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Get advice from women in your industry by clicking on one of the links below!
Women Impacting Public Policy
www.wipp.org
National Association of Women Business Owners
www.nawbo.org
National Women’s Business Council
www.nwbc.gov
Women Entrepreneurs, Inc.
www.we-inc.org
Women Construction Owners & Executives
www.wcoeusa.org
Women’s Leadership Exchange
www.womensleadershipexchange.com
Women in Engineering Organization (WIEO)
www.engineering.tufts.edu/wieo/
Association for Women Industrial Engineers (AWIE)
www.awidweb.com
Association for Women in Science (AWIS)
www.awis.org
Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network (WEPAN)
www.wepan.org
The Association for Women in Communications (AWC)
www.womcom.org
Association for Women in Construction (NAWIC)
www.nawic.org
First Women
Politics
1872 |
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Victoria Claflin Woodhull, a suffragist, became the first woman presidential candidate in the United States in 1872, despite the fact that women did not have the right to vote. |
1887 |
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Susanna Medora Salter—First woman elected mayor of an American town (Argonia, Kansas, 1887). |
1916 |
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Jeannette Rankin, founding vice president of the American Civil Liberties Union, was the first woman to be elected to the US House of Representatives (Montana, 1916). |
1925 |
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After accepting the seat left by her deceased husband, William Bradford Ross, Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman to serve as governor of a state (Wyoming, 1925). |
1932 |
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Hattie Wyatt Caraway—First woman elected to the US Senate (Arkansas, 1932). |
1933 |
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Frances Perkins—First woman member of a presidential cabinet as secretary of labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933). |
1964 |
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Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman nominated for president of the United States by a major political party, at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco. The year was 1964 and Smith, a moderate Republican, lost the nomination to Barry Goldwater. |
1984 |
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Running with Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984, Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket. The pair lost to the re-election of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. |
1990 |
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Dr. Antonia Novello—First woman to be sworn in as US Surgeon General (1990). |
1993 |
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Shiela Widnall—First woman secretary of a branch of the US military as head of the Air Force (1993). |
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Janet Reno—First woman US Attorney General (1993). |
1997 |
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In 1997 Madeleine Albright was sworn in as US Secretary of State. She was the first woman in this position and at the time was the highest-ranking woman in the United States government. |
2005 |
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Condoleezza Rice—First African-American female Secretary of State (2005). |
2007 |
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In January 2007 Nancy Pelosi was the first woman to be elected Speaker of the House in the 200 years since Congress was created. She was also the first Californian and the first Italian American to be elected to the position. |
2008 |
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In the 2008 race for the democratic presidential nomination, Clinton won more primaries and delegates than any other woman in U.S. history. After President Barack Obama selected her to be his Secretary of State, she became the first former First Lady to hold the position. |
Business
1795 |
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Anne Parrish—Founded the first charitable organization for women in America, The House of Industry (Philadelphia, 1795). |
1934 |
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Lettie Pate Whitehead—First American woman to serve as a director of a major corporation (The Coca-Cola Company, 1934). |
1967 |
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In 1967 Muriel “Mickey” Siebert was the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of its member firms. Because she ascended to these positions, she is commonly referred to as the “First Woman of Finance.” |
1977 |
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Juanita Kreps—First woman director of the New York Stock Exchange; Later became the first woman appointed US Secretary of Commerce (1977). |
Law
1869 |
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Arabella Mansfield—First woman lawyer (1869). |
1870 |
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Ada H. Kepley—First woman lawyer to graduate from a law school (1870). |
1879 |
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Belva Ann Lockwood—First woman allowed to practice before the US Supreme Court (1879). |
1981 |
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Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman justice on the US Supreme Court. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, she was seen as having centric views, and her centric ruling style made her the deciding vote between the more conservative justices and the liberal justices on many cases. |
1985 |
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Penny Harrington—First female police chief of a major US city (Portland, Oregon, 1985). |
2009 |
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Sonia Sotomayor becomes the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice and the third female justice. |
The Arts
1896 |
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Alice Guy-Blaché was the first woman film director. In 1896 she shot the first of her more than 300 films, a short feature called La Fee aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy). A true film pioneer, her film was also one of the first fiction films to be produced. |
1921 |
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Edith Wharton—First woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel The Age of Innocence (1921) |
Education
2007 |
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Drew Gilpin Faust—First woman selected as president of a university (Harvard University, 2007). |
Religion
1853 |
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Antoinette Blackwell—First American woman to be ordained a minister in a recognized denomination (1853). |
Science
1849 |
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Elizabeth Blackwell—First woman in the US to earn her M.D. degree (1849). |
1903 |
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In 1903 Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics for research into radiation. Later, in 1911, she also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry after she discovered the chemical elements radium and polonium. |
1963 |
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Valentina Tereshkova—First woman to enter space (June 16, 1963). |
Athletics
1926 |
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In 1926 Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel. She made it across in 14 hours and 31 minutes, a time better than those of all five of the men who swam the Channel before her. |
1946 |
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Edith Houghton—First woman hired as a major league baseball scout (1946). |
1970 |
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Diane Crump—First female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby (1970). |
2000 |
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Jacqueline Ingrassia was the first woman to win the Triple Crown (2000). |
Journalism
1976 |
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Barbara Walters—First female newscaster on a network news program (1976). |
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