Where Would I Be Now? Women's History Month

History, Art, and Archives

Patsy Takemoto Mink

Attorney and Politician

She graduated (1951) from the University of Chicago Law School. She and her husband, John Mink, returned to Hawaii, starting her own law practice, becoming the first woman of Japanese American ancestry to practice law in Hawaii.

Mink was elected (1964) to the United States House of Representatives, becoming the first woman of color elected to the national legislature and the first Asian American congresswoman.

She was the first East Asian American woman to seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. She ran in the 1972 election, entering the Oregon primary in 1971 as an anti-war candidate.

National Women's Hall of Fame

Congress.gov

National Women's History Museum

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm

American Politician, Author, Writer, and Activist

She was the first African American woman in Congress (1968) and the First woman and African American to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties (1972).

Her motto and title of her autobiography—Unbossed and Unbought—illustrates her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

National Women's History Museum

National Archives

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton

American Politician, Diplomat, Lawyer, Writer, and Public Speaker

She served as the First Lady of the United States to the 42nd President, Bill Clinton. She went on to become a U.S. Secretary of State and U.S. Senator from New York. In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

White House First Families

Where Would I Be Now...?

If THERE WERE NO FOOTPRINT IN THE SAND

Carrying Me Far

Women Politicians Pioneer

Hear Leona Lewis singing "Footprint in the Sand on YouTube, The lyrics describe the legacy these women have left us.

Someone has paved the way! Listen

There are several Footprint in the Sand poems. Each can inspire and motivate us to action.

Jeannette Rankin

First Member of Congress

Before the Nineteenth Amendment, Jeannette Rankin, as legislative secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, helped gain women in her native Montana the right to vote in 1914. Two years later, she was the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress.

National Governors Association

Nellie Tayloe Ross

First State Governor

She was elected the first woman governor of Wyoming in November 1924, replacing her husband mere weeks after William Ross’s sudden death. Wyoming had been the first state in the U.S. to allow women full voting rights. She died in Washington, D.C. at the age of 101.

Rebecca Latimer Felton

American Writer, Lecturer

Reformer, and Politician

First U.S. Senator

Served for one Day

She was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930) of Georgia was appointed to fill a vacancy on October 3, 1922. She took the oath of office on November 21, 1922 and served only 24 hours while the Senate was in session. The 87-year-old Felton's largely symbolic Senate service capped a long career in Georgia politics and journalism.

History, Art, and Archives

Hattie Caraway (D-AR)

Second Woman to

Serve in the Senate

First Woman to be Elected

in the Senate

She filled a vacancy caused by the death of her husband, Thaddeus Caraway, appointed to the Senate in 1931. The second woman to serve in the Senate, Caraway became the first woman elected to the Senate in January of 1932, easily winning a special election to fill out the remainder of her husband's term. Hattie Caraway broke many gender barriers in the Senate, including becoming the first woman to chair a Senate committee in 1933 and the first woman to preside officially over the Senate in 1943.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

Frances Perkins

Secretary of Labor and the First Woman to Serve as a

Cabinet Secretary

She was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) Secretary of Labor and the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. She was in every respect a self-made woman who rose from humble beginning from New England origins to become America’s leading advocate for industrial safety and workers’ rights.”

“I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen."

Frances Perkins was the principal architect (she was at the table) of the New Deal, credited with formulating policies to shore up the national economy following the nation’s most serious economic crisis and helping to create the modern middle class.

Frances Perkins Center

Cora Mae Brown

Social Worker

the First African American Woman Elected (rather than appointed) to a (Michigan) State Senate in the United States

She won her seat in the Michigan State Senate. She was a member of Michigan State Senate, 1953-56 (2nd District 1953-54, 3rd District 1955-56); and candidate in Democratic primary for U.S. Representative from Michigan 1st District, 1956.

Brown was an early civil rights advocate in the Senate. She battled for her principals and beliefs.

She supported Eisenhower (1956) and was appointed Special Associate General Counsel of the U.S. Post office in 1957.

African American Registry® (the Registry)

Michigan Legislature Biography-Library of Michigan

Where Would I Be Now...?

IF I HAD NO SHOULDERS TO STAND ON

Triumph Champions

Nancy Pelosi

52nd Speaker of the House of Representatives

She made history in 2007 when she was elected the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House. Now in her third term as Speaker, Pelosi made history again in January 2019 when she regained her position second-in-line to the presidency, the first person to do so in more than 60 years.

For 33 years, Speaker Pelosi has represented San Francisco, California’s 12th District, in Congress.

As Speaker, Pelosi is fighting For The People, working to lower health care costs, increase workers’ pay through strong economic growth and rebuilding America, and clean up corruption to make Washington work for all.

History.gov

Speaker.gov

Wikipedia

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Politician and Lobbyist

First Cuban American and Latina and First Republican Woman Elected to the House from Florida

She represented Florida's 27th congressional district from 1989 to 2019. By the end of her tenure, she was the most senior U.S. Representative from Florida. She was Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2011–2013. In 1989, Ros-Lehtinen won a special election and became the first Cuban American and Latina elected to Congress.

National Women's History Museum

Lisa Blunt Rochester represents three historic first: (1): Delaware was the first state in the United States to ratify the U.S. Constitution; (2) on January 3, 2017, she became the first woman and (3) the first African American to represent Delaware in Congress.

It was noted that during her swearing-in, she carried a scarf imprinted with her great-great-great-grandfather's Reconstruction Era voter registration card. He had been a slave.

On January 6, 2021, during the insurrection at the Capitol she was captured praying. See the Powerful Video of Congresswoman Praying for Protection From Inside the Capitol Building.

Also, see her Tweet feedback and offer to love.

Congress.go v

About Lisa

Geraldine Ferraro

First Woman Named a

Vice-Presidential Candidate

for a Major Party

Three-term New York Congresswoman

“There are no doors we cannot unlock. We will place no limits on achievement. If we can do this, we can do anything, Ferraro said July 19, 1984, during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco."

Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale loss to former California Governor Ronald Reagan. He won the 1980 Republican nomination for President of the United States, and chose former Texas Representative George H. W. Bush as his running mate.

History

Smithsonian Magazine

Kamala Devi Harris

American Politician and Attorney

First Woman Vice President

First African American and First Asian American

She served as a United States Senator from California from 2017 to 2021 (Democrat) and as the attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017. She ran for presidency for 2020 but withdraw due to lack of support. Joe Biden selected her as his Vice President running mate.

Harris became 49th Vice President upon inauguration in January 2021 alongside President Joe Biden, having defeated the incumbent President, Donald Trump, and Vice President, Mike Pence, in the 2020 election.

White House.gov

Politico Magazine

Janet Louise Yellen

First Woman Treasury Secretary

First Woman, Chair of the Federal Reserve

She is an economist by training; she took office after almost fifty years in academia and public service.

She is formerly a distinguished fellow in residence at the Brookings Institution.

Treasury.gov

NPR

Congresswoman Cori Bush

First Black Woman and First

Woman to Represent Missouri’s First Congressional District

She is a registered nurse, community activist, organizer, single mother, and ordained pastor for the people of St. Louis. Congresswoman Bush is serving her first term as the representative of Missouri’s 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.

She is the first activist from the movement fighting for Black lives elected to the United States Congress.

House.gov

Sandra Day O'Connor

Arizona Court of Appeals Judge, retired Attorney, and Politician

First Woman Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

United States

She was nominated by President Ronald Reagan (Republican). She held her position from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. On August 12, 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.