below she did not lose heart. She not only filled the place with all the skill which a trained man could have shown but she desires to be reappointed when the fire season opens this year." (American Forestry 1914)

  Eloise Gerry (January 12, 1885 – 1970) was an influential research scientist whose work contributed greatly to the study of southern pine trees and turpentine production. 

Gerry was the first woman appointed to the professional staff of the U.S. Forest Service at the Forest Products Laboratory in 1910, and one of the first women in the United States to specialize in forest products research.

 During World War II, Gerry wrote wartime publications on defects in  wood used for trainer aircraft and gliders.  Following 44 years with the  U.S. Forest Service, Gerry retired in 1954.  Gerry died in 1970 at the  age of 85.  

  Beulah Louise Henry (September 28, 1887 – February 1, 1973) was an American inventor.

Henry held 49 patents and developed over 110 inventions, advancing technology and breaking gender barriers.

Henry submitted her first patent, for a vacuum ice cream freezer, while still a college student in 1912. In 1924 she moved to New York City to found two companies to sell her many inventions.

One of Henry's most famous inventions is the "Double Chain Stitch Sewing Machine", a sewing machine that wouldn’t tangle the thread. Her invention doubled the speed of the typical sewing machine and allowed for the use of smaller threads while still making a strong stitch.

She also invented a "protograph," a typewriter that created four identical copies of a document without carbon paper. 

At the time she was registering her patents, only 2% of all patents were registered by women. She is still considered one of the most successful female inventors of all time. Henry was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.

Maria Goeppert Mayer ( June 28, 1906 – February 20, 1972)  was a German-American theoretical physicist . She became the first American woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. She shared the prize with J. Hans D. Jensen "for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure” and Eugene Paul Wigner "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles". 

Creola Katherine Johnson (August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of U.S. crewed spaceflights. 

In 1962, Katherine Johnson performed the calculations for the NASA orbital mission, launching John Glenn as the first person into orbit and returning them safely.

During her 33-year career at NASA and  The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor to NASA, she mastered complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. NASA noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".

Abigail Adams (November 22, 1744 – October 28, 1818) was the wife and closest advisor of John Adams, the second president of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States.

On March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams wrote the following in a letter to her husband, founding father John Adams.

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency -- and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the  Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one  of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity.  Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness." 

 Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) was born in Massachusetts and was raised a Quaker. One of the main beliefs of the Quakers is “the equality of all people before God”.

During her life, she fought for the abolition of slavery and for women's rights.  


Her family home in Rochester, New York, served as a meetinghouse almost every  Sunday, and abolitionists such as  Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison often attended these meetings.  

In 1863, Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone formed the Women’s Loyal National League to press for an amendment to abolish slavery. This goal was finally realized with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.

In 1851, Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the two suffragists worked to gain independence and equality for women fo the rest of their lives. She traveled around the country advocating for women’s rights and lobbied Congress every year until her death.

In 1856, she served as an American Anti-Slavery Society agent, making speeches, organizing meetings, and distributing pamphlets.

In 1868 the suffrage movement divided over race.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Anthony believed educated white women deserved to vote before Black women. Though Anthony had previously lobbied for the abolition of slavery, she still adopted the racist positions used by many other white women at that time to support her goal of women’s suffrage.

She died in 1906, fourteen years before women were given the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

  Victoria Claflin Woodhull (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927), was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement who ran for president of the United States in the 1872 election. While historians and authors agree that Woodhull was the first woman to run for the presidency, some do not call it a true candidacy because according to the Constitution she would have been too young to be President if elected.

Woodhull believed in free love and that women should have the right to divorce without being ostracized by society. Woodhull also fought against the hypocrisy of society's tolerating married men who had mistresses and engaged in other sexual dalliances, while stigmatizing women for the same actions.

Woodhull, with sister Tennessee (Tennie) Claflin, became the first female stockbrokers and in 1870 they opened a brokerage firm on Wall Street, Woodhull, Claflin & Company, with the assistance of the wealthy Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Woodhull made a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange by advising clients like Vanderbilt. On one occasion he sold some shares short for 150 cents per stock, based on her advice, and earned millions on the deal.

In 1870, Woodhull and Claflin used the money they had made from their brokerage to found a newspaper, the Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which at its height had a national circulation of 20,000. Its primary purpose was to support Victoria Claflin Woodhull for President of the United States. It ran for six years, becoming notorious for publishing controversial opinions on sex education, free love, women's suffrage, short skirts, spiritualism, vegetarianism, and licensed prostitution.

