Important Figures in Women's History

For most of history, Virginia Woolf suggested, Anonymous was a woman. And for the most part, even those women whose names we know have not gotten their due. Celebrate some of the many women who have shaped our world with these profiles and biographies.

  • Mary Jackson at work at NASA
    Biography of Mary Jackson, NASA's First Female Black Engineer
  • Catharine Beecher
    Catharine Beecher: Activist for Women in Education
  • Portrait of Queen Isabella I of Castile
    Biography of Isabella I, Queen of Spain
  • Harriet Tubman
    Biography of Harriet Tubman: Freed Enslaved People, Fought for the Union
  • Isabella d'Este by Titian
    Biography of Isabella d'Este, Patron of the Renaissance
  • Victoria, Queen and Empress, 1882
    Biography of Queen Victoria, Queen of England and Empress of India
  • Angela Davis at First News Conference
    Biography of Angela Davis, Political Activist and Academic
  • Boudicca and the Burning of London
    Biography of Boudicca, British Celtic Warrior Queen
  • Katherine Howard
    Biography of Catherine Howard, Queen of England
  • A map of Salem Village
    Biography of Mary Sibley, Witness in the Salem Witch Trials
  • Lorraine Hansberry in 1960
    Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Creator of 'Raisin in the Sun'
  • Elizabeth of York, 1501
    Biography of Elizabeth of York, Queen of England
  • Helen Pitts Douglass
    Helen Pitts Douglass
  • Frida Kahlo, shown about 1940
    Biography of Frida Kahlo, Mexican Surrealist and Folk Art Painter
  • The grave marker of Martha Carrier
    Biography of Martha Carrier, Accused Witch
  • Catherine Parr
    Biography of Catherine Parr, Sixth Wife of Henry VIII
  • Salem Village Map from Upham
    Biography of Elizabeth Parris, Accuser in the Salem Witch Trials
  • Anne Neville
    Biography of Anne Neville, Wife and Queen of Richard III of England
  • Mary, Queen of Scots
    Biography of Mary, Queen of Scots
  • Painting of Marie Antoinette with her children
    Biography of Marie Antoinette, Queen Executed in the French Revolution
  • Caxton Stained-Glass Window with Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville
    Biography of Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
  • Empress Matilda
    Biography of Empress Matilda, Contender for the English Throne
  • Portrait of Coco Chanel
    Biography of Coco Chanel, Famed Fashion Designer and Executive
  • Christina of Sweden, about 1650
    Biography of Christina, Unconventional Queen of Sweden
  • Martha Corey and her accusers
    Biography of Martha Corey, Last Woman Hung in the Salem Witch Trials
  • Lucrezia Borgia with her father, Pope Alexander VI
    Biography of Lucrezia Borgia, Daughter of Pope Alexander VI
  • Physicist Marie Curie in 1930
    Marie Curie: Mother of Modern Physics, Researcher of Radioactivity
  • Illustration of Mary Somerville
    Biography of Mary Somerville, Mathematician, Scientist, and Writer
  • Angelina Grimke, circa 1820s
    Biography of Angelina Grimké, American Abolitionist
  • Hildegard of Bingen, from the Eibingen Abbey
    Biography of Hildegard of Bingen, Mystic, Writer, Composer, Saint
  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
    Biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Women's Suffrage Leader
  • Cleopatra painting
    Biography of Cleopatra, Last Pharaoh of Egypt
  • Sojourner Truth
    Biography of Sojourner Truth, Abolitionist and Lecturer
  • A Sybil Ludington statue at the Offner museum at Brookgreen Gardens in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
    Biography of Sybil Ludington, Possible Female Paul Revere
  • Dorothy Height
    Biography of Dorothy Height: Civil Rights Leader
  • Alice Walker in 1989
    Biography of Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize Winning Writer
  • Lucy Stone, circa 1865
    Biography of Lucy Stone, Abolitionist and Women's Rights Reformer
  • Mary Parker Follett
    Biography of Mary Parker Follett, Management Theorist
  • Elizabeth Blackwell circa 1850
    Biography of Elizabeth Blackwell: First Woman Physician in America
  • Barbara Bush
    Biography of Barbara Bush: First Lady of the United States
  • A painting of Betsy Ross and her assistants sewing the first American flag
    Biography of Betsy Ross, American Icon
  • Shirley Chisholm in 1972
    Biography of Shirley Chisholm, First Black Woman in Congress
  • Betty Friedan
    Biography of Betty Friedan, Feminist, Writer, Activist
  • Molly Ivins laughing in 1986
    Biography of Molly Ivins, Sharp-Tongued Political Commentator
  • Blossoming cherry trees at Arlington National Cemetary
    Biography of Mary Custis Lee, Gen. Robert E. Lee's Wife
  • Mother Jones
    Biography of Mother Jones, Labor Organizer and Agitator
  • Hyperpyron of Alexius I Comnenus
    Biography of Anna Comnena, the First Female Historian
  • Catherine the Great
    Biography of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia
  • The Marriage of Henry I of England and Matilda
    Biography of Matilda of Scotland, Wife of Henry I of England
  • 1831 header of Garrison's newspaper The Liberator
    Biography of Maria W. Stewart, Groundbreaking Lecturer and Activist
  • Calamity Jane
    Biography of Calamity Jane, Legendary Figure of the Wild West
  • Carrie Chapman Catt in the 1920s
    Biography of Carrie Chapman Catt, Suffragette, Activist, Feminist
  • Lydia Maria Child
    Biography of Lydia Maria Child, Activist and Author
  • Alice Paul, about 1920
    Biography of Alice Paul, Women's Suffrage Activist
  • Edmonia Lewis
    Biography of Edmonia Lewis, American Sculptor
  • Crystal Eastman
    Biography of Crystal Eastman, Feminist, Civil Libertarian, Pacifist
  • Baldwin I and Judith of France painting
    Biography of Judith of France
  • Jacqueline Kennedy during a 1961 visit to Paris
    Biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady
  • A lap desk
    Biography of Judith Sargent Murray, Early Feminist and Writer
  • Lil Hardin Armstrong
    Biography of Lil Hardin Armstrong, Early Jazz Instrumentalist
  • Marian Wright Edelman, 2003
    Biography of Marian Wright Edelman, Children's Rights Activist
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