Women in STEM
Who was the first female engineer?
Edith Clarke, inventor of the Clarke calculator, an early version of the graphing calculator.
When was the 19th Amendment ratified?
August 18, 1920
Who was the first woman to anchor a news show?
Barbara Walters
What month is Women's History Month?
March
Who was the first computer programmer?
Ada Lovelace was the first person to recognize that computers had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have the first algorithm to be executed by a computer.
The 19th amendment prohibited Native American, Black, Latina and Asian women from voting. All women gained the right to vote in 1965 when Lyndon B Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, outlawing discriminatory tactics like literacy tests, and allowing all women and POC the right to vote.
Who was the first female Justice on the United States Supreme Court?
Sandra Day O'Connor
When was Women's History Day first observed?
Women's History Month began as a single day, February 28th 1909, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the garment workers' strikes when 15,000 women marched through lower Manhattan. Immigrant women who worked in garment factories held a strike to protest their working conditions.
Who was credited with creating the term software engineering while developing the software for the systems of the Apollo spacecraft?
Margaret Hamilton
Until what year were women not allowed to compete in the Olympics?
1928
In 1987, who became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Aretha Franklin
When did Women's History Day become Women's History Week?
Women's History Week was first observed in early March 1978 by educators in Sonoma County, CA. They wanted to draw attention to the fact that women's history was not included in K-12 curriculums at that time.
What computer scientist has both a Cray computer and a guided missile destroyer named after her?
Admiral Grace Hopper
What year were women allowed to have credit cards in their own name?
Women could not have their own credit cards independent from a man until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974.
Which artist was known for her self-portraits and depiction of Mexican folk culture?
What year did Congress pass a law to officially designate March as Women's History Month?
1987
What famous Hollywood starlet is considered the Mother of Wifi?
Hedy Lamarr was a movie star and scientist who pioneered frequency hopping. The basic concept was for radio signals to jump frequencies so quickly that enemies couldn't jam the signal. Frequency hopping was so advanced it couldn't be used when it was invented in the 1940s, the Navy began using frequency hoping during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today it forms the basis of how cell phones and other wireless communication work.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was the main organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention.
Who wrote and delivered the famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" advocating for equal human rights for all women.
Sojourner Truth was an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, as well as civil and women's rights.
What is the 2023 Women's History Month Theme?
This year the National Women's History Alliance declared the theme to be "Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories" to "encourage the the recognition of women, past and present, who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling including print, radio, tv, stage, screen, blogs, podcasts, news and social media"