In 1872, the Weekly published a story exposing the adultery of Henry Ward Beecher, a renowned preacher of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church. For publishing this scandalous story, Woodhull, Claflin and Col. Blood were arrested and charged with publishing an obscene newspaper and circulating it through the United States Postal Service. It was this arrest and Woodhull's acquittal that propelled Congress to pass the 1873 Comstock Laws, a series of provisions in Federal law that criminalize the involvement of the United States Postal Service, its officers, or a common carrier in conveying obscene matter, crime-inciting matter, or certain abortion-related matter.

Woodhull learned how to infiltrate the all-male domain of national politics and arranged to testify on women's suffrage before the House Judiciary Committee. In December 1870, she submitted a memorial in support of the New Departure to the House Committee. She read the memorial aloud to the Committee, arguing that women already had the right to vote, since the 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteed the protection of that right for all citizens. The logic of her argument impressed some committee members. Suffrage leaders postponed the opening of the 1871 National Woman Suffrage Association's third annual convention in Washington in order to attend the committee hearing. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Isabella Beecher Hooker, saw Woodhull as the newest champion of their cause. 

In 1871, Woodhull announced her intention to run for president. She also spoke against the government being all male and proposed the development of a new constitution and the creation of a new government.

Woodhull was nominated for president of the United States by the newly formed Equal Rights Party on May 10, 1872, at Apollo Hall, New York City. Her nomination was ratified at the convention on June 6, 1872, making her the first woman candidate.

Woodhull's campaign was also notable because Frederick Douglass was nominated as its vice-presidential candidate, even though he did not take part in the convention, acknowledge his nomination and did not play any active role in the campaign.

The Equal Rights Party hoped to use the nominations to reunite suffragists with African-American civil rights activists, because the exclusion of female suffrage from the Fifteenth Amendment two years earlier had caused a substantial rift between the groups.

Woodhull received no electoral votes in the election of 1872, and a negligible, but unknown, percentage of the popular vote. 

Woodhull again tried to gain nominations for the presidency in 1884 and 1892.

She moved to Great Britain in 1877 where she lectured, published a magazine, and became a champion for education reform in English village schools.

She was active in the pioneering days of female motorists, and was said to have been the first woman to drive a car in Hyde Park, London and in the English country roads.

Pioneering journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett  (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931)  battled sexism, racism, and violence, shedding light on the conditions of African Americans and crusading against lynching. 

At 22, Ida bought a first-class ticket on a train from  Memphis to Holly Springs and took a seat in the ladies’ car. When the  conductor told her to move. Ida resisted, and when he tried to drag her  from her seat, she bit his hand.

She sued the railroad for damages and won, but the railroad won on appeal.  

In 1886, when she was 24, Ida lost her teaching job after criticizing conditions in the Memphis schools. She decided to become a full-time journalist. Three years later, she became a shareholder in the newspaper Memphis Free Speech and Headlight and its editor. She was the first female co-owner and editor of a Black newspaper in the US. 

After she wrote a series of anti-lynching editorials, including one suggesting that white women could find black men appealing, threats were made against her and her family and her newspaper offices were burned.

She relocated to the North and documented 728 lynching cases that occurred between 1884 and 1892, using research by the Chicago Tribune. 

She also supported women's right to vote and co-founded the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago in 1913, the largest Black women’s suffrage organization in Illinois.

She famously spoke before British temperance advocates on May 9, 1894, taking on Frances E. Willard, a leader in the women's suffragette movement who made racist statements in a previous interview. Despite backlash, she persisted and helped Londoners establish the London Anti-Lynching Committee.

Ida marched in the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, DC, refusing to be segregated in the parade.  She was also one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).      

          Johnnie Lacy (1937–2010)  was a Black activist for the independent living movement. 

Lacy contacted polio and was paralyzed at 19 while attending nursing school. She applied to San Francisco State University to study  speech-language pathology, but was blocked from the program due to her disability. 

She was eventually admitted after advocating for her rights, but was not allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony or officially be part of the school.

In  1981, Lacy helped found the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley,  California — one of the first organizations in the country to empower people with disabilities to lead independent lives. She later served as  director of the Community Resources for Independent Living (CRIL), which  connects individuals with disabilities to resources like  transportation, housing assistance, and advocacy services. 

Lacy’s efforts helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act,which affirms and protects the rights of individuals with disabilities. 

Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992) was an American gay liberation activist and drag queen. She was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.

Johnson was a member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and co-founded the activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). Johnson was known as the "mayor of Christopher Street" for being a welcoming presence in Greenwich Village. Beginning in 1987, she was an AIDS activist with ACT UP.

