American Society & Values
Documents & Texts from the Washington File
08 April 2008
Milestones in U.S. Women's History
1848 U.S. Women’s Rights Movement is sparked at a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Delegates issue a Declaration of Sentiments calling for equality with men, including the right to vote.
Related article: “Seneca Falls Convention Began Women’s Right’s Movement.”
1849 Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States. She becomes a pioneer in women's education in medicine.
1851 Abolitionist and former slave Sojourner Truth gives her famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" to the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. She is an eloquent champion of the rights of African Americans and women.
Related article: “Sojourner Truth.”
1869 Wyoming, then a U.S. territory, is the first jurisdiction to grant women the right to vote. Many Wyoming legislators -- all male -- hope it will attract more single marriageable women to the region.
1881 Clara Barton founds the American Red Cross, expanding on the original concept of the International Red Cross to include assisting in national disasters as well as wars.
Related article: “Clara Harlowe Barton.”
1916 Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to Congress, serving two nonconsecutive terms. She casts the only vote in Congress against war on Japan after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Related article: “Jeannette Pickering Rankin.”
1920 The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, becomes law when it is ratified by two-thirds of the states. The League of Women Voters is founded.
Related article: “League of Women Voters Educates U.S. Electorate.”
1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross is the first woman governor of a state (Wyoming). In 1933, she is appointed first female director of the U.S. Mint.
1926 Gertrude Ederle is the first woman to swim the English Channel. Only five men had swum the Channel before her, and she cuts two hours off their fastest time.
1931 Jane Addams is the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Addams is an advocate for the poor, a pacifist, a reformer, and a feminist.
Related article: “Jane Addams.”
1932 Amelia Earhart makes the first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic. She is the first woman to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
1932 Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas is the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She is also the first to chair a Senate committee and to preside over the Senate.
Related article: “Hattie Wyatt Caraway .”
1933 Frances Perkins is sworn in as secretary of labor. She was appointed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the first woman ever to serve in the U.S. Cabinet.
1953 Jacqueline Cochran is the first woman to break the sound barrier. During her career, she sets more speed and altitude records than any of her contemporaries, male or female.
1955 Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, thus sparking the U.S. civil rights movement.
Related article: “U.S. Marks 50th Anniversary of Montgomery Bus Boycott.”
1962 Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, calls attention to the dangers of agricultural pesticides. It inspires a national environmental movement in the United States.
Related article: “Rachel Carson: Pen Against Poison.”
1963 Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique, which galvanizes the women’s rights movement. The Equal Pay Act prohibits paying women less than men for the same job.
1964 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of race or sex.
Related article: “Nation Celebrates Anniversary of Landmark Civil Rights Law.”
1968 Shirley Chisholm is the first black woman elected to Congress. She makes an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972.
Related article: “Shirley Chisholm Dead at 80.”
1972 Title IX of the Education Amendments bans sex discrimination in schools. Enrollment of women in athletics programs and professional schools increases dramatically.
1978 “Women’s History Week” is first celebrated in Sonoma County, California. (Congress first passes a resolution on National Women’s History Week in 1981.)
1981 Sandra Day O'Connor is the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, serving until 2006. Jeane Kirkpatrick becomes the first female U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Related article: “Sandra Day O’Connor.”
1983 Sally Ride is the first American woman in space, flying on the shuttle Challenger. She flies a second shuttle mission in 1984.
Related article: “Women Star in Cosmic Quest.”
1984 Geraldine Ferraro becomes the first woman nominated for vice president by a major party -- the Democrats -- when she is selected as Walter Mondale’s running mate.
1987 Congress expands Women’s History Week to a monthlong event celebrated in March.
Related article: “Women’s History, Accomplishments Celebrated Every March.”
1993 Toni Morrison becomes the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Janet Reno is the first woman attorney general of the United States.
1997 Madeleine Albright is sworn is as the first woman U.S. secretary of state. Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, she became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
2005 Condoleezza Rice is the first African-American woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state.
Related article: “Biography of Condoleezza Rice.”
2007 Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the most powerful posts in the U.S. government.
Related article: “First Female Speaker to Preside at State of Union.”
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