WOMEN'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS
(a small subset)
please help us expand this. Send names and accomplishments and date to info@wediditforyou.org
16th CENTURY
Christine de Pisan -- a 15th century writer
17th CENTURY
Lady Deborah Moody – 1st modern city planner 1645
Margaret Brent – 1st advocate for Women's Rights in America 1647
Anne Bradstreet – 1st published poet in America 1650
Margaret Fell - Advocate for men & women ordination in Quakers 1652
18th CENTURY
Hannah Callowhill Penn - Ran the Colony of Pennsylvania 1712
Anne Bonny - Legendary pirate 1715
Elizabeth Elstob - Wrote 1st Anglo-Saxon grammar 1715
Eliza Lucas Pinckney - 1st person to grow indigo in US 1744
Phillis Wheatley – 1st African-American woman poet 1770
Mother Ann Lee - Founding mother of the Shaker sect 1774
Mary Katherine Goddard - Printer of Declaration of Independence 1776
Margaret Corbin - Fought in Revolutionary War, granted pension 1776
Sybil Ludington (age 16) - Warned colonists Redcoats were coming 1777
Jane McCrea - Her murder turned Americans against British 1777
Molly Pitcher – Fought in Revolutionary War 1778 (as did other women!!!)
Laura Bassi - 1st woman physics professor 1778
Deborah Sampson - Enlisted in US armed forces as a man 1782
Olympe de Gouges - Declaration of the Rights of Women 1791
Mary Wollstonecraft - Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1792
Catherine Lidfield Greene –had the idea for the cotton gin 1793
Hannah Slater – 1st US patent granted to a woman 1793
Anne Parrish – 1st charitable org for women operated by women 1795
19th CENTURY
Sacagawea -- Guide for Lewis and Clark expedition 1804
Sophie Germain -- Key contribution to construction of Eiffel Tower 1816
Emma Hart Willard – 1st school of higher education for women 1821
Rebecca Pennock Lukens -- Ran the Lukens Steel Company 1825
Margaret Fuller – 1st self-supporting woman journalist 1830
Oberlin College - 1st American college to accept women and men 1833
Angelina Grimke – founded National Female Anti-Slavery Society 1834
Laura Bridgman – 1st deaf-blind taught to communicate 1836
Mount Holyoke - 1st American college for women 1837
Catherine Brewer - 1st woman to receive a Bachelor's Degree 1840
Ada Lovelace - 1st computer program (for Analytic Engine) 1842
Elizabeth Jane Wimmer – 1st identified gold in California 1848
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott - 1st Women's Rights Conv. 1848
Elizabeth Blackwell - 1st woman doctor in US 1849
Harriet Beecher Stowe - novel sold 300,000 copies in first years 1852
Antoinette Brown Blackwell - 1st women ordained in US 1853
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody- 1st English-language kindergarten in US 1860
Sally Tompkins -- Ran Confederate hospital with 95% survival rate 1861
Anne Wittenmeyer -- Special Diet Kitchen for Union soldiers 1861
Anna Ella Carroll -- Military strategy helped North win the Civil War 1861
Rose O'Neal Greenhow -- Spy, helped Confederacy win Bull Run 1861
Mary Livermore -- Saved Grant's troops from scurvy 1862
Mary Edwards Walker–Civil War Surgeon, Medal of Honor 1863
Sarah Edmonds -- Spy and soldier for Union Army 1865
Margaret Gretchell LaForge- Macy's into world's largest dept store 1866
Esther Hobart Morris - 1st woman Justice of the Peace 1869
Arabella Babb Mansfield - 1st woman lawyer 1869
Lucy Stone - Founded American Woman Suffrage Association 1869
Margaret Knight - Invented grocery bag (and 26 other things) 1870
Anna Howard Shaw - 1st woman Methodist minister in US 1870
Abigail Duniway -- Began fight for women's suffrage in Northwest 1871
Charolette E. Ray - 1st African-American woman lawyer 1872
Victoria Woodhull - 1st woman to run for US presidency 1872
Eliza Tibbetts -- Brought navel trees to California 1873
Maria Speltarini - 1st to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope 1876
Mother (Mary) Jones -- Began organizing labor strikes 1877
Helen Magill White - 1st woman to receive a Ph.D. in the U.S. 1877
Mary Baker Eddy -- 1st head of Church of Christian Scientist 1879
Lydia Hasbrouck - 1st woman elected to office 1880
Sarah Winnemucca – Protest conditions on Indian reservations 1880
Clara Barton -- Established the American Red Cross 1881
Mary Lucinda Bonney - Women's National Indian Association 1881
Emily Roebling – finished constructing the Brooklyn Bridge 1883
Maud Watson – 1st Wimbledon women's singles championship 1884
Nellie Bly -- Original muckraker 1885
Anandibai Joshee - 1st Indian woman to earn a medical degree 1886
Suzanne Medora Salter - 1st woman to become a Mayor 1887
Jane Addams-found Hull House, one of 1st settlement houses in US 1889
Julia Tuttle -- Mother of Miami, Florida 1890
Matilda Joslyn Gage - Founded Women's National Liberal Union 1890
Ida Wells-Barnett - Campaign against African-American lynchings 1892
Lillian D. Wald - 1st visiting nurse organization 1893
Kate Waller Barrett -- Crittendon House for mothers and children 1893
Katherine Lee Bates -- Wrote America the Beautiful 1893
Hill sisters -- Wrote Happy Birthday song 1893
Bertha Palmer -- Women’s Bldg, Chicago's World Columbian Exhib. 1893
Alice Guy-Blache - 1st fiction film 1896
