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

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.


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.


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.


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.


Antoinette Blackwell Humanities 1825 New York 1993

Antoinette Blackwell

Year Honored: 1993
Birth: 1825 - 1921
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

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.


Amelia Bloomer Humanities 1818 New York 1995

Amelia Bloomer

Year Honored: 1995
Birth: 1818 - 1894
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

First woman to own, operate and edit a newspaper for women, The Lily. First published in 1849 in Seneca Falls, New York, it became a recognized forum for women’s rights issues. She often wore full-cut pantaloons under a short skirt, giving birth to the term “bloomers.”


Ruby Bridges Humanities 1954 Mississippi 2024

Ruby Bridges

Year Honored: 2024
Birth: 1954 -
Born In: Mississippi
Achievements: Humanities

Civil Rights icon, activist, author, and speaker, Ruby Bridges stepped into history books in 1960 when at six years old she single-handedly broke down barriers by desegregating the all-white William Frantz Elementary school in New Orleans.


Betty Bumpers Humanities 1925 Arkansas 2005

Betty Bumpers

Year Honored: 2005
Birth: 1925 - 2018
Born In: Arkansas
Achievements: Humanities

Former first lady of Arkansas, Betty Bumpers dedicated herself to world peace and health initiatives for children across the United States. As First Lady of Arkansas, Mrs. Bumpers spearheaded an immunization program in her state that became a national model. She also co-founded Every Child by Two with Rosalynn Carter, a national immunization program. Mrs. Bumpers was active in the global campaign to eradicate polio.


Charlotte Anne Bunch Education, Humanities 1944 North Carolina 1996

Charlotte Anne Bunch

Year Honored: 1996
Birth: 1944 -
Born In: North Carolina
Achievements: Education, Humanities

Founder and director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. Bunch has helped shape the global feminist movement and created consciousness about gender-based human rights. She is also a leader in national and international networking and advocacy for women.


St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Humanities 1850 Italy 1996

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Year Honored: 1996
Birth: 1850 - 1917
Born In: Italy
Achievements: Humanities

Established orphanages, day care centers, schools, clinics and hospitals for immigrants in the United States and around the world. She established a missionary order of women and was the first American citizen to be canonized a saint.


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.


Eleanor Rosalynn Smith Carter Humanities 1926 Georgia 2001

Eleanor Rosalynn Smith Carter

Year Honored: 2001
Birth: 1926 - 2023
Born In: Georgia
Achievements: Humanities

Former First Lady (1977-1981), Rosalynn Carter was an advocate for mental health, early childhood immunizations, human rights, conflict resolution, and health promotion worldwide.


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.


Carrie Chapman Catt Humanities 1859 Wisconsin 1982

Carrie Chapman Catt

Year Honored: 1982
Birth: 1859 - 1947
Born In: Wisconsin
Achievements: Humanities

Tenacious women’s suffrage organizer whose efforts at the helm of the National American Women Suffrage Association put forth the “winning plan” that led to state-by-state enactments of suffrage and the final victory in 1920.


Lydia Maria Child Humanities 1802 Massachusetts 2001

Lydia Maria Child

Year Honored: 2001
Birth: 1802 - 1880
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Humanities

Author and social reformer, Lydia Maria Child spent a lifetime crusading for the abolition of slavery and supporting women’s suffrage. As the author of more than 40 books and the editor of eleven publications, she was always addressing the main issues of 19th century America.


Mother Marianne Cope Humanities 1838 Germany 2005

Mother Marianne Cope

Year Honored: 2005
Birth: 1838 - 1918
Born In: Germany
Achievements: Humanities

As a Sister of the Third Order of St. Francis, Mother Marianne Cope worked for several years in Syracuse, New York, helping to found St. Joseph’s Hospital. In 1883, she went to Kalaupapa, Hawaii where she spent thirty years ministering to those with leprosy. While in Hawaii, she worked hand in hand with Father Damien during the last part of his life.


Kimberlé Crenshaw Education, Humanities 1959 Ohio 2024

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Year Honored: 2024
Birth: 1959 -
Born In: Ohio
Achievements: Education, Humanities

Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw is the co-founder and ExecutiveDirector of the African American Policy Forum, a gender and racial justice legal think tank, and the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School. She is a trailblazing scholar, advocate, and professor whose ideas have reshaped the landscape of critical race theory and Black feminist legal theory.


Matilda Raffa Cuomo Education, Government, Humanities, Philanthropy 1931 New York 2017

Matilda Raffa Cuomo

Year Honored: 2017
Birth: 1931 -
Born In: New York
Achievements: Education, Government, Humanities, Philanthropy

Established the nation’s first school-based one-to-one mentoring program, connecting over 10,000 students to trained mentors, and helping them to succeed in school, graduate, and advance in the workplace. The reach of this program, Mentoring USA, has expanded internationally.


Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis Humanities 1813 New York 2002

Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis

Year Honored: 2002
Birth: 1813 - 1876
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

Born and raised in western New York, Davis headed the committee that organized the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, MA in 1850. She helped found the New England Women’s Suffrage Association and established Una, one of the first women’s rights newspapers.


Dorothy Day Humanities 1897 New York 2001

Dorothy Day

Year Honored: 2001
Birth: 1897 - 1980
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

Widely considered one of the great Catholic lay leaders of the 20th century. As co-founder of The Catholic Worker, Day spearheaded the movement that continues to promote pacifism, civil rights, and relief for the homeless.


Marian de Forest Arts, Humanities 1864 New York 2001

Marian de Forest

Year Honored: 2001
Birth: 1864 - 1935
Born In: New York
Achievements: Arts, Humanities

Founder of Zonta (1919, Buffalo, NY), a worldwide organization of women business and professional leaders dedicated to improving the legal, political, and economic status of women. Membership now runs 35,000 with 1,214 clubs in 68 countries.


Karen DeCrow Karen DeCrow Government, Humanities 1937 Illinois 2009
Karen DeCrow

Karen DeCrow

Year Honored: 2009
Birth: 1937 - 2014
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Government, Humanities

A nationally recognized attorney, author and activist, Karen DeCrow is one of the most celebrated leaders of the women’s movement. From 1974-1977, she served as the National President of the National Organization for Women (NOW), where she was instrumental in obtaining significant legislative and legal gains and tirelessly advocated on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). DeCrow has written numerous books and articles and has lectured throughout the world on topics such as law, gender equality, and politics. In 1970, she served as National Coordinator of the Women’s Strike, and in 1988 she co-founded World Women Watch.


Emma Smith DeVoe Humanities 1848 Illinois 2000

Emma Smith DeVoe

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1848 - 1927
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Humanities

President of the Washington Equal Suffrage Association, successfully ran the campaign that resulted in Washington becoming the first state in the 20th century to grant full enfranchisement to women in 1910, a full decade before passage of the 19th Amendment. DeVoe established the first national organization of voting women, which eventually merged with the National League of Women Voters, leaving an invaluable legacy about the importance of the educated use of the franchise.

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