Biographies

Madam C.J. Walker was an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist. She rose from poverty in the South to become one of the wealthiest African American women of her time.

A 2020 MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant winner, Nanfu Wang uses film to explore the relationship between individuals and governments.

LaNada War Jack is an indigenous activist, who since childhood, has fought to preserve Native American identity and tribal rights.

Mercy Otis Warren was a published poet, political playwright and satirist during the age of the American Revolution.

Martha Dandridge Custis Washington was the first First Lady of the United States.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a prominent journalist, suffragist, activist, and researcher.

We’wha, a Lhamana (Zuni Two Spirit) individual, took on both male & female tasks as a Zuni cultural ambassador and pottery and textile artist. Also a spiritual leader, We’wha endeavored to preserve the history, traditions, & knowledge of the Zuni people.

Despite spending much of her life enslaved, Phillis Wheatley was the first African American woman to publish a book of poems.

One of the greatest jazz pianists, composers, and arrangers of all time, Mary Lou Williams was a swing and bebop icon.

Considered the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, and perhaps the greatest athlete of all time, Serena Williams has revolutionized women’s tennis since the 1990s.

Brownie Wise was a self-made woman who revolutionized marketing tactics and had a knack for motivating others. She introduced the now popular household item, Tupperware, to the market.

Alice Wong is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community that fosters and amplifies disability media and culture.

Appearing in over sixty movies throughout her career, Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood.

The first woman to run for president and the first female stock broker on Wall Street, Victoria Woodhull achieved remarkable success in finance, journalism, and politics.

Most known for her work on the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II and her Cobalt-60 experiment that contested the law of conservation of parity, Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu’s pioneering work is regarded as a standard among physicists today.

Dr. Janet Yellen, confirmed in January 2021 as the first female Treasury Secretary of the United States, is no stranger to breaking glass ceilings.

At age eleven, Malala Yousafzai was already advocating for the rights of women and girls.

One of America’s foremost female athletes, Mildred "Babe” Didrikson Zaharias broke world records in multiple sports and cofounded of the LPGA.

Zitkála-Šá (“Red Bird”), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Native American musician, writer and activist who fought for women's suffrage and Indigenous voting rights in the early 20th century.