Discover the Women of the Hall

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.

Nurse who was the first woman since founder Margaret Sanger, and first African American to become president of the Planned Parenthood Foundation. Wattleton developed Planned Parenthood into an influential nationwide organization.

First American woman ordained a minister by a recognized denomination (Congregational), despite great opposition to women in the ministry. Blackwell was a pastor, mother of seven children, and wrote many books and essays.

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.

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.

Catalyst for change in the labor, women’s and consumer movements. The driving force behind President Kennedy’s creation of the first Presidential Commission on Women in 1962, Peterson headed the Women’s Bureau in the Department of Labor. She also served Presidents Johnson and Carter, and served at the United Nations under President Clinton.

Attorney and civil rights advocate who founded the Children’s Defense Fund, the nation’s strongest advocacy group for children. A passionate champion for youth, Edelman’s organization works on health care and assistance for homeless children.

Founder of CHILDFIND, a nationwide organization which helps locate missing children. Yerkovich developed the program after her own daughter was abducted. Her concept was the prototype for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Member of the Omaha Tribe and a tireless campaigner for native American rights. La Flesche was the first Native American published lecturer, artist and author. She helped change national perceptions about the rights of Native Americans.

Premier behind-the-scenes organizer and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by Martin Luther King, Jr. Baker also helped establish the civil rights movement’s foremost student organization, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

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.

“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.

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.

Paiute leader who dedicated her life to returning land stolen by the government back to the tribes, especially the land of her own Paiute Tribe.

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.

Following a forced retirement at age 65, Kuhn began work forming the Gray Panthers, an organization which addressed age discrimination and pension rights. Kuhn also addressed large public issues, including nursing home reform, forced retirement and fraud against the elderly.

Best known as the co-author (with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony) of The History of Women’s Suffrage. She served in the National Women’s Suffrage Association and helped form suffrage groups in order to gain the right to vote for women.

African American leader from New England. Ruffin was a suffragist, fought slavery, and founded several organizations for African American women, including the Boston branch of the NAACP and the League of Women for Community Service.

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.

Political activist central to the campaign to pass the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Serving as National Campaign Director as well as in her home state of Tennessee, she led a march of 2,000 women in the South’s first suffrage parade in 1914.

First woman to own, operate and edit a newspaper for women, The Lily. First published in 1849 in Seneca Falls, New York, it became a recognized forum for women’s rights issues. She often wore full-cut pantaloons under a short skirt, giving birth to the term “bloomers.”

The only American woman to found a lasting American-based religion, the Church of Christ (Scientist). Her personal struggles led her to believe in a system of prayer-based healing. In 1908, two years before her death at 89 she started The Christian Science Monitor.

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.

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.