Education

Biography

Anna Julia Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper was a groundbreaking educator, activist, and author who changed the trajectories of many young Black women .

Biography

Lucy Diggs Slowe

Lucy Diggs Slowe was an educator and administrator who paved the way for many African American women in education.

Biography

Susan G. Komen

Susan G. Komen's name became synonymous with breast cancer awareness throughout the 90s and early 2000s, but who was Susan G. Komen?

Biography

Gerda Lerner

Gerda Lerner, the “godmother of women’s history,” fled Nazi-occupied Austria and became an accomplished historian and advocate for female scholars.

Lesson Plan

The Legacy of Historical Sites featured in Black Feminist DC

In Spring 2023, the National Women's History Museum partnered with a class at Miss Hall's School, an independent high school for girls in Massachusetts, to create a discussion guide for select sites featured in "We Who Believe in Freedom."

Lesson Plan

Women, Education, Sports, and Title IX

How has Title IX impacted women in education and sports over the last 5 decades?

Biography

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Bernice Johnson Reagon is a renowned composer, historian, musician, and activist.

Biography

Loretta Ross

Loretta Ross is an academic and activist who has dedicated many years to advocating for women’s rights and reproductive justice.

Biography

Barbara R. Johns

As a teenager, Barbara Johns helped organize a strike that eventually led to the desegregation of schools in the United States.

Biography

Matilda Joslyn Gage

Famously referred to as “the woman who was ahead of the women who were ahead of their time,” author, activist, and lecturer Matilda Joslyn Gage fought for abolition, women’s rights, and Native American rights.

Biography

Mamie Phipps Clark

Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark was a pathbreaking psychologist whose research helped desegregate schools in the United States.

Biography

Sarah B. Cochran

Once called America's only Coal Queen, Sarah B. Cochran was a coal industry leader and philanthropist in an era when American women could not universally vote or serve on juries.

Biography

Alma Woodsey Thomas

As an artist and world traveler who never married or had children, Alma Woodsey Thomas circumvented society’s expectations for Black women born in the 19th century.

Biography

Antonia Novello

A dedicated public health advocate, Antonia Novello made history as the first female and first Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General in 1990.

Biography

Dorothy Boulding Ferebee

The founder of the Mississippi Health Project and the Southeast Neighborhood House, Dr. Dorothy Ferebee provided healthcare to the most vulnerable members of the African American community.

Biography

June Almeida

June Almeida serves as a role model for determination and innovation. As the person to identify the first human coronavirus, scientists, and people all over the world, are indebted to her work.

Biography

Kati Karikó

Karikó’s research and perseverance proved that mRNA vaccines were possible and paved the way for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to end the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Biography

Dr. Rebecca Crumpler's "A Book on Medical Discourses"

Rebecca Lee Crumpler

Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the first African American woman to receive a Medical Degree (MD) in the United States.

Lesson Plan

Dolores Huerta and the Delano Grape Strike

The Delano Grape Strike represents one of the most important labor movements in American history and demonstrates an intersection between the Civil Rights Movement and the movement initiated by the Mexican-American and Filipino-American communities.

Lesson Plan

How do we remember and honor the contributions of women in public space?

The objective of this lesson is to help students thinking critically about public history and the decision-making that goes into designing and advocating for public memorials to commemorate women in American history.