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.
1860-1935
Louisa May Alcott was an American author who wrote the classic novel Little Women, as well as various works under pseudonyms.
1832-1888
Susan B. Anthony was a prominent American civil rights activist and leader during the women's suffrage movement of the 1800s.
1820-1906
Nancy Astor (1879–1965) was the first woman to serve in the British Parliament, where she advocated temperance, women's rights and German appeasement.
1879-1964
Alva Belmont was a wealthy socialite who used her fortune to advance the women's rights movement of the early 1900s.
1853-1933
The daughter of famous suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot Stanton Blatch continued her mother's work in the women's rights movement.
1856-1940
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.
1818-1894
1859-1947
Militant suffragette Emily Wilding Davison fought to gain equal voting rights for British women before dying at the Epsom Derby in 1913.
1872-1913
Dorothy Day was an activist who worked for such social causes as pacifism and women’s suffrage through the prism of the Catholic Church.
1897-1980
1821-1910
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.
1826-1898
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.
1792-1873
1820-1905
Activist and lawyer Belva Lockwood was the first woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1830-1917
Mary Mahoney became the first black woman to complete nurse's training in 1879.
1845-1926
Lucretia Mott was a leading social reformer of her time and helped to form the Free Religious Association.
1793-1880
1858-1928
Suffragette Alice Paul dedicated her life's work to women's rights and was a key figure in the push for the 19th Amendment.
1885-1977
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. She helped pass the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, and was a committed pacifist.
1880-1973
Charlotte E. Ray was the first female African-American lawyer in the United States.
1850-1911
Civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger, spurring the Montgomery boycott and other efforts to end segregation.
1913-2005
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was an American community leader and women's rights activist who focused particularly on issues affecting African-American women.
1842-1924
Margaret Sanger was an early feminist and women's rights activist who coined the term "birth control" and worked towards its legalization.
1879-1966
Rose Schneiderman was a labor activist, union leader and social reformer. She held labor-related positions in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration during the Great Depression.
1882-1972
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was the first female minister in the Methodist Protestant Church. She spent most of her life working for the cause of women's suffrage.
1847-1919
Kate Sheppard was a leader in the New Zealand women's suffrage movement, helping women gain the right to vote in New Zealand.
1847-1934
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an early leader of the woman's rights movement, writing the Declaration of Sentiments as a call to arms for female equality.
1815-1902
Lucy Stone was a leading activist and pioneer of the abolition and women's rights movements.
1818-1893
Helen Taft was a schoolteacher, political adviser and U.S. First Lady who was the wife of President William Howard Taft.
1861-1943
Mary Church Terrell was a charter member of the NAACP and an early advocate for civil rights and the suffrage movement.
1863-1954
Outspoken and ambitious, Dorothy Thompson became a well-known journalist during the 1930s to the 1950s.
1893-1961
Sojourner Truth is best known for her extemporaneous speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?", delivered at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851.
1797-1883
Mary Walker was a physician and women's rights activist who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War.
1832-1919
Julia Ward Howe was a women's rights activist, abolitionist and writer who penned the poem "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
1819-1910
Ida B. Wells was an African-American journalist and activist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890s.
1862-1931
1787-1870
1871-1955
Victoria Woodhull was a spiritualist, activist, politician and author who was the first woman to run for the presidency of the United States.
1838-1927