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Contrary to the Disney movie and other myths, Pocahontas, daughter of a Powhattan chieftain in 17th century Virginia, did not marry John Smith. She did, however, convert to Christianity and get baptized under the name "Rebecca," in order to become the wife of white colonist John Rolfe, who made a fortune as a tobacco grower.
Born free in Delaware, this indomitable woman nonetheless joined escaped slaves in Canada and founded a newspaper, The Provincial Freeman in 1854, where her editorials called on those still in bondage to run away. After the civil war, she became the first female law student at Howard University, practiced law and campaigned for women's rights.
Originally a success on the English stage, Keene settled in New York City in 1855 and became the first woman to manage her own theatre and theatrical company. Her production of "Our American Cousin" was playing at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was assassinated. Keene's dress cuff, stained with what is purportedly the slain president's blood—she cradled his head after he was shot—is in the Smithsonian Museum.
"Our Nig" (1859) was the first novel by an African-American published in the United States. There is a statue of her now in Wilson's birthplace of Milford, New Hampshire.
In 1871, the flamboyant "free love" advocate, journalist and investment counselor Woodhull declared herself a candidate for president representing the Equal Rights Party. Her platform included an eight-hour work day, graduated income tax, and new divorce law. Since women could not yet vote, her campaign did not get far.
In 1873, the law school graduate Lockwood was the first woman admitted to appear before the Supreme Court. She had fought for that right for seven years. Her first case was a divorce, which she won and, for the first time in history, included a judgment forcing the husband to pay alimony.
The twenty-four year old Webb became wife number twenty-seven to Mormon leader Brigham Young in 1869. She ran away and hid for six years, but when she began to speak up—giving newspaper interviews and going on the lecture circuit—her courage was responsible for federal legislation banning polygamy in the territories in 1882.
Beals prided herself on her "hustle" and urged other women to get some. A rare sight in Buffalo, New York in the first decade of the 20th century was Beals dragging her 8x10 camera to fires and floods and standing on ladders to photograph courtroom scenes over the transom. Eventually, she traveled the country and established her own studio in New York City.
Suffragist and adventurer Peck became the first woman to scale the forbidding mountain peak in 1895, writing magazine articles to pay for the expedition. In 1911, at the age of 61, she climbed Mt. Coropuna in Peru, placing a "Votes for Women" banner at the summit.
A former mother's helper who walked with a limp after an early bout with polio, Fannie Farmer became head of the Boston Cooking School. Until then, recipes were handed down by word of mouth and Farmer's book, with precise recipes, was considered such a risky proposition in 1896 that she had to pay for publication herself. It made her a wealthy woman.
Wald first studied medicine, then moved to the immigrant lower east side of New York, where she trained nurses to educate and treat the poor, an activity that became the Henry Street Settlement House. In 1914, a week after the United States entered World War I, Wald was one of the leaders of a 1500-woman peace march, which included female representatives of all the warring nations.
The first woman elected to Congress was Jeanette Rankin, elected to represent Montana in 1916. When she voted "no" on entering World War I, however, the state's citizens did not re-elect her. In 1940, she again ran on a peace platform and won a second seat in the House. 1968, at the age of 88, she campaigned once again for peace by demonstrating against the war in Viet Nam.
Crosby, a high living American who ran off to Paris in the Roaring Twenties, had been brought up wearing underwear that was "a boxlike armor of whalebone." Dressing for dinner, she improvised a garment from two silk handkerchiefs and pink ribbon. In 1914, she patented the design and tried, unsuccessfully, to sell her invention to New York stores. A friend eventually sold the patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company.
The longest-working and most respected female director of her time in Hollywood, Arzner directed Clara Bow in "The Wild Party" (1927), a female buddy movie that was Paramount's first talkie. On that set, she devised a boom microphone. Arzner also directed movies starring Katharine Hepburn and Joan Crawford.
At the 1948 Olympics, Cochman's gold in the high jump competition put her in the record books. A track and basketball star at Tuskegee Institution, Coachman participated in sports against the wishes of her father, who, she said, wanted his daughters to be "dainty, sitting on the front porch."
Until 1954, no African-American woman had received the coveted Oscar nomination for a starring role, but Dorothy Dandridge was a knockout in "Carmen Jones," an adaptation of Bizet's Opera, "Carmen." She lost to Grace Kelly. The first African-American to appear on the cover of Life magazine, Dandridge's fame sputtered into years of trouble and she died in 1965 at the age of 42 of a drug overdose the coroner deemed "undetermined" as accidental or purposeful.
After she won the right of women to attend universities in her native Guatemala, Moreno came to the U.S. in 1928 and could only find work in a sweatshop. To fight the abuses there, she organized a Latina garment workers' union. Later, she did the same for cigar factory workers in Florida, food processors in the Southwest and cannery employees in California.
Denied a job as umpire for not meeting height and weight requirements, Gera sued in 1969. Three years later, she won her case and took to the field for a minor league game in Geneva, New York. After reversing herself on a call and incurring the wrath of other officials, Gera quit and went to work in the Public Relations Department of the New York Mets.
Amidst a media frenzy and surrounded by a police escort, 20 year old Diane Crump arrived at Hialeah Racetrack in February 1969 to make history as the first female jockey in a pari-mutuel race. After a winning year, she broke the same barrier by riding in the Kentucky Derby the following May. Not until an injury forced her to hang up her tack in 1990 did Crump step down from the saddle.
earned a starting spot in the top-notch auto race at Indianapolis in 1977 and the Daytona 500 the same year. Her ninth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 (1978), with a team she formed and managed herself, was the best by a woman until 2005.
Women had been trying to enter the astronaut program since the 1960's, when NASA required them to wear high heels and hose during qualifying tests. Eventually, by 1983, astrophysicist Sally Ride broke the gender barrier, traveling as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
In 1969, Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress, where one of her first actions was to introduce the Equal Rights Amendment on the House floor. She spoke out often about sexism and in support of reproductive rights and in 1972, campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination, which went to George McGovern.
In 1966, Steele went on the air at WNEW in New York City, where she became the first female radio disk jockey. Known as "the nightbird," Steele proved herself a knowledgeable promoter of progressive rock and her show remained one of the most popular radio programs until 1979.
In 1959, armed with a Columbia University law degree, Ginsburg could not get work as a lawyer because she was, in her words, "a woman, a Jew and a mother to boot." She became director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1972 and by August 1993, when President Clinton made her his first high court appointment, she had proven it was possible to dismantle many discriminations against women written into federal law.
Confirmed on January 29, 2001, the nation's 24th Secretary of Labor is also the first Asian-American woman to be appointed to a President's cabinet. She arrived in the U.S. at the age of eight and spoke no English. Because of her own experience transitioning to a new country, she has dedicated her life to promoting and protecting workers and to make sure they have the access and opportunity to build better lives for themselves and family.
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