Discover the Women of the Hall

First American nurse to earn a Ph.D. Louise McManus was central to the establishment of schools of nursing in colleges and universities, providing the fundamental basis for nursing science growth.

Peggy McIntosh is renowned as an educational innovator, feminist activist, author, and public speaker. McIntosh derived her understanding of white privilege from observing parallels with male privilege.

Co-founder (with Carrie Chapman Catt) of the League of Women Voters in 1920, after ratification of the 19th Amendment. A graduate of MIT in 1904, she funded MIT’s first on-campus residence for women. She devoted her late husband’s wealth to contraceptive research and her own resources and energy to opening up doors for women in science and engineering.

Geneticist who pioneered work in maize genetics and the complex mechanisms which control and regulate cell development. McClintock helped to advance scientific understanding of this important field. In 1983 she received the first unshared Nobel Prize in medicine ever awarded to a woman.

Her work investigating T-cells, the family of cells that help the body fight disease, has led to a greater knowledge of the molecular basis of the immune system and contributed to medicine’s current understanding of vaccines, HIV, and other immune disorders.

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.

Colonel Nicole Malachowski (USAF, Ret.) has over 21 years of experience as an officer, leader, and fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. Upon her commission into the military, she was competitively selected to fly combat aircraft and embarked on an adventure among the first group of women to fly modern fighters. She has commanded a fighter squadron, piloted within the USAF air demonstration squadron, (better known as the “Thunderbirds”) and served as a White House Fellow and as an advisor to the First Lady of the United States during the Obama Administration. Colonel Malachowski is also committed to work focused on tick-borne diseases.

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.

Founded the first college for women, Mount Holyoke (1837). Mount Holyoke became the model for institutions of higher education for women nationwide. Lyon based her school on sound finances and high quality education in all disciplines, encouraging and educating women to reach beyond teaching and homemaking.

A commercial, instrumental and multi-engine-rated pilot, Dr. Shannon Lucid was a member of the first astronaut class to admit women (1979). In her more than 30 year tenure with NASA, she served in various capacities and participated in five space flights. Dr. Lucid was the first woman to hold an international record for the most flight hours in orbit by any non-Russian, and, until June 2007, she held the record for the most flight hours in orbit by any woman in the world – 5,354 hours or 223 days in space.

She was instrumental in the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission and later established an endowment for what has become one of the single most significant sources of private support for women in science, mathematics, and engineering.

As a tireless champion of young girls, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of the USA (1912). Today, there are more than 3 million girl and adult members of the Girl Scouts of the USA.

First woman to practice law and argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court (1879). Lockwood became a lawyer when she was 40 and used her knowledge to help secure women’s suffrage, property law reforms, pay equity and world peace. She helped open the legal profession to women.

Locke worked for decades to preserve American Indian languages and became a pioneer in an effort to grant the tribes greater authority in the education of their children. Locke was a 1991 MacArthur Fellow for her work to save dying tribal languages. In 1993, she became the first Native American woman elected to the national governing body of the Baha’i faith.

Author of numerous elegant essays, journals and other books. Lindbergh also excelled as co-pilot and navigator with her husband Charles on their historic flights to promote the development of international aviation.

Lin, an architectural designer who gained fame at the age of 21 as creator of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, is a Chinese-American who draws on a variety of culturally diverse sources for her inspiration. Some of her well-known works include the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL and The Wave Field at the University of Michigan.

As Co-founder and Chairman of the Trickle Up Program, Inc., philanthropist Mildred Leet assisted people worldwide in rising out of poverty. Trickle Up provides seed capital to impoverished individuals, allowing them the opportunity to work their way to self-sufficiency. Leet also helped found United Cerebral Palsy and was a co-founder and Vice President of the U.S. Committee for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

For over a decade, Lilly Ledbetter has fought to achieve pay equity. Upon retiring from her position as a manager with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, Ledbetter discovered that she had been paid considerably less than her male colleagues. She filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and later initiated a lawsuit against Goodyear alleging pay discrimination. Although a jury initially awarded her compensation, the Supreme Court ruled that Ledbetter could not receive any money because she had filed her complaint more than 180 days after receiving her first discriminatory paycheck. Since then, Ledbetter has continuously lobbied for equal pay for men and women; her efforts proved successful when President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law in 2009.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” These famous words from The New Colossus, were written by Emma Lazarus, one of the first successful Jewish American authors. Originally created in 1883, the sonnet was later engraved in bronze and placed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Throughout her lifetime, Lazarus authored and published numerous poems, essays, letters, short stories and translations. She was an important forerunner of the Zionist movement, having argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland thirteen years before the term Zionist was even coined.

An attorney, civil rights activist and humanitarian, Allie B. Latimer was instrumental in organizing Federally Employed Women (FEW) in 1968, and served as the organization’s founding president until 1969. In 1977, as a federal attorney, Latimer was the first African American and first woman to serve as General Counsel of a major federal agency as well as the first African American and first woman to attain the GS-18 salary level at the General Services Administration. She was also recognized as part of the ‘second wave of feminist pioneers’ by the Veteran Feminists of America (VFA).

A trailblazer, visionary leader and creative filmmaker. She was involved in the production, marketing and distribution of more than 200 films and the first woman to head a major film studio.

Civil rights advocate Carlotta Walls LaNier, at age 14, was the youngest of the Little Rock Nine; the nine African-American students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  A recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, she works to ensure equal access to education for children of color.

Lange was a pioneer in documentary photography, remembered for her wide-ranging photographs of Americans during the depression and the Japanese-American internment during World War II, and for her later work in Asia. She put a human face on political issues of the day, such as poverty and social injustice. Lange was the first woman awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in photography in 1940.

A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona LaDuke advocates for public support and funding for frontline native environmental groups. In 1994, she was nominated by Time Magazine as one of America’s most promising leaders under forty years of age. In 1998, she was named Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. Ms. LaDuke was the vice-presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket in both 1996 and 2000. She currently serves as director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota.