Discover the Women of the Hall

The first Black woman to own her own television production company and who became television’s highest-paid entertainer. She is an advocate for ending child abuse, and she contributes generously to colleges and universities.

American novelist and short story writer of the 20th century. The first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (for The Age of Innocence, 1929), Wharton was a prolific writer who averaged more than a book a year after the age of 40 until her death.

One of the most significant writers of the 20th century, Eudora Welty won many notable literary prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter. Her work is marked by what critic Jonathan Yardley called an “abiding tolerance…a refusal to pass judgment on the actors in the human comedy,” and it transcends generations and national boundaries. In 1998, the Library of America recognized her literary accomplishments by honoring her as the first living author published in the prestigious Library of America series.

African American leader, anti-lynching crusader, journalist, lecturer and community organizer who fought social injustice all her life. Wells-Barnett sued a railroad over segregated seating, criticized segregated education and became editor and part owner of a newspaper. The horrors of lynching inspired her to lead a major effort to abolish the atrocity.

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.

Diane von Furstenberg is a fashion designer, philanthropist, and Founder and Chairman of the company that bears her name. In 1974, she debuted her iconic wrap dress, which became a symbol of power and independence for women all over the world and grew into a global brand. She acted as President of the CFDA from 2006 to 2015, and served as its Chairwoman from 2015 to 2019. In 2010, she established the DVF Awards to honor extraordinary women.  Her memoir, The Woman I Wanted To Be, was published in 2014 and has been translated into six languages. In 2015, she was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People. In 2018, she received the CFDA Swarovski Award for Positive Change. She currently serves on the boards of CFDA, Vital Voices, the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation, The Shed, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Writer and editor, her expose of the Standard Oil Trust in the 1904 publication The History of the Standard Oil Company prompted the federal government to prosecute and break up Standard Oil for anti-trust violations. She founded the American Magazin, authored several biographies, and, in spite of her 1912 anti-feminist book, The Business of Being a Woman, remains a role model for women and men in journalism.

Prima ballerina with the New York City Ballet and artistic director for the Lyric Opera Ballet in Chicago. Tallchief created a distinctive style and interpretation which continues to influence contemporary ballet. She used her international acclaim to bring about greater understanding and appreciation of Native Americans.

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.

A composer whose work appears on NASA’s “Golden Record,” (shipped out on the Voyager spacecraft) Laurie Spiegel is known worldwide for her pioneering work with early electronic and computer music systems. A cutting-edge thinker, her experience with early analogue electronic music systems led Spiegel to innovate musically and instrumentally. She has focused largely on interactive software that uses algorithmic logic as a supplement to human abilities, thereby expanding access to creative expression for a far greater number of people than was previously allowed through traditional methods of musical training. The aesthetics of musical structure and cognitive processes have also been a focus of Spiegel’s work. Spiegel’s work has been re-issued, having appeared in the popular Hunger Games movies, highlighted in the 2018 BBC Proms, and featured in various museum settings where the intersection of electronic music compositions, the machines and software used to create those compositions, and the visual arts have come together in harmony.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Markswoman, was probably the nation’s finest. A performer for many years with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Oakley was a staunch supporter of other women’s opportunities and raised funds to send needy women to college and nursing school.

Artist and perhaps the best-known American woman painter. An American original in both her lifestyle and painting, O’Keeffe produced works of high energy and vision throughout her long life.

She is a world record holding athlete, ground-breaking high fashion model, beacon for design tech, dedicated advocate, and avant-garde actor. She conceived of, and was the first to wear and compete in, prostheses modeled after the hind legs of a cheetah – now the international standard for amputee runners.

An author and book editor who fostered a new generation of Black writers. Morrison has been unapologetic about her focus on Black people’s experiences, and the power with which she has brought this focus.

A feminist activist, writer, visual artist, filmmaker, teacher and human rights advocate, Kate Millett has been described as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century. Millett began her career as an English instructor and in 1966, became the first Chair of the Education Committee of the newly formed National Organization for Women. In 1968, she authored a pioneering report published by NOW, Token Learning: A Study of Women’s Higher Education in America, in which she challenged women’s colleges to provide an equal education for women. Millett is perhaps best-known for her landmark work in feminist theory, Sexual Politics (1970). She currently serves as the Director of the Millett Center for the Arts, a creative work space that provides artist in residence accommodation and studio facilities to women artists from around the world.

She was instrumental in the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission and later established an endowment for what has become one of the single most significant sources of private support for women in science, mathematics, and engineering.

Author of numerous elegant essays, journals and other books. Lindbergh also excelled as co-pilot and navigator with her husband Charles on their historic flights to promote the development of international aviation.

Lin, an architectural designer who gained fame at the age of 21 as creator of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, is a Chinese-American who draws on a variety of culturally diverse sources for her inspiration. Some of her well-known works include the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL and The Wave Field at the University of Michigan.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” These famous words from The New Colossus, were written by Emma Lazarus, one of the first successful Jewish American authors. Originally created in 1883, the sonnet was later engraved in bronze and placed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Throughout her lifetime, Lazarus authored and published numerous poems, essays, letters, short stories and translations. She was an important forerunner of the Zionist movement, having argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland thirteen years before the term Zionist was even coined.