Women 100 Archive

In 2009 the U.S. appellate court judge Sonia Sotomayor became the first Latina and the third woman appointed to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

Janet Yellen is the first woman who held the post of Chair of the Federal Reserve.

Nannie Helen Burroughs was a leading educator, feminist and suffragist in the early 20th century.

Sojourner Truth was an African American evangelist and reformer active in the abolitionist and women’s rights movements.

A Quaker and early abolitionist, Lucretia Mott was a pioneer social reformer and a key founder of the organized women’s rights movement in the United States.

Alice Paul was one of the main leaders and strategists of the campaign for the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist, dancer and civil rights activist whose books explore themes of economic, racial and sexual oppression in a personal way.

Althea Gibson was the first Black player to win the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open singles championships.

Ann Preston, a pioneer women doctor, was a Philadelphia physician and educator who fought for the rights of women to learn, practice, and teach medicine in the nineteenth cent

Hillary Clinton has served as secretary of state, senator from New York, first lady of the United States and first lady of Arkansas.

Meryl Streep cemented her reputation as one of Hollywood’s finest dramatic actresses in 2003 when she received an unprecedented 13th Academy Award nomination.

Frances Harper was a social reformer who agitated for abolitionism, civil rights, and women’s suffrage. She was also the best-read Black woman poet of the 19th Century.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a social activist, abolitionist and a leading figure in the early women’s rights movement.

Billie Jean King has 39 Grand Slam titles to her name and is praised as one of the greatest tennis players of all times.

Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to become an astronaut. In 1992 she spent more than a week orbiting Earth in the space shuttle Endeavor.