Discover the Women of the Hall
These are the Inductees of the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Select any of the women to discover their stories and learn how they have influenced other women and this country.
Alice Evans
Scientist who found the organism which caused undulant fever, a killer disease. Evans’s discovery led to mandatory milk pasteurization, saving countless lives worldwide. An outstanding scientist, she also advocated women entering the scientific professions.
Shirley Chisholm
First African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Chisholm was also the first African American woman to receive delegate votes for the presidential nomination of a major party. A member of Congress for many years, she was also an educator and writer.
Mary Mahoney
First African American woman to study and work as a professionally trained nurse. Mahoney received her diploma from the New England Hospital in 1879, one of only four of 18 to pass the difficult course.
Katherine Siva Saubel
Founder of the Malki Museum at the Morongo Reservation in California. Born on a reservation in great poverty, Saubel became determined to preserve her tribe’s culture and language, despite overwhelming odds. A learned ethno anthropologist, Saubel was a founder of this first museum run by Native Americans.
Annie Oakley
Markswoman, was probably the nation’s finest. A performer for many years with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Oakley was a staunch supporter of other women’s opportunities and raised funds to send needy women to college and nursing school.
Jacqueline Cochran
First woman aviator to break the sound barrier. A leader and pilot, Cochran held many speed, distance and altitude records. She led the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots during World War II, becoming the first woman to pilot a bomber across the Atlantic Ocean.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Mississippi sharecropper and organizer of the Mississippi Freedom Party, which challenged the white domination of the Democratic Party. Hamer succeeded in integrating the state delegation, and she was a tireless champion for poor minorities in her state and nationwide.
Wilma Mankiller
First woman elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. As Chief, Mankiller brought about major economic and social improvements for her tribe, including better health care, economic development, and education.
Antoinette Blackwell
First American woman ordained a minister by a recognized denomination (Congregational), despite great opposition to women in the ministry. Blackwell was a pastor, mother of seven children, and wrote many books and essays.
Betty Friedan
Reshaped American attitudes toward women’s lives and rights through decades of social activism, strategic thinking and powerful writing. Her book The Feminine Mystique (1963) triggered the contemporary women’s movement. Her latest work is the best-selling The Fountain of Age.
Georgia O'Keeffe
Artist and perhaps the best-known American woman painter. An American original in both her lifestyle and painting, O’Keeffe produced works of high energy and vision throughout her long life.
Ethel Percy Andrus
Founded the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) to help older Americans cope effectively in their later years. Her organization, now 36 million members strong and a political lobbying force, helps with health insurance, career assistance and discounts for senior citizens.
Ruth Colvin
Founder of the Literacy Volunteers of America, a group which she began in her upstate New York home. The organization has now taught nearly half a million people to read. Its unique approach, designed by Colvin, employs community tutors.
Emily Blackwell
Sister of Elizabeth Blackwell, was also a physician. Emily ran the infirmary for women and the medical college for women founded by her sister, providing excellent training for women in medicine.
Rosa Parks
Known as “the mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” when, in 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. The event sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, the first major effort in the Civil Rights struggle.
Dorothy Height
Began as a volunteer with the National Council of Negro Women. As its president and leader for forty years, she followed in the footsteps of her mentor, Mary McLeod Bethune. The NCNW represents organizations with more than four million members, works to create stong families as well as to assist young people and the needy.
Mary Putnam Jacobi
Physician who founded the Association for the Advancement of Medical Education of Women. Jacobi was a leader in obtaining quality medical education for women.
Gloria Steinem
Feminist leader, writer and social activist. A founder of Ms. Magazine, Steinem also co-convened the National Women’s Political Caucus and helped create the Ms. Foundation for Women. A best-selling author, her latest works are Revolution from Within: A Book of Self Esteem for Women and Moving Beyond Words.
Helen Stephens
Athlete who set a world record and won two track and field gold medals at the 1936 Olympics. As an amateur, Stephens set Olympic, American and Canadian records in running, broad jump and discus. The small-town Missouri girl went on to become the first woman owner/manager of a women’s semiprofessional ball team and a lifetime sports advocate.
Elaine Roulet
Crusader for some of society’s most sharply disadvantaged, children of women in prison. A Sister of St. Joseph, Roulet has created many social reform and welfare organizations. She is best known for her work at the Bedford Hills Correction Center in New York, where she enabled mothers in prison to keep their babies for a year, a program now being patterned nationwide.
Lillian Wald
Nurse who organized the public health nursing service and the Henry Street Settlement in New York City to meet the needs of the urban poor. Wald created public health nursing services for many groups, and established the Public Health Nurses, known today as Visiting Nurse Service.
Mae Jemison
Physician, engineer and astronaut. Jemison was the first African American woman astronaut in space, traveling on the Endeavor in 1992. Jemison today works on linking space age technology with developing nations and encouraging women and minorities to enter scientific fields.
Esther Peterson
Catalyst for change in the labor, women’s and consumer movements. The driving force behind President Kennedy’s creation of the first Presidential Commission on Women in 1962, Peterson headed the Women’s Bureau in the Department of Labor. She also served Presidents Johnson and Carter, and served at the United Nations under President Clinton.
Ella Grasso
First woman elected a state governor in her own right. Grasso was elected Governor of Connecticut in 1974, serving until illness forced her retirement in 1980. She was also a Congresswoman and advocate for women, minorities and the elderly.