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

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.


Anne Hutchinson Humanities 1591 England 1994

Anne Hutchinson

Year Honored: 1994
Birth: 1591 - 1643
Born In: England
Achievements: Humanities

Religious leader who insisted on practicing her religious faith as she chose, including holding religious meetings in her home, the first woman in the new world to do so. As a result, she was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.


Mercy Otis Warren Arts 1728 Massachusetts 2002

Mercy Otis Warren

Year Honored: 2002
Birth: 1728 - 1814
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Arts

Poet, dramatist, satirist and historian Mercy Otis Warren was widely known for using her pen to share her strong political views. She advocated for national independence and opposition to royal tyranny through works such as The Adulateur and The Group.


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.


Elizabeth Bayley Seton Humanities 1774 1979

Elizabeth Bayley Seton

Year Honored: 1979
Birth: 1774 - 1821
Achievements: Humanities

The first native-born American woman to be canonized a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. After raising a family, “Mother Seton” became a Sister of Charity and worked as an educator and leader of the order. She was known for her extraordinary virtue and kindness, and incidents of miraculous healing are attributed to her.


Emma Hart Willard Education 1787 Connecticut 2013

Emma Hart Willard

Year Honored: 2013
Birth: 1787 - 1870
Born In: Connecticut
Achievements: Education

During her lifetime, Emma Hart Willard blazed an extraordinary trail on behalf of women’s education. A teacher by trade, Willard opened a girls’ school in her home in 1814 and was struck by the contrast between the education she could offer her women students and the education provided to men at nearby Middlebury College. She crafted A Plan for Improving Female Education, a document in which she advocated equal education for women at the academy level. In 1819, at the encouragement of Governor DeWitt Clinton, Willard opened a school in Waterford, New York which closed shortly afterward due to a lack of funding. Two years later, she founded Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York (1821), the first school of higher learning for women. The seminary was renamed the Emma Willard School in her honor in 1895.


Sacagawea / Sacajawea / Sakakawea Humanities c.1788 Idaho 2003

Sacagawea / Sacajawea / Sakakawea

Year Honored: 2003
Birth: c.1788 - 0
Born In: Idaho
Achievements: Humanities

A Shoshone woman who served as a guide to Lewis and Clark during their exploration of the American West, Sacagawea was an instrumental part in the success of this legendary Expedition.


Sarah Grimké Humanities 1792 South Carolina 1998

Sarah Grimké

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1792 - 1873
Born In: South Carolina
Achievements: Humanities

Along with Angelina Grimké Weld, who wrote numerous published papers which championed abolition and women’s rights. The Grimké sisters were southerners who became the first female speakers for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Sarah’s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes exposed the plight of factory women in New England, as well as arguing on behalf of women’s rights and abolition. Through their examples and their words, the Grimkés proved that women could affect the course of political events and have a far-reaching influence on society.


Lucretia Mott Humanities 1793 1983

Lucretia Mott

Year Honored: 1983
Birth: 1793 - 1880
Achievements: Humanities

Quaker anti-slavery advocate, who, after meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton, became a leader in the women’s rights movement. Mott was a planner of the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, and she remained true to her sense of justice for African Americans and women throughout her life.


Fanny Wright Humanities 1795 Scotland 1994

Fanny Wright

Year Honored: 1994
Birth: 1795 - 1852
Born In: Scotland
Achievements: Humanities

First American woman to speak out against slavery and for the equality of women. An inspiration to Stanton, Anthony and other women’s equality advocates, Wright wrote and spoke out publicly for equal rights for all at a time when women were not accepted in such roles.


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 Lyon Education 1797 1993

Mary Lyon

Year Honored: 1993
Birth: 1797 - 1849
Achievements: Education

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.


Sojourner Truth Humanities c.1797 New York 1981

Sojourner Truth

Year Honored: 1981
Birth: c.1797 - 1883
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

Abolitionist born a slave who became a Quaker missionary. Truth eventually became a traveling preacher of great influence who worked in the antislavery movement. She learned about women’s rights, and adopted that cause as well. She went on to counsel and help newly freed African Americans.


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.


Dorothea Dix Humanities 1802 Maine 1979

Dorothea Dix

Year Honored: 1979
Birth: 1802 - 1887
Born In: Maine
Achievements: Humanities

One of the nation’s earliest and most effective advocates for better care of the mentally ill. When Dix saw that such people were badly treated in institutions, she lobbied nationwide for humane treatment and reform.


Angelina Grimké Weld Humanities 1805 South Carolina 1998

Angelina Grimké Weld

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1805 - 1879
Born In: South Carolina
Achievements: Humanities

Along with Sarah Grimké, wrote numerous published papers which championed abolition and women’s rights. The Grimké sisters were southerners who became the first female speakers for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Sarah’s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes exposed the plight of factory women in New England, as well as arguing on behalf of women’s rights and abolition. Through their examples and their words, the Grimkés proved that women could affect the course of political events and have a far-reaching influence on society.


Martha Coffin Pelham Wright Humanities 1806 Massachusetts 2007

Martha Coffin Pelham Wright

Year Honored: 2007
Birth: 1806 - 1875
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Humanities

Martha Coffin Pelham Wright was one of five visionary women who organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, forever changing the course of American history. She was also one of the few women who attended the 1833 founding meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. An accomplished author, she wrote for local and national publications on anti-slavery and women’s rights issues. She was elected President of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1874, serving until her death in 1875.


Margaret Fuller Arts 1810 Massachusetts 1995

Margaret Fuller

Year Honored: 1995
Birth: 1810 - 1850
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Arts

Literary critic, editor, teacher and author. Fuller’s early writings inspired leaders of women’s rights. She was editor of the The Dial, a Transcendental journal, and she advocated liberation for all humanity.


Ernestine Louise Potowski Rose Humanities 1810 1996

Ernestine Louise Potowski Rose

Year Honored: 1996
Birth: 1810 - 1892
Achievements: Humanities

Early advocate for women’s rights, traveling for more than three decades giving eloquent speeches and seeking petition signatures. Rose sought women’s rights, the abolition of slavery and many other reforms before others took up the causes. From 1835 through 1869, she was often the first woman to speak in public on many platforms.


Harriet Beecher Stowe Arts 1811 Connecticut 1986

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Year Honored: 1986
Birth: 1811 - 1896
Born In: Connecticut
Achievements: Arts

Author and daughter of a minister, Stowe became one of the first women to earn a living by writing, publishing the best-seller Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. Although she wrote much more, her best-seller was often acclaimed as a major factor in the drive to abolish slavery.


Abby Kelley Foster Humanities 1811 Massachusetts 2011

Abby Kelley Foster

Year Honored: 2011
Birth: 1811 - 1887
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Humanities

A major figure in the national anti-slavery and women’s rights movements, Abby Kelley Foster is remembered for her roles as a lecturer, fundraiser, recruiter and organizer. In 1850, Foster helped develop plans for the National Woman’s Rights Convention in Massachusetts, and later, in 1868, she was among the organizers of the founding convention of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. During her lifetime, Foster worked extensively with the American Anti-Slavery Society, where she held several different positions within the organization. Foster worked tirelessly for the ratification of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments and helped lay the groundwork for the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.


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.


Elizabeth Cady Stanton Humanities 1815 New York 1973

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1815 - 1902
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

Suffragist and reformer. Stanton noticed from her earliest years that women were not treated equally with men. In 1848, she and others convened the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, bringing 300 individuals together, including Frederick Douglass. Stanton determined that the right to vote was the key to women’s equality. Throughout her life and partnership with Susan B. Anthony, she wrote and argued brilliantly for women’s equality through the right to vote.


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.

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