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

Dorothea Dix Humanities 1802 Maine 1979

Dorothea Dix

Year Honored: 1979
Birth: 1802 - 1887
Born In: Maine
Achievements: Humanities

One of the nation’s earliest and most effective advocates for better care of the mentally ill. When Dix saw that such people were badly treated in institutions, she lobbied nationwide for humane treatment and reform.


Alice Paul Humanities 1885 1979

Alice Paul

Year Honored: 1979
Birth: 1885 - 1977
Achievements: Humanities

Social reformer. Reared a Quaker, Paul found most of the women’s suffrage movement too slow and passive. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1912, she campaigned aggressively for women’s suffrage, using picketing and demonstrations to draw attention to the issue. Paul founded the women’s party, which demanded passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.


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.


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.


Sojourner Truth Humanities c.1797 New York 1981

Sojourner Truth

Year Honored: 1981
Birth: c.1797 - 1883
Born In: New York
Achievements: Humanities

Abolitionist born a slave who became a Quaker missionary. Truth eventually became a traveling preacher of great influence who worked in the antislavery movement. She learned about women’s rights, and adopted that cause as well. She went on to counsel and help newly freed African Americans.


Carrie Chapman Catt Humanities 1859 Wisconsin 1982

Carrie Chapman Catt

Year Honored: 1982
Birth: 1859 - 1947
Born In: Wisconsin
Achievements: Humanities

Tenacious women’s suffrage organizer whose efforts at the helm of the National American Women Suffrage Association put forth the “winning plan” that led to state-by-state enactments of suffrage and the final victory in 1920.


Frances Perkins Government 1880 Massachusetts 1982

Frances Perkins

Year Honored: 1982
Birth: 1880 - 1965
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Government

Public official and first woman to hold a Presidential Cabinet office and first woman Secretary of Labor. Appointed by President Roosevelt in 1932, she served for all of his terms, 1933-1945.


Lucretia Mott Humanities 1793 1983

Lucretia Mott

Year Honored: 1983
Birth: 1793 - 1880
Achievements: Humanities

Quaker anti-slavery advocate, who, after meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton, became a leader in the women’s rights movement. Mott was a planner of the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, and she remained true to her sense of justice for African Americans and women throughout her life.


Belva Lockwood Government 1830 New York 1983

Belva Lockwood

Year Honored: 1983
Birth: 1830 - 1917
Born In: New York
Achievements: Government

First woman to practice law and argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court (1879). Lockwood became a lawyer when she was 40 and used her knowledge to help secure women’s suffrage, property law reforms, pay equity and world peace. She helped open the legal profession to women.


Mary "Mother" Harris Jones Humanities 1837 Ireland 1984

Mary "Mother" Harris Jones

Year Honored: 1984
Birth: 1837 - 1930
Born In: Ireland
Achievements: Humanities

Labor organizer and agitator who was a major figure in the American labor movement. For decades, Jones spoke out and organized for social justice for workers. She worked on behalf of the United Mine Workers and other groups.


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.


Lucy Stone Humanities 1818 Massachusetts 1986

Lucy Stone

Year Honored: 1986
Birth: 1818 - 1893
Born In: Massachusetts
Achievements: Humanities

Early suffrage leader who began as an anti-slavery public advocate, followed by a lifetime of work for women’s right to vote. Stone was a sophisticated political tactician and founded The Women’s Journal, a fascinating archive of women’s history published from 1870 to 1893.


Harriet Beecher Stowe Arts 1811 Connecticut 1986

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Year Honored: 1986
Birth: 1811 - 1896
Born In: Connecticut
Achievements: Arts

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.


Barbara McClintock Science 1902 1986

Barbara McClintock

Year Honored: 1986
Birth: 1902 - 1992
Achievements: Science

Geneticist who pioneered work in maize genetics and the complex mechanisms which control and regulate cell development. McClintock helped to advance scientific understanding of this important field. In 1983 she received the first unshared Nobel Prize in medicine ever awarded to a woman.


Willa Cather Arts 1873 Virginia 1988

Willa Cather

Year Honored: 1988
Birth: 1873 - 1947
Born In: Virginia
Achievements: Arts

Newspaperwoman and editor who became an outstanding novelist with the publication of O Pioneers in 1913. Cather went on to write other great novels and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922. Her well-known works include My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop.


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.


Ida B. Wells-Barnett Arts, Humanities 1862 Mississippi 1988

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Year Honored: 1988
Birth: 1862 - 1931
Born In: Mississippi
Achievements: Arts, Humanities

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.


Sally Ride Science 1951 California 1988

Sally Ride

Year Honored: 1988
Birth: 1951 - 2012
Born In: California
Achievements: Science

First American woman astronaut (1983), when she rode aboard the Challenger into space. A scientist, Ride served as the Director of the California Space Institute at the University of California, San Diego.


Barbara Jordan Government 1936 1990

Barbara Jordan

Year Honored: 1990
Birth: 1936 - 1996
Achievements: Government

First African American woman elected to Congress from the south and the first African American woman to deliver the keynote address at the convention of a major political party (Democratic Convention, 1976). Known as having a brilliant legal mind, Jordan became a professor and lecturer after retiring from Congress.


Billie Jean King Athletics 1943 California 1990

Billie Jean King

Year Honored: 1990
Birth: 1943 -
Born In: California
Achievements: Athletics

Dominated the world of tennis for more than 20 years, winning 20 Wimbledon titles, 13 U.S. Open titles and more. King was the founder of the Women’s Tennis Association and helped create the Women’s Sports Foundation.


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.


Margaret Bourke-White Arts 1904 New York 1990

Margaret Bourke-White

Year Honored: 1990
Birth: 1904 - 1971
Born In: New York
Achievements: Arts

Trailblazing photographer, recording the Depression, London in the Blitz, Stalin and the Kremlin, World War II and more as the paramount photographer for Life, Fortune and other publications.


Gertrude Belle Elion Science 1918 1991

Gertrude Belle Elion

Year Honored: 1991
Birth: 1918 - 1999
Achievements: Science

1988 Nobel Prize winner who spent a lifetime creating drugs to combat leukemia, gout, malaria, herpes and other auto-immune diseases. Elion’s work saved many lives, and led to the development of the first major AIDS drug AZT.


Jeannette Rankin Government 1880 Montana 1993

Jeannette Rankin

Year Honored: 1993
Birth: 1880 - 1973
Born In: Montana
Achievements: Government

First woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Rankin served two separate terms representing Montana, and was the only U.S. Representative to vote against America’s entry into both World Wars. A lifelong pacifist, she worked for peace until her death.

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