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

Florence Sabin Science 1871 Colorado 1973

Florence Sabin

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1871 - 1953
Born In: Colorado
Achievements: Science

First woman graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the first woman to teach there. A talented anatomist and researcher, Sabin performed pioneering work in embryology, the lymphatic system and tuberculosis.


Bernice Resnick Sandler Education, Humanities 1928 New York 2013

Bernice Resnick Sandler

Year Honored: 2013
Birth: 1928 - 2019
Born In: New York
Achievements: Education, Humanities

For more than forty years, Bernice Resnick Sandler has been a tireless advocate of educational equity for women and girls. In 1970, Sandler filed the first charges of sex discrimination against 250 educational institutions. It was this strategy that led to the first federal investigations of campus sex discrimination at a time when no laws existed to prohibit discrimination based on sex in education. Subsequently, Sandler was instrumental in the development, passage and implementation of Title IX, the legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. An expert in strategies and policies to prevent and respond to sex discrimination in higher education, Sandler has given more than 2,500 presentations. She currently serves as a Senior Scholar in Residence at the Women’s Research and Education Institute in Washington, DC.


Margaret Sanger Humanities 1879 1981

Margaret Sanger

Year Honored: 1981
Birth: 1879 - 1966
Achievements: Humanities

Nurse and social reformer. After seeing many poor women in New York City damaged and dying from attempts to end unwanted pregnancies, she fought for reform. Sanger underwent arrests and imprisonment for distributing information on birth control and contraception.


Katherine Siva Saubel Arts, Education, Humanities 1920 California 1993

Katherine Siva Saubel

Year Honored: 1993
Birth: 1920 - 2011
Born In: California
Achievements: Arts, Education, Humanities

Founder of the Malki Museum at the Morongo Reservation in California. Born on a reservation in great poverty, Saubel became determined to preserve her tribe’s culture and language, despite overwhelming odds. A learned ethno anthropologist, Saubel was a founder of this first museum run by Native Americans.


Betty Bone Schiess Humanities 1923 Ohio 1994

Betty Bone Schiess

Year Honored: 1994
Birth: 1923 - 2017
Born In: Ohio
Achievements: Humanities

Religious leader. Schiess led the successful effort in 1974 to have women ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church in America, elevating the position of women in the Episcopal Church at all levels.


Patricia Schroeder Government 1940 1995

Patricia Schroeder

Year Honored: 1995
Birth: 1940 - 2023
Achievements: Government

Served as the senior woman in Congress, first elected in 1972 from Colorado. Schroeder worked to establish a national pro-family policy, promoting issues such as parental leave, child care and family planning.


Anna Jacobson Schwartz Business 1915 New York 2013

Anna Jacobson Schwartz

Year Honored: 2013
Birth: 1915 - 2012
Born In: New York
Achievements: Business

Perhaps the most widely acclaimed female research economist of the twentieth century, Anna Jacobson Schwartz has been described as “one of the world’s greatest monetary scholars.” In 1941, after a five year career with Columbia University’s Social Science Research Council, Schwartz began her more than seventy year tenure working for the National Bureau of Economic Research. During her time at the National Bureau, Schwartz met and began working with Milton Friedman and together, the two coauthored A Monetary History of the United States, 1867 – 1960. Described by Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, as “the leading and most persuasive explanation of the worst economic disaster in American history,” the text is one of the most widely cited in economics. Schwartz was also considered a leading financial historian and expert on monetary statistics in the United States and Britain.


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.


Blanche Stuart Scott Science 1889 New York 2005

Blanche Stuart Scott

Year Honored: 2005
Birth: 1889 - 1970
Born In: New York
Achievements: Science

Born in Rochester, New York, Scott was a pioneering aviatrix, becoming the first American woman to take a solo hop into the air, although her flight is not regarded as official. In 1910, she became one of the first woman to drive an automobile coast to coast in her car – the ‚”Lady Overland”. Scott was also the first and only woman to take flying lessons from Glenn Curtiss, later flying with the Curtiss Exhibition Team and earning the nickname ‚”Tomboy of the Air”.


Florence B. Seibert Science 1897 1990

Florence B. Seibert

Year Honored: 1990
Birth: 1897 - 1991
Achievements: Science

Scientist who made it possible to test for tuberculosis and who pioneered safe intravenous therapy. Siebert also devoted many years to cancer research.


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.


Donna E. Shalala Education, Government 1941 Ohio 2011

Donna E. Shalala

Year Honored: 2011
Birth: 1941 -
Born In: Ohio
Achievements: Education, Government

A groundbreaking educator and politician, Dr. Donna Shalala has more than thirty years of experience as an accomplished scholar, teacher and administrator. Dr. Shalala is recognized as the longest serving United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (1993-2001) and is the current President of the University of Miami. From 1980-1987, Dr. Shalala served as the president of Hunter College, and from 1987-1993, she was the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Shalala is the recipient of more than three dozen honorary degrees and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008.


