Famous Firsts by American Women

Virginia Dare is the first person born in America to English parents (Roanoke Island, Virginia).

Anne Bradstreet's book of poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, is published in England, making her the first published American woman writer.

Henrietta Johnston begins to work as a portrait artist in Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, making her the first known professional woman artist in America.

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Mary Katherine Goddard and her widowed mother become publishers of the Providence Gazette newspaper and the annual West's Almanack, making her the first woman publisher in America. In 1775, Goddard became the first woman postmaster in the country (in Baltimore), and in 1777 she became the first printer to offer copies of the Declaration of Independence that included the signers' names. In 1789 Goddard opened a Baltimore bookstore, probably the first woman in America to do so.

Anne Catherine Hoof Green takes over her late husband's printing and newspaper business, becoming the first American woman to run a print shop. The following year she is named the official printer for the colony of Maryland.

Mother Bernardina Matthews establishes a Carmelite convent near Port Tobacco, Maryland, the first community of Roman Catholic nuns in the Thirteen Colonies. (The Ursuline convent established in New Orleans in 1727 was still in French territory.)

Suzanne Vaillande appears in The Bird Catcher, in New York, the first ballet presented in the U.S. She was also probably the first woman to work as a choreographer and set designer in the United States.

Anne Parrish establishes, in Philadelphia, the House of Industry, the first charitable organization for women in America.

Mary Kies becomes the first woman to receive a patent, for a method of weaving straw with silk.

Elizabeth Ann Seton establishes the first American community of the Sisters of Charity, in Emmitsburg, Maryland. In 1975 she became the first native-born American to be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

Elizabeth Blackwell receives her M.D. degree from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y., becoming the first woman in the U.S. with a medical degree.

Antoinette Blackwell becomes the first American woman to be ordained a minister in a recognized denomination (Congregational).

Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College.

Lucy Hobbs becomes the first woman to graduate from dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery.

Arabella Mansfield is granted admission to practice law in Iowa, making her the first woman lawyer. A year later, Ada H. Kepley, of Illinois, graduates from the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is the first woman lawyer to graduate from a law school.

Victoria Claflin Woodhull becomes the first woman presidential candidate in the United States when she is nominated by the National Radical Reformers.

Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to be admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earns her B.S. degree. She becomes the first female professional chemist in the U.S.

Belva Ann Lockwood becomes the first woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mary Baker Eddy establishes the Church of Christ, Scientist, becoming the first woman to found a major religion, Christian Science.

Sarah E. Goode becomes the first African-American woman to receive a patent, for a bed that folded up into a cabinet. Goode, who owned a furniture store in Chicago, intended the bed to be used in apartments.

Susanna Medora Salter becomes the first woman elected mayor of an American town, in Argonia, Kansas.

Alice Guy Blaché, the first American woman film director, shoots the first of her more than 300 films, a short feature called La Fee aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy).

H.H.A. Beach's "Gaelic Symphony" is the first symphony by a woman performed in the United States, and possibly the world.

On October 24, 1901, Annie Edson Taylor, a schoolteacher from Michigan, becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Mary Davenport-Engberg is the first woman to conduct a symphony orchestra, in Bellingham, Washington.

Jeannette Rankin, of Montana, is the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

American novelist Edith Wharton becomes the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She wins the award for her novel The Age of Innocence.

Rebecca Felton, of Georgia, is appointed to the U.S. Senate to fill a temporary vacancy. The first woman senator, she serves for only two days.

Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to serve as governor of a state, in Wyoming. In the fall of 1924 she was elected to succeed her deceased husband, William Bradford Ross. (Miriam Amanda "Ma" Ferguson is inaugurated governor of Texas days later.)

American Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

Maxine Dunlap becomes first American woman to earn a glider pilot license.

Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, traveling from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Ireland in approximately 15 hours.

Hattie Wyatt Caraway, of Arkansas, becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

Frances Perkins is appointed secretary of labor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, making her the first woman member of a presidential cabinet.

