Female Activists a to z

Grace Abbott is best known for her social activism on behalf of immigrants and children. She headed the Children's Bureau from 1921 to 1934.

Bella Abzug was a leading liberal activist and politician in the 1960s and 1970s, especially known for her work for women’s rights.

Joy Adamson was a conservationist who pioneered the movement to preserve African wildlife. She won renown with her books about raising the lion cub Elsa.

Jane Addams co-founded one of the first settlements in the United States, the Hull House in Chicago, Illinois, and was named a co-winner of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize.

Actress Jane Alexander won Emmy Awards for her roles in Playing for Time and Warm Springs. In 1992, she became chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Pamela Anderson first gained fame in the pages of Playboy and rose to international fame with her role on Baywatch. She garnered more fame in 2010, when she competed on Dancing with the Stars.

Susan B. Anthony was a prominent American civil rights activist and leader during the women's suffrage movement of the 1800s.

Actress Christina Applegate played Kelly Bundy on the popular sitcom Married... With Children. She is a breast cancer survivor and publicly promotes awareness.

Bea Arthur was an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress who starred in the television shows Maude and The Golden Girls.

Brooke Astor was a philanthropist who served on the boards of many cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Joan Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter and activist who is best known for her distinctive voice and for her role in popularizing the music of Bob Dylan.

Civil rights activist Ella Baker worked with the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Josephine Baker was a dancer and singer who became wildly popular in France during the 1920s. She also devoted much of her life to fighting racism.

Social activist and pacifist Emily Greene Balch won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for being a lifetime advocate of the persecuted and oppressed.

Brigitte Bardot is a French dancer, model and actress who became an international icon in the 1950s and '60s with films like And God Created Women and Contempt.

Film actress Kim Basinger won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in L.A. Confidential. She married actor Alec Baldwin in 1993.

Daisy Bates was an African American civil rights activist and newspaper publisher who documented the battle to end segregation in Arkansas.

Alva Belmont was a wealthy socialite who used her fortune to advance the women's rights movement of the early 1900s.

Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator and activist, serving as president of the National Association of Colored Women and founding the National Council of Negro Women.

Mum Betts (Elizabeth Freeman) was the first slave to successfully sue for her freedom, encouraging Massachusetts to abolish slavery.

Jessica Biel is a Hollywood sex symbol and actress, known for her work in the series 7th Heaven and films like The Illusionist and Total Recall.

Linda Blair is an Academy Award-nominated actress and animal activist known for her role as a demonically possessed girl in The Exorcist.

The daughter of famous suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot Stanton Blatch continued her mother's work in the women's rights movement.

Amelia Bloomer was a women's rights activist. She advocated for changes in women's fashion that would be less restrictive. "Bloomers" are named after her.

Model Christie Brinkley embodies the all-American look that dominated the fashion industry in the 1980s, during which she appeared on over 200 magazine covers.

Linda Brown was the child associated with the lead name in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, which led to the outlawing of U.S. school segregation in 1954.

Molly Brown was best known for her social welfare work on behalf of women and children, and for surviving the Titanic sinking.

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist, environmentalist and writer who alerted the world to the environmental impact of fertilizers and pesticides.

Judy Chicago is an American artist, educator and writer, and a leading figure in feminist art. She received critical acclaim in the 1970s for her art project "The Dinner Party."

Actress Julie Christie won an Academy Award for her role in Darling, and earned a second nomination for her performance in McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

After writing radio and television plays for the BBC, British playwright Caryl Lesley Churchill penned the controversial theatrical play Seven Jewish Children.

Septima Poinsette Clark was a pioneering educator and activist who championed teacher’s rights with organizations like the NAACP.

When Hillary Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2001, she became the only American first lady to hold national office. She became the 67th U.S. secretary of state in 2009, serving until 2013.

Teacher Marva Collins was one of the most influential education activists of the 20th century, working to gain equal access for minorities to quality education.

Claudette Colvin was a civil rights activist in Alabama during the 1950s. She refused to give up her seat on a bus months before Rosa Parks' more famous protest.

Angela Davis is an activist, scholar and writer who advocates for the oppressed. She has authored several books, including Women, Culture & Politics.

Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis played Thelma in the 1991 cult classic Thelma & Louise, starring opposite Susan Sarandon.

Militant suffragette Emily Wilding Davison fought to gain equal voting rights for British women before dying at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

In 1996, Dominique Dawes won Olympic gold with the U.S. women's gymnastics team as well as an individual bronze medal—becoming the first African American to win an individual Olympic medal in women's gymnastics.

Doris Day was a singer and actress most popular in the 1950s and early-1960s. She starred in a television sitcom called "The Doris Day Show" from 1968-1973.

Dorothy Day was an activist who worked for such social causes as pacifism and women’s suffrage through the prism of the Catholic Church.

Ruby Dee is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, activist, poet and journalist, perhaps best known for starring in the 1961 film A Raisin in the Sun. She's also known for her civic work with husband Ossie Davis.

