Women’s

History

Month

1809Mary Kies becomes the first woman to be granted a patent. It was for

weaving straw with silk.

1849Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the

first U.S. woman to have a medical degree.

1901

Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1872Victoria Claflin Woodhull became the first US woman nominated for President of the United States by the National Radical Reformers

party.

1981Sandra Day O’Conner first woman to be appointed to the United States

Supreme Court.

1997Madeleine Albright becomes the first

woman selected as Secretary of State and the highest ranking female

government official ever.

Women by the Numbers• 1.6 million

– Number of women veterans of the armed forces.

• 56%– Percentage of female college students.

• 2.9 million– Estimated lifetime earnings of a

woman with a professional degree that works full time all year long.

Women

That Run the

Business

Shelly LazarusChairman

and CEO of the biggest ad agency, Ogilvy

& Mather. Some of

the companies clients include: Ford, IBM, Mattel and American Express. In 1997 she took over for former CEO Charlotte Beers.

Mary Kay Ash (1915-2001)

Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. The

Company currently has over 300,000 sales people in 19 countries and $1 billion in sales.

Cathleen Black

President of Hearst Magazine Division, the largest publisher of magazines worldwide. Some of its publications include: Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar.

Meg Whitman

President of CEO of eBay Technologies, arguably the largest personal online

trading company. She is steadily leading her company as one of the few

dot-com enterprises to be realizing a profit.

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and

lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a

woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and

gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could

work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard

me! And ain't I a woman?

~Sojourner Truth, 1851

Akron, Ohio

Sojourner TruthCarrie Chapman Catt

If this be true, the time is past when we should say: "Men and women of America,

look upon that wonderful idea up there; see, one day it will come down." Instead, the time

has come to shout aloud in every city, village and hamlet, and in tones so clear and

jubilant that they will reverberate from every mountain peak and echo from shore to

shore: "The woman's Hour has struck." Suppose suffragists as a whole do not

believe a crisis has come and do not extend their hands to grasp the victory, what will

happen? Why, we shall all continue to work and our cause will continue to hang, waiting for those who possess a clearer vision and more daring enterprise. On the other hand,

suppose we reach out with united earnestness and determination to grasp our victory while it still hangs a bit too high? Has

any harm been done? None!

~Carrie Chapman Catt, The Crisis

Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. I wish him well!

~Barbara Bush from the 1990 Wellesley College Commencement

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

~Eleanor Roosevelt, 1960