Suffragists/Trailblazers | Look Up to Her

Suffragists & Trailblazers

Abigail Adams

Sojourner Truth

Abigail Adams born in 1744 is best known for reminding her husband, John Adam, 2nd President of the United States, and his fellow revolutionaries in 1776 to “remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams made a far more rebellious statement 40 years later. At age 71, she wrote her will, ignoring the fact that the document had no legal standing whatsoever.

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth, was born into slavery but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. She devoted her life to abolishing slavery and advocating for women’s rights. She became famous for her speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention.

Clara Barton

Sojourner Truth

Harriet Tubman

Clara Barton, born in 1821, thought of herself the equal of any man. She is best known for founding the Red Cross during the Civil War, but she was also a teacher and worked as a

patent clerk, at the same rate of pay as the men, unheard of at the time. Clara’s legacy lives on today through the American Red Cross.

Harriet Tubman

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman, the embodiment of courage and determination, became known as the “Moses of her people”. Born into slavery, she escaped and helped others gain their freedom through the Underground Railroad. She also served as a scout, spy, soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military.

Susan B. Anthony

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Susan B. Anthony, born in 1820 was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society. She is the most well known of the Suffragists and the 19th Amendment was nicknamed the "Susan B Anthony Amendment:."

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American suffragist, social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the Seneca Falls Convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized women's rights and women's suffrage movements in the United States.. Stanton was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1890 until 1892.

Ida B. Wells

Jeannette Rankin

Ida B. Wells was an American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the

civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Wells arguably became the most famous black woman in America, during a life that was centered on combating prejudice and violence, who fought for equality for African Americans, especially women

Jeannette Rankin

Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress in 1916 – four years before women gained the right to vote nationwide. She was a life-long women's rights advocate and the first woman to hold federal office in

the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916, and again in 1940.

Alice Paul

Jeannette Rankin

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Alice Paul formed the National Woman’s Party. She was arrested and jailed for protesting outside of the White House and she and several other suffragists were forcibly fed

during their imprisonment. While many suffragists left activism after the 19th Amendment passed, Alice Paul believed the true battle for equality had yet to be won. She announced that she would be working for a new constitutional amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (1896 –1966) was a Chinese advocate for women's suffrage in the United States, a member of the Women's Political Equality League, She became a well-known figure in the women's suffrage movement and rode horseback in the 1912 New York pro-suffrage parade. In 1917, women in New York were allowed to vote and then in 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment allowed all American women the right to vote. However, as an immigrant, Lee was unable to vote because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Nellie Tayloe Ross

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Nellie Tayloe Ross

Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected the first woman Governor in the United States. She had a progressive agenda devoted to banking reform, and laws protecting children and women workers. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Ross as director of the U.S. Mint, also making her the first woman to hold that position.

Gladys Pyle

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee

Nellie Tayloe Ross

Gladys Pyle was the first woman elected to the United States Senate for the state of South Dakota in 1938 without having previously been appointed to her position; she was also the first female senator to serve as a Republican, the first female senator from South Dakota and also the first unmarried female senator.

Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin

Native American lawyer and suffragist Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin was a member of the Chippewa Tribe in North Dakota. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Baldwin as a clerk to the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA). In 1911, Baldwin chose to be photographed in traditional dress for her personnel file photo, a radical act for its time. At the age of 49, Baldwin enrolled at Washington College of Law in 1912. She graduated in two years becoming the first woman of color and Native American to earn a law degree from the college.

Rosa Parks

Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin

The United States Congress has called Rosa Parks "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". Parks was hugely influential in gender equality movements as well. She became the face of modern civil rights and empowered many people to raise their voices in support of equal rights for all people, regardless of gender, color, age or economic status. Her story continues to inspire the world.

#LookuptoHER because of her determination, perseverance, resilience and fearlessness.

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