Florence Bascom - 1st woman geologist with US Geological Survey 1896
Annie Smith Peck - 1st to climb 21,812-ft Mt. Huascaran 1895
Fanny Farmer - 1st person to use specific measurements in cooking 1896
Lena Jordan - 1st triple somersault on trapeze 1897
Alic McLellan Birney and Pheobe Apperson Hearst -- Found PTA 1897
Charlotte Perkins Gilman Wrote Women and Economics 1898
Florence Kelley - Campaign against child labor 1899
20th CENTURY
Charlotte Cooper - 1st women's gold medal in Olympics 1900
Annie Taylor - 1st over Niagara Falls in a barrel 1901
Ida M. Tarbell - Exposé of Standard Oil 1902
Mary Morton Kimball Kehew, Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, Jane Addams - Form Women's Trade Union League 1903
Anonymous woman - Invented ice cream cone 1904
Helen Keller - 1st deaf-blind person to earn a BA 1904
Lillian D. Wald, Florence Kelley - National Child Labor Committee 1904
Emma Goldman - Published Mother Earth magazine 1906
Mary Pennington - Developed refrigeration 1907
Florence Lawrence - 1st movie star 1910
Alice Stebbins Wells - 1st policewoman in US 1910
Clara Chan Lee - 1st Chinese-American woman to vote in US 1911
Georgia Broadwick – 1st intentional parachute jump 1914
Lillian Moller Gilbreth - 1st industrial psychologist 1915
Jeannette Rankin - 1st woman elected to Congress 1916
Anita Loos - First dialogue titles for silent films 1916
Madam C.J. Walker - 1st African-American female millionaire 1917
Louise Pearce - Wiped out sleeping sickness 1919
Carrie Chapman Catt - Organized League of Women Voters 1919
Bessie Coleman – 1st African-American woman pilot 1921
Rebecca Latimer Felton – 1st woman to serve in US senate 1922
Nellie Ross - 1st woman to become a Governor 1924
Lotte Reiniger - 1st full-length animated film 1926
Amelia Earhart - 1st woman to fly solo across Atlantic 1928
Dorothy Eustis - 1st to bring seeing eye dogs to US 1930
Katherine Sui Fun Cheng - 1st Asian-American woman aviator 1932
Frances Perkins - 1st woman Cabinet Post 1933
Mary McLeod Bethune - Founded National Council of Negro Women 1935
Beryl Markham - 1st to fly non-stop from England to North America 1936
Doris Fleeson – 1st woman political columnist 1940
Helen Brooke Taussig - Solved 'blue baby' problems 1945
Eleanor Roosevelt - Chaired UN Commission on Human Rights 1948
Grace Leidy and Hattie Alexander - Treated bacterial meningitis 1950
Georgia Lusk - Introduced free textbooks into New Mexico schools 1950
Rosalind Franklin - Photographed the double helix of DNA 1951
Virginia Apgar - Develop medical tests for newborns 1952
Grace Murray Hopper - 1st compiler for programming languages 1952
Althea Gibson – 1st African-American woman on tennis tour 1953
Louise Boyd – 1st woman to fly over North Pole 1955
Daisy Bates - Leading role in Little Rock Nine crisis 1952 (6 were girls)
Frances Kelsey - Blocked Thalidomide from sales in US 1958
Mary Leakey - Found 1.75 million-year old 'missing link‘ skeleton 1959
Katherine McCormick – Funded oral contraceptive 1960
Dolores Huerta – Co-founded United Farm Workers 1962
Valentina Tereshkova – 1st woman in space 1963
Patsy Mink - 1st Asian-American woman elected to Congress 1965
Barbara Dulinsky - 1st woman Marine ordered to a combat zone 1967
Shirley Chisholm- 1st African-American woman elected to Congress 1968
Barbara Jo Rubin – 1st woman jockey 1969
Charlotte T. Reid - 1st woman to wear pants in U.S. Congress 1969
Bernice “Bunny” Sandler – godmother of Title IX 1970
Anna Mae Hays - 1st woman general 1970
Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bella Abzug, and Myrlie Evers-Williams - organized National Women's Political Caucus 1971
Sally Jean Priesand - 1st woman ordained as a rabbi in U.S. 1972
Katherine Graham - 1st woman CEO of Fortune 500 company 1972
Gloria Steinem - Founding editor of Ms. Magazine 1972
Betty Friedan - Founded National Abortion Rights Action League 1973
Anne Armstrong – 1st woman co-chair of Rep National Committee 1974
Billie Jean King - Founds Women's Sports Foundation 1974
Beverly Kelley - 1st woman commander of a US military ship 1979
Sandra Day O'Connor – 1st woman on Supreme Court 1981
Sally Ride - 1st U.S. woman astronaut in space 1983
Geraldine Ferraro–1st woman VP candidate of major political party 1984
Beverly Burns – 1st woman 747 pilot 1984
Wilma ManKiller – 1st woman chief of the Cherokee Nation 1985
Barbara Clementine Harris – 1st female Episcopal bishop 1989
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - 1st Hispanic woman elected to Congress 1989
Antonia Novello - 1st woman & 1st Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General 1990
Ellen Ochoa – 1st Hispanic woman in space 1993
Toni Morrison – 1st African-American woman awarded Nobel Prize 1993
Janet Reno - 1st woman U.S. attorney general 1993
Madeleine Albright -1st woman Secretary of State 1997
21st CENTURY
Elaine Chao - 1st Asian-American woman Cabinet member 2001
Ann E. Dunwoody - 1st US four-star general 2008
Sonia Sotomayor -1st Hispanic woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice 2009
Kamala Harris - 1st South Asian American to serve US Senate 2016
1st African-American running mate on a major party ticket 2020
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