Famous Firsts in Women's Achievement

Famous Firsts in Women's Achievement 

1. Mother Teresa wins the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Indian female citizen to do so.
2. Indira Gandhi becomes the first woman Prime Minister of India
3. Pratibha Devisingh Patil is the 12th and current President of the Republic of India and first woman to hold the office.
4. Mary Katherine Goddard First woman postmaster 1775
5. Betsy Ross First person to be a U.S. flagmaker 1776/77
6. Hannah Adams First woman to become professional writer 1784
7. Lucy Brewer First woman marine 1812
8. Elizabeth Blackwell First woman to receive a medical degree 1849
9. Amelia Jenks Bloomer Publisher/editor of first prominent women's rights newspaper 1849
10. Harriet Tubman First woman to run underground railroad to help slaves escape 1850
11. Lucy Hobbs First woman to graduate from dental school 1866
12. Susan B. Anthony Co-Founder of first US woman's suffrage organization 1869
13. Arabella Mansfield Babb First woman admitted to the bar 1869
14. Frances Elizabeth Willard First woman to become a college president (Evanston College) 1871
15. Victoria Chaflin Woodhull First woman to be presidential candidate 1872
16. Helen Magill First woman to receive a Ph.D. degree (Boston University) 1877
17. Belva Ann Lockwood First woman to practice law before U.S. Supreme Court 1879
18. Clara Barton Founder of the American Red Cross 1881
19. Maud Booth Co-Founder of Salvation Army and Volunteers of America 1887/96
20. Suzanna Madora Salter First woman mayor (Argonia, Kansas) 1887
21. Mary McLeod Bethune First woman to establish secondary school that became 4-year accredited college 1904
22. Founder of National Council of Negro Women 1935
23. Blanche Scott First woman to fly an airplane 1910
24. Jeannette Rankin First woman U.S. House Representative (Montana) 1916
25. Kate Gleason First woman president of a national bank 1917
26. Jeannette Rankin First woman in Congress 1917
27. Florence E. Allen First woman judge 1920
28. Hallie Ferguson First woman governor of U. S. state (Texas) 1924
29. Katherine Bement Davis First person to conduct national survey of sexual attitudes 1929
30. Jane Addams First woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize 1931
31. Hattie Wyatt Caraway First woman elected to U.S. Senate 1932
32. Amelia Earhart First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 1932
33. Ruth Bran Owen First woman foreign diplomat 1933
34. Pearl S. Buck First woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature 1935
35. Hattie McDaniel First African-American of any gender to win an Academy Award (she won for Best Supporting Actress in the film, (Gone with the Wind). 1939
36. Linda Darnell First woman to sell securities on the New York Stock Curb Exchange 1941
37. Conchita V. Cintron First U.S. woman bullfighter in Spain 1949
38. Georgia Nesse Clark First woman treasurer of the United States 1949
39. Muriel Siebert First woman to own seat on the New York Stock Exchange 1967
40. Janice Lee York Romary First woman to carry U.S. flag at the Olympic Games 1968
41. Mary Clarke First woman to be named major general in U.S. Army 1978
42. Ella Grasso First woman govenor to be re-elected (Connecticut) 1978
43. Sandra Day O'Connor First woman a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court 1981
44. Joan Benoit (Samuelson) First woman to win an Olympic marathon 1984
45. Penny Harrington First woman police chief of major U. S. city (Portland, OR) 1985
46. Ann Bancroft First woman to walk to North Pole 1986
47. Christa McAuliffe First woman citizen passenger on a space mission 1986
48. Lt. Col. Eileen Collins First American woman to pilot a Space Shuttle 1995
49. Madeleine K. Albright First woman Secretary of State and highest ranking woman in the U.S. government 1997
50. Hillary Rodham Clinton Only First Lady ever elected to the United States Senate 2000
51. Halle Berry First African-American woman to win a Best Actress Oscar 2002
52. Condoleezza Rice First African-American woman to be appointed Secretary of State
53. Ann Teresa Mathews First woman whose invention received a patent (for cleaning and curing corn) - it was granted to her husband 1715.
54. On May 23,1984 Bachendri Pal became the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest.
55. Stacy Allison is most famous for becoming the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, in 1988.