Johnson's body was found in the Hudson River in 1992. While initially ruled a suicide by the New York City Police Department (NYPD), controversy and protest followed the case, resulting in it eventually being re-opened as a possible homicide.

Judith Ellen "Judy" Heumann (December 18, 1947 – March 4, 2023) was an American disability rights activist  activist, known as the "Mother of the Disability Rights Movement". Heumann was a lifelong civil rights advocate for people with disabilities.

Heumann and several friends founded Disabled in Action (DIA), an organization focused on securing the protection of people with disabilities under civil rights laws through political protest.

Heumann helped develop legislation that became the Individual with Disabilities Education Act while she was serving as a legislative assistant to the chairperson of the U.S Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare.

 In 1977, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano  refused to sign meaningful regulations for Section504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the first U.S. federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities.

Demonstrations took place in ten U.S. cities on April 5, 1977, including a sit-in at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. This sit-in, which was led by Heumann and organized by Kitty Cone, lasted 28 days, with about 125 to 150 people refusing to leave.  

Califano signed both the Education of All Handicapped Children regulations and the Section 504 regulations on April 28, 1977.

 Heumann served as Assistant Secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services at the United States Department of Education from 1993 to 2001. 

From 2002 to 2006, Heumann served as the World Bank Group's first Advisor on Disability and Development .

 In 2010, Heumann became the Special Advisor on International Disability Rights for the U.S. State Department. She was the first person to hold this role, and served from 2010 to 2017. 

From September 2017 to April 2019, Heumann was a Senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation.

 Jazzie Collins  (September 24, 1958 – July 11, 2013) was a Black trans woman activist who fought for transgender rights, disability rights and economic equality in San Francisco.

 Collins transitioned in  her late 40s.

In 2002, Collins became a vocal advocate for minorities including  seniors, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. 

Collins  served on the Lesbian Gay Transgender Senior Disabled Housing Task  Force. She was also an organizer for Senior and Disability  Action, an organization that helps seniors and people with disabilities to fight for affordable housing, health care, and transit.  

Collins worked to help raise the minimum  wage in San Francisco to $8.50 in 2003 — the highest minimum wage in the  country at the time.  

 The first homeless shelter in the United States built specifically for the adult LGBT community was opened in 2015 in San Francisco and named Jazzie's Place in honor of Collins.

Thocmentony ("Shell Flower") (1844 – October 17, 1891)  was a Northern Paiute activist, writer,  and teacher who was the daughter of the war chief Winnemucca.

She wrote the book Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), the first autobiography written by a Native American woman. 

She  lectured on Native American  rights, and established a school in Nevada to preserve and teach the  Paiute language and culture.  This school was closed by the US government in 1887, moving the students to state-sponsored boarding schools that forced assimilation and the  rejection of native language and traditions.

Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989), was an American actress, singer, recording artist, and transgender activist. 

A trans woman, she was the first person to become widely known in the United States  for having sex reassignment surgery. 

In Copenhagen, Denmark, she obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations beginning in 1952.

When she returned to the United States in the early 1950s, her transition was front page news and she became an instant celebrity.

In August 1953 she began a nightclub act that established her as a star over the next three decades.

She was discriminated against, reporters and columnists often misgendered her outright or made jokes at her expense.  A Washington D.C.police officer once threatened her with arrest if she dared to use a women’s public restroom, she was denied a marriage license because her birth certificate listed her as male, and she was banned several times from  entertaining troops in U.S. Armed Forces clubs.

She later replaced her nightclub act with a speaking tour, telling her story.

Her 1967 autobiography Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography sold almost 450,000 copies.

Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934–November 17, 1992) was an American writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" who dedicated her life and talents to confronting different forms of injustice. She wrote numerous essays and books of poetry addressing issues of feminism, racism and sexuality.

Lorde taught at several colleges throughout the 60s, 70s, and 70s, such as Lehman College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (where she fought for the creation of a black studies department), and Hunter College.

In 1980, she co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U.S. publisher for women of color.

In 1981, Lorde helped to found the Women's Coalition of St. Croix, an organization assisting women who survived sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. In the late 1980s, she also helped establish Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa for black women who were affected by apartheid and other forms of injustice.

In 1984, Lorde became a visiting professor at the Free University of Berlin. During her time in Germany, Lorde became an influential part of the budding Afro-German movement.

Lorde was State Poet of New York from 1991 to 1992.

In June 2019, Lorde was one of the inaugural fifty  inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument in New York City's Stonewall Inn.

In 2014, Lorde was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago, Illinois, that celebrates LGBTQ history and people.

"We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and ourselves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid."