Women U.S. History Timeline

By Lilly Kujawski | Editor
Claire Convis | Deputy Editor

1848: First women’s rights convention was held in the US

1849: Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman to graduate from medical school and become a doctor in the US

1851: Abolitionist Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the women’s rights convention in Ohio

1869: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton found the National Women’s Suffrage Association

1887: Susanna Salter becomes the first woman mayor in the US

1920: Women granted the right to vote in the US

1922: Rebecca Latimer Felton becomes the first US woman appointed to the Senate

1923: Soledad Chicon is elected Secretary of State in New Mexico, the first woman of color to hold a statewide elected office

1924: Cora Belle Reynolds Anderson becomes the first Native American woman in a state legislative office, elected to the Michigan House of Representatives

1932: Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman and second pilot to fly nonstop solo across the Atlantic

1960: The Food and Drug Administration approves “The Pill,” the world’s first oral birth control

1963: President John F. Kennedy passes the Equal Pay Act, outlawing sex-based wage disparity

1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, religion, sex or national origin

1968: Shirley Chisholm becomes the first Black woman to serve in Congress

1969: Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender woman and LGBTQ+ activist, is credited with spearheading the Stonewall uprising which led to a new era in the gay rights liberation movement

1973: The Supreme Court rules on Roe V. Wade, deeming a pregnant woman’s right to choose an abortion constitutionally protected

1976: Mary Rose Oakar becomes the first Arab American woman elected to Congress.

1985: Wilma Mankiller becomes the first woman to serve as Chief of the Cherokee Nation

1993: Marital rape outlawed in all 50 states

1993: Janet Reno becomes the first woman to serve as US Attorney General

1998: Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly LGBTQ+ woman to be elected to the US Congress. In 2012 she became the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to the US Senate.

2001: Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected to the US Senate from New York, the only first lady ever elected to a public office

2005: Condoleezza Rice becomes the first Black woman to serve as US Secretary of State

2007: Nancy Pelosi becomes the first woman to serve as US Speaker of the House

2012: Maizie Hirono becomes the first Pacific Islander and the second woman of color to be elected to the US Senate

2016: Catherine Cortez Masto becomes the first Latina to be elected to the US Senate

2016: Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the first woman to be a major party’s nominee for president

2017: Senator Elizabeth Warren becomes the first woman to serve as vice chair of the Senate Democratic Conference

2019: Six women formally announce their candidacy for US president

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