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.

Achievements Year Born Where Born Year Inducted Last Name
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First Letter of Last Name: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Inductee Name Achievements Born Where Born Inducted More

Felice N. Schwartz Business 1925 New York 1998

Felice N. Schwartz

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1925 - 1996
Born In: New York
Achievements: Business

Founder in 1962 of Catalyst, the premier organization working with corporations to foster women’s leadership. She published studies (Women in Corporate Leadership in 1990 and Women in Engineering in 1992) illustrating the barriers to women’s workplace progress and then provided samples of model corporate practices to help women advance. Her work has had a lasting impact on the composition of American corporate leadership.


Shirley Ann Jackson Education, Science 1946 District of Columbia 1998

Shirley Ann Jackson

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1946 -
Born In: District of Columbia
Achievements: Education, Science

First woman to chair the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the first African American woman to serve on the Commission. Elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for her contribution to physical science, she became an advocate for women in the areas of science, education and public policy. As Chair of NRC, she rearticulated the vision of the NRC to include reaffirmation of the basic health and safety mission of the agency.


Mary Steichen Calderone Education, Humanities 1904 France 1998

Mary Steichen Calderone

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1904 - 1998
Born In: France
Achievements: Education, Humanities

Pioneering sex educator and acknowledged “mother of sex education.” She established the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, which established sexuality as a healthy entity. Dr. Calderone was President of the SIECUS board, as well as author and co-author of several books, professional journals and magazine articles.


Maya Angelou Arts 1928 Missouri 1998

Maya Angelou

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1928 - 2014
Born In: Missouri
Achievements: Arts

Poet, author and early Civil Rights advocate. Angelou’s early career was in the theater, and she co-wrote Cabaret for Freedom to raise funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, for which she later became northern coordinator. She raised social consciousness through writings such as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Heart of a Woman. She was a nominee for a Tony, an Emmy, and a Pulitzer Prize.


Joan Ganz Cooney Arts, Business, Education 1929 Arizona 1998

Joan Ganz Cooney

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1929 -
Born In: Arizona
Achievements: Arts, Business, Education

Founder of the Children’s Television Workshop for Public Television and creator of Sesame Street. Cooney created a study for the Carnegie Corporation on the possible use of television for preschool education. Acting on her own findings, she solicited funds to develop a program for television. For this, she was the winner of the Emmy and Peabody Awards, along with other honors.


Katharine Dexter McCormick Humanities, Philanthropy 1875 Michigan 1998

Katharine Dexter McCormick

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1875 - 1967
Born In: Michigan
Achievements: Humanities, Philanthropy

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.


Florence Wald Science 1916 New York 1998

Florence Wald

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1916 - 2008
Born In: New York
Achievements: Science

Former dean of the Yale School of Nursing and founder of the Hospice movement in America, for which she was awarded the honorary Doctorate of Medical Sciences by Yale University in 1995. As a nurse, she went to Europe to study Hospice from the ground up.


Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori Science 1896 Czech Republic 1998

Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1896 - 1957
Born In: Czech Republic
Achievements: Science

First American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in science. Cori, along with her husband and Bernardo Houssay of Argentina, received the award in 1947 “for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen.” Their work, the first bioengineering of a large biological molecule in a test tube, became the foundation for our understanding of how cells use food and convert it to energy.


Elizabeth Jane Cochran Arts 1864 Pennsylvania 1998

Elizabeth Jane Cochran

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1864 - 1922
Born In: Pennsylvania
Achievements: Arts

Trail-blazing journalist considered to be the “best reporter in America” who pioneered investigative journalism.


Mary Ann Shadd Cary Humanities 1823 Delaware 1998

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1823 - 1893
Born In: Delaware
Achievements: Humanities

An educator and abolitionist, Mary Ann Shadd Cary was the first Black American woman to enroll in and graduate from Howard University Law School. She appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to argue for the right of women to vote (with Anthony and Stanton). During the 1870s, while practicing law, she lectured throughout the United States about the improvement of education for Black Americans.


Eunice Kennedy Shriver Humanities 1921 Massachusetts 1998

Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1921 - 2009
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Humanities

For more than thirty years, Eunice Kennedy Shriver served as a leader in the worldwide struggle to enhance the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Under her leadership, the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation aided in the creation of The President’s Committee on Mental Retardation (1961) and the development of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (1962). Shriver is credited as the founder of the Special Olympics, an organization that today serves 3 million people with intellectual disabilities in nearly 200 nations around the world.


Chien-Shiung Wu Science 1912 China 1998

Chien-Shiung Wu

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1912 - 1997
Born In: China
Achievements: Science

Nuclear physicist whose pioneering work altered modern physical theory and changed the accepted view of the structure of the universe.


Lydia Moss Bradley Business, Philanthropy 1816 Indiana 1998

Lydia Moss Bradley

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1816 - 1908
Born In: Indiana
Achievements: Business, Philanthropy

Educator, founder of Bradley University and coeducation advocate. Bradley was a pioneer in business and education, the first female member of a national bank board in the United States. Noted as a philanthropist who financially supported many social causes, she determined that Bradley University would be for both women and men.


