Historical Firsts
The 1972 federal law that ensures equal funding for both male and female sports/educational programs.
What is Title IX?
Born into slavery, this abolitionist is famous for her 1851 "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. (Hint: a prominent Milwaukee domestic violence prevention and advocacy center is named after her.)
Who is Sojourner Truth?
This NASA mathematician, portrayed in a 2016 film, calculated the flight trajectories for the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Katherine Johnson (1918 – 2020)
This German entrepreneur invented the first coffee filter using blotting paper to improve coffee taste.
Who is Melitta Bentz?
The first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
Who is Amelia Earhart?
She is a Pakistani activist for female education who was shot by a Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt targeting her for her activism. She survived and went on to become the youngest Nobel Prize laureate.
Who is Malala Yousafzai
This teenaged student was arrested in March of 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a White passenger on a Montgomery Bus.
Claudette Colvin (1939-2026)
After experiencing streetcar drivers opening the window to wipe off snow from the front window, this real estate developer and rancher developed a manual, dashboard-controlled, lever-operated, windshield-wiper system.
Who is Mary Elizabeth Anderson?
This African American woman was the first woman to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol (2005).
Who is Rosa Parks?
This late Supreme Court Justice spent her career fighting for gender equality and women’s rights. She was known for wearing her stylish collars over her robes that came to symbolize a long-overdue feminine energy on the Supreme Court.
Who is Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
This 19th-century mathematician is considered the first computer programmer for her work on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.
Ada Lovelace (1815 –1852)
Tired of drying dishes by hand, this woman from Ohio invented the first successful automatic dishwasher in 1886.
Who is Josephine Cochrane?
She became the first woman to be nominated for the presidency by a major US political party in 2016.
Who is Hillary Clinton?
An American attorney, politician, jurist, and civil rights activist, who served as an alderperson and judge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and as secretary of state of Wisconsin (1979–1983). She was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Who is Vel Phillips?
This woman was a nurse during the American Civil War, she assisted in distributing medical supplies. In 1881, she established the American Red Cross and served as the president until 1904.
Clara Barton (1821-1912)
This Hollywood actress co-invented a "frequency hopping" system during WWII that paved the way for secure Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
Who is Hedy Lamarr?
The first Polish physicist and chemist to win a Nobel Prize, for her work in the discovery of radiation.
Who is Marie Curie?
She is of Ojibwe and Jewish decent. This indigenous environmentalist is known for her work on tribal land claims (protesting the Dakota access pipeline) and preservation, as well as sustainable development. In 1996 and 2000, she ran as the vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket.
Who is Winona LaDuke?
This woman was the first Indian born woman to travel to space. She was also a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia’s STS-87 mission.
Kalpana Chawla (1962-2003)
This American nurse from Queens, New York, invented a closed-circuit television system for surveillance due to increasing crime rate in her neighborhood.
Marie Van Brittan Brown