Grateful American® Foundation

History Making Women

March is Women's History Month Commemorating and Encouraging
the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.

Sandra Day O'Connor
(b. 1930)
First Woman Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Barbara Jordan
(1936 – 1996)
Civil Rights Leader. Congresswoman. First African American Woman to give Keynote Address; Democratic National Convention, 1976.

Carson McCullers
(1917 – 1967)
American Novelist. Essayist. Playwright. Short Story Writer.

Rachel Carson
(1907 – 1964)
Marine Biologist. Author of Silent Spring. Conservationist.

Billie Jean King
(b. 1943)
Tennis Champion.

Grandma Moses
(1860 – 1961)
American artist, who started her successful career at 78.

Lady Bird Johnson
(1912 – 2007)
First Lady; 1963-1969.
Second Lady, 1961-1963.
Business woman.

Annie Sullivan
(1866 – 1936)
Helen’s Keller’s teacher, and lifelong companion.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
(1933 – 2020)
Lawyer. Second female associate justice of the United States Supreme Court; 1993-2020.

Margaret Mitchell
(1900 – 1949)
1937 Pulitzer Prize winner, Gone With The Wind.

Bella Abzug
(1920 – 1998)
Lawyer. Congresswoman. Activist in the Women’s Movement.

Maya Angelou
(1928 – 2014)
Poet. Memoirist. Civil Rights Activist. Performer.

Betty Furness
(1916 – 1994)
Actress. LBJ’s Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs.
Consumer Correspondent, The Today Show.

Helen Hayes
(1900 – 1993)
“First Lady of American Theatre”.
One of 16 actors to have won the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT).

Jane Addams
(1860 – 1935)
Founder of Chicago’s Hull House. Social worker.
1931 recipient of Nobel Peace Prize.

Edith Wharton
(1862 – 1937)
Novelist of the Gilded Age. First woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Literature; 1921’s The Age of Innocence.

Eleanor Roosevelt
(1884 – 1962)
Longest tenure as First Lady 1933-1945.
Chairman, United Nations Committee on Human Rights.

Amelia Earhart
(1897 – 1937)
First aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Clara Barton
(1821 – 1912)
Founder, American Red Cross.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(1815 – 1902)
Writer. Women’s Rights Activist. Suffragette.

Rosa Parks
(1913 – 2005)
“Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”.

Mary McLeod Bethune
(1875 – 1955)
American Educator. Civil Rights Leader.

Mary Todd Lincoln
(1818 – 1882)
First Lady, 1861-1865.

Katherine Johnson
(1918 – 2020)
NASA scientist. “Human Computer”. Subject of the film, Hidden Figures.

Coretta Scott King
(1927 – 2006)
Author. Activist. Civil Rights Leader. Wife of Martin Luther King.

Shirley Chisholm
(1924 – 2005)
First African American woman elected to Congress.
First African American candidate for President of the United States, 1972.

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