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
Year Born: to
Birth State or Country: or
Year Inducted: to
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

Faye Glenn Abdellah Science 1919 New York 2000

Faye Glenn Abdellah

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1919 - 2017
Born In: New York
Achievements: Science

First nurse to hold the rank of Rear Admiral and the title of Deputy Surgeon General for the United States. She developed the first tested coronary care unit. A national pioneer in nursing research, she has authored or co-authored more than 150 publications and helped change the focus of nursing from disease-centered to patient-centered.


Bella Abzug Government 1920 New York 1994

Bella Abzug

Year Honored: 1994
Birth: 1920 - 1998
Born In: New York
Achievements: Government

Civil rights and labor attorney elected to Congress from New York City in 1970. Abzug made her career as an advocate for women, the poor and those victimized by repression. A lifelong feminist activist, she played a major role in many national and international women’s conferences. Before her death, she chaired the Women’s Environment and Development Organization.


Abigail Adams Humanities 1744 Massachusetts 1976

Abigail Adams

Year Honored: 1976
Birth: 1744 - 1818
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Humanities

Influential letter writer who urged her husband, President John Adams to “Remember the Ladies” and permit women to legally own property. She identified this major obstacle to women’s equality, which was overcome years later.


Jane Addams Humanities 1860 Illinois 1973

Jane Addams

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1860 - 1935
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Humanities

Social reformer and peace activist who created Hull House in the slums of Chicago, starting an American settlement house movement to provide help for the poor. A lifelong activist, Addams fought child labor, infant mortality and dangerous workplaces. Founder of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1931.


Madeleine Korbel Albright Government 1937 Czechoslovakia 1998

Madeleine Korbel Albright

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1937 - 2022
Born In: Czechoslovakia
Achievements: Government

First female Secretary of State and highest ranking woman in the U.S. government under President Clinton. As a professor at Georgetown University, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in international affairs and Russian and Central and Eastern European politics. In President Clinton’s first term, she was the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of the National Security Council.


Tenley Albright Athletics, Science 1935 Massachusetts 2015

Tenley Albright

Year Honored: 2015
Birth: 1935 -
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Athletics, Science

The first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating.  Named one of the “100 Greatest Female Athletes.”  A successful surgeon and leader in blood plasma research, she works in international efforts to eradicate polio.


Louisa May Alcott Arts 1832 Pennsylvania 1996

Louisa May Alcott

Year Honored: 1996
Birth: 1832 - 1888
Born In: Pennsylvania
Achievements: Arts

Author who produced the first literature for the mass market of juvenile girls in the 19th century. Her best-known work, Little Women, has appeared continuously in print since its first publication in 1868-69.


Florence Ellinwood Allen Government 1884 Utah 2005

Florence Ellinwood Allen

Year Honored: 2005
Birth: 1884 - 1966
Born In: Utah
Achievements: Government

Judge Florence Ellinwood Allen was a legal pioneer, breaking barriers for women in law. Her numerous accomplishments include becoming the first American woman to hold the office of Assistant County Prosecutor, first woman judge of the highest court of a state by election (Ohio), and first female judge of a United States Circuit Court of Appeals by presidential appointment.


Gloria Allred Business, Government 1941 2019

Gloria Allred

Year Honored: 2019
Birth: 1941 -
Achievements: Business, Government

Gloria Allred is a founding partner of the law firm of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg (AM&G). Across her 42-year legal career, her firm has handled more women’s rights cases than any other private law firm in the nation and has won hundreds of millions of dollars for victims. Her work began with sex discrimination cases eliminating separation of toys by gender in stores and the exclusion of women from private clubs, and in recent decades has focused on sexual harassment and assault as well as reproductive justice. A key voice in the pursuit of marriage equality, Allred has won countless honors for her pioneering legal work on behalf of women’s rights and rights for minorities. Her work continues today.


Linda G. Alvarado Business 1951 New Mexico 2003

Linda G. Alvarado

Year Honored: 2003
Birth: 1951 -
Born In: New Mexico
Achievements: Business

Hispanic-American businesswoman who started her own construction firm in 1976 and has broken many barriers in a historically male-dominated world. As co-owner of The Colorado Rockies baseball team, Alvarado is also the first Hispanic-American, male or female, to own a major league baseball franchise.


Dorothy H. Andersen Science 1901 North Carolina 2001

Dorothy H. Andersen

Year Honored: 2001
Birth: 1901 - 1963
Born In: North Carolina
Achievements: Science

Pediatrician and pathologist who was the first to identify cystic fibrosis and developed a simple, definitive diagnostic test for the disease.