Anna Howard Shaw Humanities 1847 England 2000

Anna Howard Shaw

Year Honored: 2000
Birth: 1847 - 1919
Born In: England
Achievements: Humanities

A leader in the women’s suffrage movement, Shaw was a master orator for social justice, and the first woman to be ordained by the Protestant Methodist Church. She was the first living American woman to be awarded the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal.


Catherine Filene Shouse Arts, Philanthropy 1896 Massachusetts 2007

Catherine Filene Shouse

Year Honored: 2007
Birth: 1896 - 1994
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Arts, Philanthropy

Known for her visionary work in education, arts, politics and women’s affairs, Catherine Filene Shouse was the first woman to receive a Masters Degree in Education from Harvard University and the first woman appointed to the Democratic National Committee in 1919. Ten years later, she launched the Institute for Women’s Professional Relations. An ardent supporter of the arts and arts education, Catherine Filene Shouse founded and was the major benefactor of the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia – the first and only national park dedicated to the performing arts. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald R. Ford in 1977.


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.


Muriel Siebert Business 1928 Ohio 1994

Muriel Siebert

Year Honored: 1994
Birth: 1928 - 2013
Born In: Ohio
Achievements: Business

First woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (1967). She was also the nation’s first-ever discount broker and the first woman to serve as Superintendent of Banks for the State of New York.


Beverly Sills Arts 1929 New York 1998

Beverly Sills

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1929 - 2007
Born In: New York
Achievements: Arts

Acclaimed Soprano who became the first woman General Director and then President of the New York City Opera, and later first woman chair of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, guiding the Center to become one of the nation’s most important institutions. She was not only directly responsible for the discovery and launch of many young performers, but was also actively involved in a myriad of humane works, including the National Victim Center and (as National Chair) the March of Dimes Mothers March on Birth Defects.


Louise Slaughter Education, Government 1929 2019

Louise Slaughter

Year Honored: 2019
Birth: 1929 - 2018
Achievements: Education, Government

A prominent advocate for women and POC, Louise Slaughter was a member of Congress for over 30 years. One of the longest-serving women in the House of Representatives, Slaughter was the first chairwoman of the House Rules Committee and the co-chair and founding member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, which works to promote reproductive health and protect a woman’s right to choose. Slaughter also established the Office of Research on Women’s Health and secured the first $500 million in federal funding for breast cancer research at the NIH, and she co-authored the landmark Violence Against Women Act, which has reduced cases of domestic violence by 67% since 1994. Representing upstate New York in Congress for decades, Slaughter was a scientist-turned-politician, a local and national leader whose work for women and for all Americans continues to shape our lives.


Eleanor Smeal Humanities 1939 Ohio 2015

Eleanor Smeal

Year Honored: 2015
Birth: 1939 -
Born In: Ohio
Achievements: Humanities

Her life and work has been dedicated to the achievement of women’s equality and human rights.  She has been at the forefront of nearly every significant women’s rights victory.  Responsible for coining the phrase “gender gap” referring to the difference in the way women and men vote and popularizing its usage in election and polling analyses to enhance women’s voting clout.


Bessie Smith Arts c.1894 Tennessee 1984

Bessie Smith

Year Honored: 1984
Birth: c.1894 - 1937
Born In: Tennessee
Achievements: Arts

One the nation’s great blues singers, Smith earned stardom from her first record 1923’s “Down Hearted Blues,” which sold two million records. The “Empress of the Blues,” made more than 160 recordings with many of the country’s finest jazz musicians.


Margaret Chase Smith Government 1897 Maine 1973

Margaret Chase Smith

Year Honored: 1973
Birth: 1897 - 1995
Born In: Maine
Achievements: Government

Beginning her political career by assuming her deceased husband’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, she ran for and became a U.S. Senator from Maine. Margaret Chase Smith served four terms and was an advocate for a strong national defense.


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.


Hannah Greenebaum Solomon Humanities 1858 Illinois 1995

Hannah Greenebaum Solomon

Year Honored: 1995
Birth: 1858 - 1942
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Humanities

Club woman and welfare worker on matters relating to child welfare, she organized a nationwide Jewish Women’s Congress as part of the 1890’s World’s Fair. It later became the National Council of Jewish Women, to which she was elected its first president.


Susan Solomon Science 1956 Illinois 2009

Susan Solomon

Year Honored: 2009
Birth: 1956 -
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Science

An internationally recognized leader in the field of atmospheric science, Susan Solomon pioneered the theory explaining how and why the ozone hole occurs in Antarctica, and obtained some of the first chemical measurements that established man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as its cause. Solomon is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1999 National Medal of Science and the Asahi Foundation of Japan’s Blue Planet Prize in 2004. From 2002-2008, Solomon served as the co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Albert Gore, Jr. in 2007. Solomon’s current research as a senior scientist with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration focuses on climate change, ozone depletion and the links between the two.