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

Aimée Mullins Arts, Athletics, Humanities, Philanthropy 1976 Pennsylvania 2017

Aimée Mullins

Year Honored: 2017
Birth: 1976 -
Born In: Pennsylvania
Achievements: Arts, Athletics, Humanities, Philanthropy

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.


Michelle Obama Arts, Humanities 1964 Illinois 2021

Michelle Obama

Year Honored: 2021
Birth: 1964 -
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Arts, Humanities

Maya Y. Lin Arts 1959 Ohio 2005

Maya Y. Lin

Year Honored: 2005
Birth: 1959 -
Born In: Ohio
Achievements: Arts

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.


Oprah Winfrey Arts, Business, Philanthropy 1954 Mississippi 1994

Oprah Winfrey

Year Honored: 1994
Birth: 1954 -
Born In: Mississippi
Achievements: Arts, Business, Philanthropy

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.


Joy Harjo Arts 1951 Oklahoma 2021

Joy Harjo

Year Honored: 2021
Birth: 1951 -
Born In: Oklahoma
Achievements: Arts

Octavia E. Butler Arts 1947 California 2021

Octavia E. Butler

Year Honored: 2021
Birth: 1947 - 2006
Born In: California
Achievements: Arts

Diane von Furstenberg Arts, Business 1946 2019

Diane von Furstenberg

Year Honored: 2019
Birth: 1946 -
Achievements: Arts, Business

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.


Laurie Spiegel Arts 1945 2019

Laurie Spiegel

Year Honored: 2019
Birth: 1945 -
Achievements: Arts

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.


Sherry Lansing Arts, Business, Humanities, Philanthropy 1944 Illinois 2017

Sherry Lansing

Year Honored: 2017
Birth: 1944 -
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Arts, Business, Humanities, Philanthropy

A trailblazer, visionary leader and creative filmmaker. She was involved in the production, marketing and distribution of more than 200 films and the first woman to head a major film studio.


Aretha Franklin Arts 1942 2020

Aretha Franklin

Year Honored: 2020
Birth: 1942 - 2018
Achievements: Arts

A singer, songwriter, pianist, actress, and civil rights activist. Her multi-octave vocal range moved millions of people around the world during an expansive career that spanned six decades.


Judy Chicago Arts 1939 Illinois 2021

Judy Chicago

Year Honored: 2021
Birth: 1939 -
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Arts

Jane Fonda Arts, Government, Humanities 1937 2019

Jane Fonda

Year Honored: 2019
Birth: 1937 -
Achievements: Arts, Government, Humanities

A two-time Academy Award winning actress (Best Actress in 1971 for Klute and in 1978 for Coming Home), activist, businesswoman, author, producer for film and television and philanthropist, Jane Fonda has revolutionized how we see things from the screen to fitness to representations of women and girls in the media. From the counterculture of the 1960s to today’s feminism, Native American rights and environmentalism; from Kluteto 9 to 5 to Grace and Frankie: Fonda has been a visionary and powerful influencer. Through the Jane Fonda Foundation and the Fonda Family Foundation, Fonda funds causes related toyouth and education, adolescent reproductive health, the environment, human services, and the arts. In 2005, together with Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem, she co-founded the Women’s Media Center, an organization that works to increase the visibility and power of women in media. Fonda serves on the board of the organization. She is the recipient of many honors and awards, including two Academy Awards, two BAFTAs, four Golden Globes, a Primetime Emmy Award, the AFI Life Achievement Award, and the Honorary Golden Lion. In 2007, Fonda received an Honorary Palme d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival, making her one of three people to ever be granted this honor until then. She was also recognized with a Tony Award nomination for her role on Broadway in Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations. In 2018, a documentary following Fonda’s remarkable journey, Jane Fonda in Five Acts, was released.


Allucquére Rosanne Stone Arts, Education, Humanities 1936 New Jersey 2024

Allucquére Rosanne Stone

Year Honored: 2024
Birth: 1936 -
Born In: New Jersey
Achievements: Arts, Education, Humanities

Allucquére Rosanne Stone, also known as Sandy Stone, is an academic, media theorist, artist, audio engineer, and computer programmer. A founder of the academic discipline of transgender studies, Stone’s trailblazing work created space for trans scholars to unfold the vast spectrum of gender.


Kate Millett Arts, Education, Humanities 1934 Minnesota 2013

Kate Millett

Year Honored: 2013
Birth: 1934 - 2017
Born In: Minnesota
Achievements: Arts, Education, Humanities

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.


Toni Morrison Arts, Humanities 1931 2020

Toni Morrison

Year Honored: 2020
Birth: 1931 - 2018
Achievements: Arts, Humanities

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.


Lorraine Hansberry Arts, Humanities 1930 Illinois 2017

Lorraine Hansberry

Year Honored: 2017
Birth: 1930 - 1965
Born In: Illinois
Achievements: Arts, Humanities

A groundbreaking playwright and essayist best known as the author of A Raisin in the Sun, which ensured a place for the Black experience in American theatre. She was the first Black woman to have a show produced on Broadway, the first Black playwright and the youngest American to receive the prestigious New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play, and the first Black American to win the distinguished Drama Desk Award.


Joan Ganz Cooney Arts, Business, Education 1929 Arizona 1998

Joan Ganz Cooney

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1929 -
Born In: Arizona
Achievements: Arts, Business, Education

Founder of the Children’s Television Workshop for Public Television and creator of Sesame Street. Cooney created a study for the Carnegie Corporation on the possible use of television for preschool education. Acting on her own findings, she solicited funds to develop a program for television. For this, she was the winner of the Emmy and Peabody Awards, along with other honors.


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.


Barbara Holdridge Arts, Business 1929 New York 2001

Barbara Holdridge

Year Honored: 2001
Birth: 1929 -
Born In: New York
Achievements: Arts, Business

Barbara Holdridge is the co-founder of Caedmon Records, the first commercially successful project to record and distribute the works of living authors as well as recordings of past literary works by distinguished actors.


Maya Angelou Arts 1928 Missouri 1998

Maya Angelou

Year Honored: 1998
Birth: 1928 - 2014
Born In: Missouri
Achievements: Arts

Poet, author and early Civil Rights advocate. Angelou’s early career was in the theater, and she co-wrote Cabaret for Freedom to raise funds for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, for which she later became northern coordinator. She raised social consciousness through writings such as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Heart of a Woman. She was a nominee for a Tony, an Emmy, and a Pulitzer Prize.


Maria Tallchief Arts 1925 Oklahoma 1996

Maria Tallchief

Year Honored: 1996
Birth: 1925 - 2013
Born In: Oklahoma
Achievements: Arts

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.


Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Arts, Business, Philanthropy 1922 1996

Wilhelmina Cole Holladay

Year Honored: 1996
Birth: 1922 - 2021
Achievements: Arts, Business, Philanthropy

Founder of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., which brings national and international attention to the vast achievements of women in art.


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.


Gwendolyn Brooks Arts 1917 Kansas 1988

Gwendolyn Brooks

Year Honored: 1988
Birth: 1917 - 2000
Born In: Kansas
Achievements: Arts

Poet and novelist. Brooks was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize (Annie Allen, 1949). She was very active in the Black arts movement.