Janet Reno Government 1938 Florida 2000

Janet Reno

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1938 - 2016
Born In: Florida
Achievements: Government

As Florida State Attorney, she helped establish the Miami Drug Court and reform the juvenile justice system. Appointed by President Clinton to be the first woman Attorney General of the United States, she brought a personal and professional integrity to the office during times when issues were divided bitterly along partisan lines.


Annie Dodge Wauneka Science 1910 Arizona 2000

Annie Dodge Wauneka

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1910 - 1997
Born In: Arizona
Achievements: Science

First woman elected to the Tribal Council, she became determined to lead the fight against tuberculosis among the Navajo. She wrote a dictionary to translate English words for modern medical techniques into Navajo, and hosted a radio broadcast in the Navajo language to explain how modern medicine could help in better care for pregnant women and new babies and other family health problems.


Kate Mullany Humanities 1845 2000

Kate Mullany

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1845 - 1906
Achievements: Humanities

Founder and organizer of the Collar Laundry Union in 1864, she led a strike of 200 laundresses in Troy, NY, which resulted in a 25% wage increase and improvement of working conditions. Her efforts to organize women in New York City and financially assist both male and female unions were rewarded when she was appointed as an assistant secretary of the National Labor Union, making her the first female to hold a national labor post.


Leontine T.C. Kelly Humanities 1920 District of Columbia 2000

Leontine T.C. Kelly

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1920 - 2012
Born In: District of Columbia
Achievements: Humanities

A Methodist bishop, Leontine T.C. Kelly was the first African American woman to be elected bishop in the United Methodist Church. She served as bishop of the California-Nevada Annual Conference and the president of the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops. Committed to peace and justice, she was arrested several times for protesting nuclear weapons, and was one of 18 bishops who signed a letter to the Methodist Church in response to its policy toward gays and lesbians in the church.


Ida Tarbell Arts 1857 Pennsylvania 2000

Ida Tarbell

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1857 - 1944
Born In: Pennsylvania
Achievements: Arts

Writer and editor, her expose of the Standard Oil Trust in the 1904 publication The History of the Standard Oil Company prompted the federal government to prosecute and break up Standard Oil for anti-trust violations. She founded the American Magazin, authored several biographies, and, in spite of her 1912 anti-feminist book, The Business of Being a Woman, remains a role model for women and men in journalism.


Marjory Stoneman Douglas Science 1890 Minnesota 2000

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1890 - 1998
Born In: Minnesota
Achievements: Science

A journalist with the Miami News Record, she was an active leader in the Florida suffrage movement and an environmentalist credited with saving the Everglades as a national resource. Douglas authored over ten books and several plays, including The Everglades: River of Grass. After receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1993 at the age of 103, she remained an active and influential environmentalist to her death.


Frances Oldham Kelsey Science 1914 Canada 2000

Frances Oldham Kelsey

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1914 - 2015
Born In: Canada
Achievements: Science

A medical and pharmaceutical researcher for the Food and Drug Administration, she refused to approve the use of thalidomide in this country, saving countless babies from terrible deformities. As a result of her testimony before Congress, the 1962 drug act was passed, giving the FDA greater control over the manufacture, testing and distribution of drugs. During a career with the FDA which spanned over 39 years, her supervision of clinical investigators has institutionalized the protection of the patient in drug investigations.


Eudora Welty Arts 1909 Mississippi 2000

Eudora Welty

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1909 - 2001
Born In: Mississippi
Achievements: Arts

One of the most significant writers of the 20th century, Eudora Welty won many notable literary prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter. Her work is marked by what critic Jonathan Yardley called an “abiding tolerance…a refusal to pass judgment on the actors in the human comedy,” and it transcends generations and national boundaries. In 1998, the Library of America recognized her literary accomplishments by honoring her as the first living author published in the prestigious Library of America series.


Sophia Smith Education, Philanthropy 1796 Massachusetts 2000

Sophia Smith

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1796 - 1870
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Education, Philanthropy

Born to a family known for its frugality and thrift, she was left at the age of 65 as the sole survivor of her immediate family, and with the funds to endow the establishment of Smith College, an institution that she hoped would provide undergraduate education for young women equal to that provided at the time for young men.


Mary Barret Dyer Humanities 0 England 2000

Mary Barret Dyer

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 0 - 1660
Born In: England
Achievements: Humanities

Disenfranchised and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony along with Anne Hutchinson, she moved back to England, where she became a protégé of George Fox, the founder of Quakerism. Returning to Boston, she was arrested, imprisoned and expelled for preaching the Quaker faith. Returning to Boston again and again, she stood beside other condemned Quakers and finally was herself arrested and hanged. Her martyr’s death contributed to the move for religious tolerance in the colonies.


Frances E. Willard Humanities 1839 New York 2000

Frances E. Willard

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1839 - 1898
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

As second president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), she led the largest organization of women in the United States. The WCTU provided a base for the 20th century women’s rights movement, supporting, in addition to women’s suffrage, broad social reforms such as equal pay for equal work, the eight hour day, and the protection of women and children in the workplace.

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