Discover the Women of the Hall

First woman to hold two cabinet positions as Secretary of Transportation under Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Labor for President George Bush. Dole later became President of the American Red Cross.

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.

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.

Peggy McIntosh is renowned as an educational innovator, feminist activist, author, and public speaker. McIntosh derived her understanding of white privilege from observing parallels with male privilege.

Feminist leader, writer and social activist. A founder of Ms. Magazine, Steinem also co-convened the National Women’s Political Caucus and helped create the Ms. Foundation for Women. A best-selling author, her latest works are Revolution from Within: A Book of Self Esteem for Women and Moving Beyond Words.

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.

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.

Co-founder (with Cesar Chavez) of the United Farm Workers of America, the nation’s first successful and largest farm workers union. The UFW is dedicated to helping immigrant / migrant people of all ages. Huerta is known as a brilliant organizer, speaker, lobbyist, political strategist and human rights advocate.

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.

Crusader for some of society’s most sharply disadvantaged, children of women in prison. A Sister of St. Joseph, Roulet has created many social reform and welfare organizations. She is best known for her work at the Bedford Hills Correction Center in New York, where she enabled mothers in prison to keep their babies for a year, a program now being patterned nationwide.

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.

One of the most celebrated champions of human and civil rights, Coretta Scott King, in partnership with her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ignited democracy movements worldwide. For over forty years, King traveled extensively as a messenger of peace, justice and social action. Notably, in 1974, she formed and co-chaired the National Committee for Full Employment, formed the Coalition of Conscience (1983), and co-convened the Soviet-American Women’s Summit (1990). In 1969, she became the founding president, chair and chief executive officer of The King Center, the first institution built in memory of an African American leader. As a lifelong advocate for non-violence and coalition building, King’s legacy will continue to serve as an example for years to come.

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

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.

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.

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.

Reshaped American attitudes toward women’s lives and rights through decades of social activism, strategic thinking and powerful writing. Her book The Feminine Mystique (1963) triggered the contemporary women’s movement. Her latest work is the best-selling The Fountain of Age.

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.

A Methodist bishop, Leontine T.C. Kelly was the first African American woman to be elected bishop in the United Methodist Church. She served as bishop of the California-Nevada Annual Conference and the president of the Western Jurisdiction College of Bishops. Committed to peace and justice, she was arrested several times for protesting nuclear weapons, and was one of 18 bishops who signed a letter to the Methodist Church in response to its policy toward gays and lesbians in the church.

A groundbreaking First Lady, Betty Ford is often remembered for her candor in addressing the controversial issues of her time. Shortly after she became the First Lady of the United States in 1974, Ford was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a radical mastectomy. Rather than suppressing the diagnosis, Ford courageously shared her personal story and inspired countless women across the nation to get breast examinations. In 1978, following a family intervention, Ford underwent successful treatment for addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. She again used her story to raise public awareness of addiction, and in 1982, she co-founded the Betty Ford Center to treat victims of alcohol and chemical dependency. Ford was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 and the Congressional Gold Medal, with President Gerald R. Ford, in 1999.

Mississippi sharecropper and organizer of the Mississippi Freedom Party, which challenged the white domination of the Democratic Party. Hamer succeeded in integrating the state delegation, and she was a tireless champion for poor minorities in her state and nationwide.

“The midwife of the contemporary women’s movement,” as described by Betty Friedan. East was a key staffer on President John F. Kennedy’s first-ever Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in the 1960s. East persuaded Friedan and others to create the National Organization for Women to lead the drive to eliminate gender discrimination.

Known as “the mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” when, in 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. The event sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, the first major effort in the Civil Rights struggle.

Began as a volunteer with the National Council of Negro Women. As its president and leader for forty years, she followed in the footsteps of her mentor, Mary McLeod Bethune. The NCNW represents organizations with more than four million members, works to create stong families as well as to assist young people and the needy.