Honored: 2001 (1892 - 1926)
The first licensed black female aviator. She earned her international pilot's license in 1921 and gained fame during the next five years for her air acrobatics and highflying stunts. She dreamed of starting a school to train black aviators.
Honored: 1993 (1921 - 2006)
Reshaped American attitudes toward women's lives and rights through decades of social activism, strategic thinking and powerful writing. Her book The Feminine Mystique (1963) triggered the contemporary women's movement. Her latest work is the best-selling The Fountain of Age.
Honored: 2005 (1925 - )
Former first lady of Arkansas, Betty Bumpers has dedicated herself to world peace and health initiatives for children across the United States. As First Lady of Arkansas, Mrs. Bumpers spearheaded an immunization program in her state that became a national model. She also co-founded Every Child by Two with Rosalynn Carter, a national immunization program. Mrs. Bumpers is active in the global campaign to eradicate polio.
Honored: 1994 (1923 - )
Religious leader. Schiess led the successful effort in 1974 to have women ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church in America, elevating the position of women in the Episcopal Church at all levels.
Honored: 1998 (1929 - 2007)
Acclaimed Soprano who became the first woman General Director and then President of the New York City Opera, and later first woman chair of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, guiding the Center to become one of the nation's most important institutions. She was not only directly responsible for the discovery and launch of many young performers, but was also actively involved in a myriad of humane works, including the National Victim Center and (as National Chair) the March of Dimes Mothers March on Birth Defects.
Honored: 2011 (1915 - 1959)
Considered by many to be one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time, Billie Holiday forever changed the genres of jazz and pop with her unique style. Holiday began her career as a singer in Harlem nightclubs in 1931, without formal musical training. She went on to record and tour with a number of famous musicians like Benny Goodman and Lester Young, and officially began recording under her own name in 1936. Holiday, known for her deeply moving and personal vocals, remains a popular musical legend more than fifty years after her death.
Honored: 1990 (1943 - )
Dominated the world of tennis for more than 20 years, winning 20 Wimbledon titles, 13 U.S. Open titles and more. King was the founder of the Women's Tennis Association and helped create the Women's Sports Foundation.
Honored: 2005 (1889 - 1970)
Born in Rochester, New York, Scott was a pioneering aviatrix, becoming the first American woman to take a solo hop into the air, although her flight is not regarded as official. In 1910, she became the first woman to drive an automobile coast to coast in her car - the ‚"Lady Overland". Scott was also the first and only woman to take flying lessons from Glenn Curtiss, later flying with the Curtiss Exhibition Team and earning the nickname ‚"Tomboy of the Air".
Honored: 1982 (1859 - 1947)
Tenacious women's suffrage organizer whose efforts at the helm of the National American Women Suffrage Association put forth the "winning plan" that led to state-by-state enactments of suffrage and the final victory in 1920.
Honored: 1994 (1916 - 1996)
"The midwife of the contemporary women's movement," as described by Betty Friedan. East was a key staffer on President John F. Kennedy's first-ever Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in the 1960s. East persuaded Friedan and others to create the National Organization for Women to lead the drive to eliminate gender discrimination.