Marian Anderson Arts 1897 Pennsylvania 1973

Marian Anderson

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1897 - 1993
Born In: Pennsylvania
Achievements: Arts

First African American singer to perform with the Metropolitan Opera. An international star, Anderson was a brilliant musician whose talents helped shatter the color barrier for other African American performers.


Ethel Percy Andrus Humanities 1884 California 1993

Ethel Percy Andrus

Year Honored: 1993
Birth: 1884 - 1967
Born In: California
Achievements: Humanities

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.


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.


Susan B. Anthony Humanities 1820 Massachusetts 1973

Susan B. Anthony

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1820 - 1906
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Humanities

The women’s movement’s most powerful organizer whose lifetime of dedication, and work with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, paved the way for women’s right to vote. Her words “Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less,” expressed the ongoing struggle for equality.


Virginia Apgar Science 1909 New Jersey 1995

Virginia Apgar

Year Honored: 1995
Birth: 1909 - 1974
Born In: New Jersey
Achievements: Science

Physician best known for development of the Apgar Score in 1952. This system of simple tests is used to determine whether a newborn child requires special medical attention, and it has saved thousands of lives.


Ella Baker Humanities 1903 Virginia 1994

Ella Baker

Year Honored: 1994
Birth: 1903 - 1986
Born In: Virginia
Achievements: Humanities

Premier behind-the-scenes organizer and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by Martin Luther King, Jr. Baker also helped establish the civil rights movement’s foremost student organization, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.


Lucille Ball Arts, Business 1911 New York 2001

Lucille Ball

Year Honored: 2001
Birth: 1911 - 1989
Born In: New York
Achievements: Arts, Business

Undoubtedly one of the best known and best loved television comediennes of all time. The “I Love Lucy Show”, which began in 1951, is still shown in reruns in more than 70 countries around the world. She was a television pioneer who excelled both in the acting and the production aspects of television.


Ann Bancroft Education, Science 1955 Minnesota 1995

Ann Bancroft

Year Honored: 1995
Birth: 1955 -
Born In: Minnesota
Achievements: Education, Science

First woman to travel across the ice to the North and South Poles. She was the first woman to travel across Greenland on skis, and in 1993, was leader of the American Women’s Expedition, a group of four who skied more than 600 miles to the South Pole.


Clara Barton Science 1821 Massachusetts 1973

Clara Barton

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1821 - 1912
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Science

Founder of the American Red Cross, Barton ministered to injured soldiers during the Civil War and became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield.” Devoted to the organization, she later took to the field, providing relief in the Spanish American War at the age of 77.


Patricia Bath Science 1942 New York 2024

Patricia Bath

Year Honored: 2024
Birth: 1942 - 2019
Born In: New York
Achievements: Science

Patricia Era Bath was an American ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian, and academic. She was an early pioneer of laser cataract surgery and was the first Black woman physician to receive a medical patent, which she received in 1986, for the Laserphaco Probe and technique, which performed all steps of cataract removal.


Eleanor K. Baum Education, Science 1940 New York 2007

Eleanor K. Baum

Year Honored: 2007
Birth: 1940 -
Born In: New York
Achievements: Education, Science

As the former Dean of Engineering at Cooper Union and the Executive Director of the Cooper Union Research Foundation, Dr. Eleanor Baum is the first female engineer to be named dean of a college of engineering in the United States. In 1995, she became the first female president of the American Society for Engineering Education. An electrical engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry, Dr. Baum is a respected leader in recruitment and retention of women in the engineering profession.


Ruth Fulton Benedict Science 1887 New York 2005

Ruth Fulton Benedict

Year Honored: 2005
Birth: 1887 - 1948
Born In: New York
Achievements: Science

A student of Franz Boas and mentor to Margaret Mead, Ruth Fulton Benedict was a highly influential anthropologist whose theories tremendously influenced the field of cultural anthropology. Her 1934 Patterns of Culture became an American classic and is still a highly regarded publication today.


Mary McLeod Bethune Education 1875 South Carolina 1973

Mary McLeod Bethune

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1875 - 1955
Born In: South Carolina
Achievements: Education

African American teacher who, with only $1.50, began a school to help educate young African American women. After developing it into a college, she became a powerful leader, and through her leadership of the National Council of Negro Women, worked to end discrimination and increase opportunities for African Americans.

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