Every March is Women’s history month; this national celebration highlights the often overshadowed achievements of women throughout history while commemorating their contributions to society. It is a month dedicated to all the years women have fought for their rights and a reminder to continue fighting.
Female historical figures and their achievements in order of appearance:
Amelia Earhart championed the advancement of women in aviation and was the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean.
Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and political activist who led 13 missions and freed 70 enslaved people through the Underground Railroad.
Rosalind Franklin discovered the molecular structure of DNA. Her colleague Maurice Wilkins shared her findings with Francis Crick and James Watson, who then published their double-helix theory of DNA using her research and later won a Nobel Peace Prize for it. In Watson’s book The Double Helix, he described Franklin as an antagonistic and overly emotional woman despite stealing her research.
Alice Ball was an African-American chemist who developed a technique that used a water-soluble form of chaulmoogra oil to treat leprosy, also known as the Ball Method.
Mary McLeod Bethune was a passionate educator and presidential advisor. Her long public service career made her one of the earliest black female activists that laid the foundation for the modern civil rights movement.
Alice Paul was one of the most prominent activists during the women’s suffrage movement in the 20th-century. She tirelessly led the charge for women’s suffrage and equal rights in the United States
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a prominent investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement as well as one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Inez Milholland Boissevain was a leader in the American women’s suffrage movement most well known for leading the 1913 women’s suffrage parade in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Renee Richards is an ophthalmologist and former tennis player. She was one of the first professional athletes to identify as transgender. She sued the U.S. Tennis Association for gender discrimination and won, allowing her to play in the U.S. Open.
Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American particle and experimental physicist who made significant contributions in the fields of nuclear and particle physics, most known for her work on the Manhattan Project.
Sally Ride was the first American woman to travel to space, an engineer, physicist, former director of the California Space Institute, and a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego.
Charlotte Cushman was an icon of 19th-century theatre which played both male and female roles and widely challenged the conventions of gender and sexuality.
Jane Addams was a settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author who paved the way for modern social work.
Florence Nightingale was a nurse during the Crimean War, mostly known for making hospitals considerably cleaner and safer. She helped nursing transition from a mostly untrained profession to a highly skilled and well-respected medical profession.
Rosa Parks is often called “the mother of the civil rights movement.” Her refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, and her subsequent arrest launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott on Dec. 1, 1955.
Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women’s rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement.
Gloria Steinem is an American feminist journalist, social-political activist, and nationally recognized as a leader and spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Angela Davis is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author who spoke out about prison reform, women’s rights, racial equality, the inequality of capitalism, and advocated for the LGBTQ+ community.
Annie Londonderry was the first woman to bicycle around the world who challenged popular conceptions of what it meant to be female.
Dolores Huerta is an American labor leader and civil activist who co-founded the National Farmworkers Association with Cesar Chavez.
Effa Manley was the first woman to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of her advocacy for the Negro National League.
Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel, beating the previous record by two hours.