Lettie Pate Whitehead becomes the first American woman to serve as a director of a major corporation, The Coca-Cola Company.

On October 23, 1934, American adventurer Jeanette Piccard sets an altitude record for female balloonists when she ascends 57,579 feet.

Mother Maria Frances Cabrini (1850-1917) is canonized by Pope Pius XII. She is the first U.S. citizen (she was born in Italy) to become a saint.

Edith Houghton becomes the first woman hired as a first major-league baseball scout.

Jerrie Cobb is the first woman in the U.S. to undergo astronaut testing. NASA, however, cancels the women's program in 1963. It is not until 1983 that an American woman gets sent into space.

Oveta Culp Hobby becomes the first woman to serve as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. She is also the first director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), and the first woman to receive the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal.

Jacqueline Cochran breaks the sound barrier by flying an F-86 over Roger's Dry Lake, California, at the speed of 652.337 miles per hour. Eleven years later, she flies at a speed of 1,429.2 miles per hour, more than twice the speed of sound.

Margaret Chase Smith, of Maine, becomes the first woman nominated for president of the United States by a major political party, at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

Patsy Takemoto Mink, of Hawaii, is the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 24 years.

Muriel "Mickey" Siebert becomes the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of its member firms.

Althea Gibson is the first African-American tennis player to win a singles title at Wimbledon.

Shirley Chisholm, of New York, becomes the first African-American woman in Congress. Her motto is, "Unbought and unbossed." She served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years.

Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) becomes the first black woman U.S. Representative.

Diane Crump becomes the first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby.

Sally Jean Priesand is ordained as the first woman rabbi in the United States.

Juanita Kreps becomes the first woman director of the New York Stock Exchange. She later becomes the first woman appointed Secretary of Commerce.

Elizabeth Ann Seton is canonized, making her the first American-born saint.

Sarah Caldwell becomes the first woman to conduct at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.

Sandra Day O'Connor is appointed by President Reagan to the Supreme Court, making her its first woman justice.

Dr. Sally K. Ride becomes the first American woman to be sent into space.

Geraldine Ferraro is the first woman to run for vice-president on a major party ticket.

Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, of Florida, becomes the first Hispanic woman elected to congress. She serves in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In Boston, the Reverend Barbara C. Harris becomes the first woman consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as U.S. Surgeon General, becoming the first woman (and first Hispanic) to hold that job.

On January 2, Sharon Pratt Dixon is sworn in as mayor of Washington, DC, becoming the first black woman to serve as mayor of a major city.

Carol Moseley-Braun, of Illinois, becomes the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

Mae Jemison becomes the first black female astronaut.

Shiela Widnall becomes the first secretary of a branch of the U.S. military when she is appointed to head the Air Force.

Janet Reno becomes the first woman U.S. attorney general.

Toni Morrison becomes the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature.

Madeleine Albright is sworn in as U.S. secretary of state. She is the first woman in this position as well as the highest-ranking woman in the United States government.

During Operation Desert Fox in Iraq, Lt. Kendra Williams, USN, becomes the first U.S. female combat pilot to bomb an enemy target.

Lt. Col. Eileen Collins is the first woman astronaut to command a space shuttle mission.

Nancy Ruth Mace is the first female cadet to graduate from the Citadel, the formerly all-male military school in South Carolina.

Hillary Clinton is elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first First Lady ever elected to national office.

Condoleezza Rice becomes the first African-American female Secretary of State.

Effa Manley, co-owner of the Negro Leagues team Newark Eagles, becomes the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) becomes the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Harvard University names Drew Gilpin Faust its first woman president in the school’s 371-year history.

Dr. Peggy Whitson, an American astronaut, becomes the first woman to command the International Space Station.

Hillary Clinton wins the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, becoming the first woman in U.S. history to win a presidential primary contest.

Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, becomes the first woman to run for vice president on the Republican ticket.