With her own talk show, Ellen DeGeneres is one of America's most well-known comedians, also serving as a prominent gay/lesbian role model.

Grammy Award-winning folk singer and songwriter Ani DiFranco's eclectic musical style and politically charged lyrics have made her both a feminist and rock icon.

Dorothea Dix was an educator and social reformer whose devotion to the welfare of the mentally ill led to widespread international reforms.

Tammy Duckworth is the first Asian-American congresswoman for Illinois and the first disabled female veteran to take a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Andrea Dworkin was an American feminist and author, an outspoken critic of sexual politics, particularly of the victimizing effects of pornography on women.

Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and human-rights activist. She was the first female judge in Iran, and won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.

Melissa Etheridge is a rock singer-songwriter and an environmental activist. Her hit songs include "I’m the Only One" and "Come to My Window."

Author and activist Myrlie Evers-Williams was the wife of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and served as chair of the NAACP 1995–1998.

Geraldine A. Ferraro was a member of Congress and the first woman to run for the U.S. vice presidency on a major party platform.

Writer, feminist and women's rights activist Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique (1963) and co-founded the National Organization for Women.

Margaret Fuller is best known for feminist writing and literary criticism in 19th century America.

Matilda Joslyn Gage was an author and one of the leading figures in the women's rights and suffrage movement that began in the mid-1800s.

Janeane Garofalo is an Emmy Award-nominated TV and film actress, comedian and political activist known for work like Reality Bites and The Truth About Cats & Dogs.

Bernice Gera became the first female umpire of a baseball game in 1972, but later resigned, reportedly because other umpires refused to work with her.

Kirsten Gillibrand is a U.S. lawyer and politician from New York who's served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, writer and lecturer, best known for her semi-autobiographical short story The Yellow Wallpaper.

The poems of Nikki Giovanni helped to define the African American voice of the 1960s, '70s and beyond. She was also a major force in the Black Arts movement.

According to legend, Anglo-Saxon gentlewoman Lady Godiva rode nude through Coventry, England in a deal to reduce taxes. She and her husband Leofric, earl of Mercia, founded a monastery at Coventry.

Jane Goodall created one of the most trailblazing studies of primates in modern times when she dwelled with Tanzanian chimps to observe their behavior.

Linda Gray is an American actress and director best known for her role as Sue Ellen Ewing on the popular series Dallas.

Abolitionist and feminist Sarah Moore Grimké and her sister Angelina were the first women to testify before a state legislature on the issue of blacks' rights.

Fannie Lou Hamer was a civil rights activists who helped African Americans register to vote and who cofounded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Alice Hamilton was a physician and authority on lead poisoning and industrial disease. The NIOSH present an award in her name.

Daryl Hannah is an actress with a wide variety of roles under her belt, from that of a mermaid in Splash to an assassin in Kill Bill: Vols 1 and 2

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Caroline Harrison married future U.S. President Benjamin Harrison in 1853. As first lady, she oversaw the installation of electricity in the White House.

Eva Hart was one of the Titanic's most outspoken survivors, criticizing the White Star Line for failing to provide sufficient lifeboats for all of the passengers of the infamous ship.

Film and television actress Tippi Hedren was discovered by director Alfred Hitchcock and starred in two of his best known films, The Birds and Marnie.

Dorothy Height was a civil rights and women's rights activist focused primarily on improving the circumstances of and opportunities for African-American women.

Maxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese American author of memoirs and fiction. Her best known work is The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among the Ghosts.

Actress and singer Lena Horne was one of the most popular performers of her time, known for films such as The Wiz and her trademark song, "Stormy Weather."

Dolores Huerta is an activist and labor leader who co-founded what would become the United Farm Workers.

Linda Hunt is a diminutive actress best known for her role as Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously.

Anthropologist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston was a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance before writing her masterwork, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Anjelica Huston is an Academy Award-winning actress, a film director and the daughter of John Huston.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th century nun, self-taught scholar and acclaimed writer of the Latin American colonial period and the Hispanic Baroque. She was also a staunch advocate for women's rights.

Naturalist Terri Irwin is well-known as the widow of wildlife expert Steve Irwin. The couple co-hosted the Animal Planet show The Crocodile Hunter.

20th century recording artist Mahalia Jackson, known as the Queen of Gospel, is revered as one of the greatest musical figures in U.S. history.

Author and activist Jane Jacobs wrote about preserving urban neighborhoods, in books like The Death and Life of Great American Cities and Dark Age Ahead.

Janet Jagan co-founded the People's Progressive Party. She was the first woman to become prime minister of Guyana and was also Guyana’s first female president.

In 1951, Barbara Johns led her fellow students in a walkout to protest school segregation. She then started a lawsuit that became part of Brown v. Board of Ed.

The wife of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson served as first lady from 1963 to 1969.

Angelina Jolie is one of Hollywood's leading actresses, known for movies like Changeling and Salt as much as she is for her relationship with actor Brad Pitt.