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 worked tirelessly to advocate for abolition, women’s rights, and Native American rights.

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.

Adelina Otero-Warren, the first Hispanic woman to run for U.S. Congress and the first female superintendent of public schools in Santa Fe, was a leader in New Mexico’s woman’s suffrage movement.

According to Antonia Hernández, she “went to law school for one reason: to use the law as a vehicle for social change.” Decades later, she can claim numerous legal victories for the Latinx community in voting rights, employment, and education.

An educator, translator, and clubwoman, Lopez helped win the vote for Californian women with her oratory and the writings she translated into Spanish.

On September 6, 1870, 70-year-old Louisa Ann Swain stepped up to the ballot box in Laramie, Wyoming and cast her vote in the general election. In doing so, she became the first woman to legally cast a ballot in a general election since 1807.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was the first African American woman to publish a short story and was also an influential abolitionist, suffragist, and reformer.