The National Women’s Hall of Fame
The National Women’s Hall of Fame, founded in Seneca Falls in 1969, was created to recognize that “the contributions of American women deserved a permanent home.”
Every year in New York Village, NY, in the very same building where the First Women’s Rights Convention was held in July of 1848, women gather to induct honorees into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame recognizes women who have made outstanding contributions to the progress of women’s freedom and to society in general.
On Saturday July 11th, 1998 an additional twenty-one women were inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, including; Florence Wald, who opened the first hospice in New Haven Connecticut in 1974; Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics; Shirley Ann Jackson, first chairwoman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Roxanne Ridgway, foreign policy adviser to six presidents; Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was sworn in as the 64th United States Secretary of State in 1997 after unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, became the first female Secretary of State and the highest ranking woman in the United States government; and Julia Ward Howe, a noted suffragette and author of “the Battle Hymn of the Republic”, who was honored posthumously.
The nine inductees for 2007 were:
Martha Coffin Wright (1806 – 1875)one of five visionary women who organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848;
Henrietta Szold (1860 – 1945) who founded the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, in 1912;
Catherine Filene Shouse (1896 – 1994) the first woman to receive a Masters Degree in Education from Harvard University and the first woman appointed to the Democratic National Committee in 1919;
Dr. Judith L. Pipher (1940-) for her development of a camera for the Spitzer Space Telescope;
Winona LaDuke (1959 – ) the vice-presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket in both 1996 and 2000;
Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926 – 2004) wrote the 1969 bestseller On Death and Dying, which revolutionized the medical profession’s treatment and understanding of dying patients;
Swanee Hunt (1950 – ) recognized for her work to increase the participation and inclusion of women in peace processes around the world;
Julia Child (1912 – 2004)American cook, author, and television personality; and
Dr. Eleanor K. Baum (1940 – ) the Dean of Engineering at Cooper Union and the Executive Director of the Cooper Union Research Foundation, she is the first female engineer to be named dean of a college of engineering in the United States.
There have been 217 women inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, one of the previous inductees include: Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first First Lady to be elected to the United States Senate and the first woman U.S. Senator from New York State, was raised in Park Ridge, Illinois.
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Sources cited:
San Gabriel Valley newspaper group- the Pasadena Star news, “21 outstanding women named to Hall of fame”, Ben Dobbin, Associated Press International, 07/12/98, Section B page one through two.
www.greatwomen.org, “National Women’s Hall of Fame, Seneca Falls, NY”.
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Maybe a member of WBO will be the next woman inducted into The National Women’s Hall of Fame, one never knows!
MAY YOU NEVER THIRST….for knowledge…for beauty…for self expression………
