Reflection on Women who paved the way

It's always a great idea to take time to remember where we came from and how we got where we are, today. In thinking of the prospects for women in the coming decade, we've compiled a list of some of the great women of history to remind us of where we've been in the past, and what the possibilities are for the future of women's rights.


Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin helped pave the way for women in science. She was a pioneer of using X-ray crystallography to determine the chemical makeup of cholesterol, penicillin, insulin, and vitamin B-12, for which she won the 1964 Nobel Prize in chemistry. She was also a pacifist and humanitarian, and served as president of Pugwash until 1988, where she persuaded 111 Nobel scientists to sign a Declaration against nuclear weapons.


Susan Smith McKinney Steward was the first black woman to become an M.D in New York. She blew the idea of women in the 1800's doing more than housework and child-rearing out of the water, and nailed a blow to the racial stereotypes of the era, as well. She was an advocate for the poor through missionary work, and founded "Women's Hospital and Dispensary in 1881, the Women's Local Union of New York (a leading black women's club), and the Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn."


Alicia Patterson, whose family started the Chicago Tribune, continued the journalistic tradition by becoming a reporter and finally a publisher herself. She founded Newsday at the insistence of her husband, Harry Guggenheim. Fueled by the desire to show her father that she could be a powerhouse publisher like any man could, she created a Pulitzer Prize winning entity that changed the journalistic landscape of the New York City area. Today, there is a journalistic foundation in her name.


Madam C. J. Walker created an empire with her hair products for black women. She took this business from selling it herself to enlisting an army of enthusiastic sales women to go door to door selling the product for her in exchange for a portion of the price. Not only did she help women get into business for themselves, she was an active participant in civil rights demonstrations, notably the damand that the Jim Crowe Laws be declared unconstitutional. Madam CJ Walker is said to have influenced Mary Kay Ash in creating her own cosmetics empire, making women the core of the business.


Miriam Ferguson became the first female governor of Texas in 1925, after her husband was impeached from the same position. Her liberal policies of supporting the repeal of Prohibition and the unmasking of the KKK met with contention, but after losing her first bid for a second term, she was elected to serve a non-consecutive one in 1932. Unlike other Texas governors in recent history, Ferguson was notorious for granting pardons to relieve prison overcrowding. Although she was accused of accepting bribes as a result, nothing was proven.