Women's History Calendar
January Highlights in US Women's History
- Jan 7, 1896 - Fanny Farmer's first cookbook is published
- Jan 5, 1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross is inaugurated as the first woman governor in U.S. history (governor of Wyoming)
- Jan 29, 1926 - Violette Neatly Anderson is the first black woman to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court
- Jan 12, 1932 - Hattie Wyatt Caraway (D-Arkansas) is the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She was the first woman to chair a Senate Committee and the first to serve as the Senate's presiding officer as well
- Jan 11, 1935 - Amelia Earhart Putnam makes the first solo flight from Hawaii to North America
- Jan 3, 1949 - Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) is elected to the Senate, where she stays in office until June 1973. She previously served in the House of Representatives, the first woman to serve in both the House and Senate
- Jan 7, 1955 - Marian Anderson is the first African American woman to sing at the Metropolitan Opera
- Jan 8, 1977 - Pauli Murray, the first female African American Episcopal priest, is ordained
- Jan 19, 1985 - Runner Mary Decker sets a world record of 5:34:52 for the indoor 2,000-meter run
- Jan 20, 1986 - Coretta Scott King leads a march through Atlanta, GA, to honor her slain husband's birthday, celebrated the first time that year as a national holiday
- Jan 28, 1986 - The space shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after takeoff, claiming the lives of Astronaut Judith Resnick, who would have been the second U.S. woman astronaut to travel in space, and teacher Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first civilian in space.
January Birthdays
- Jan 3, 1793 (1880 ) - Lucretia Mott - Women's Rights pioneer, Quaker minister, pacifist; NWHP co-founder Molly MacGregor is honored to share her birth day
- Jan 7, 1903 (1960) - Zora Neale Hurston - Pioneering scholar of African American folklore
- Jan 8, 1867 (1961) - Emily Greene Balch - Economist and sociologist; co-founder of the Women's International League for Peace with Jane Addams, won the Nobel Peace prize in 1946 with John Mott
- Jan. 9, 1941 - Joan C. Baez, singer, songwriter, activist; born Staten Island, NY;
- Jan 11, 1885 (1977) - Alice Paul - Suffragist leader, founder of National Women's Party
- Jan 12, 1820 (1914) - Caroline Severance - Early suffragist, co-founded the Equal Rights Association with Susan B. Anthony, was the first woman to register to vote in the state of CA
- Jan 13, 1850 (1911) - Charlotte Ray - First African-American woman lawyer and first women admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia
- Jan 19, 1905 (1995) - Oveta Culp Hobby - Second women in U.S. Cabinet (20 years after Frances Perkins), first secretary of the Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare, awarded the Distinguished Medal of Service for her work as Director of the Women's Army Corps
- Jan 23, 1918 (1988) - Gertrude Elion - Nobel prize-winning biochemist
- Jan 24, 1862 (1937) - Edith Wharton - First woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, an honorary doctorate of letters from Yale, full membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- Jan 24, 1968 - Mary Lou Retton - first and only American woman to win a gold medal in the All-Around in gymnastics at the Olympics, first women on a Wheaties box
- Jan 26, 1872 (1957) - Julia Morgan - First women licensed architect in CA, innovative architect of Heast Castle and over 700 extraordinary buildings
- Jan 26, 1892 (1926) - Bessie Coleman - First African American woman to fly a plane and earn an international pilot's license
View Our January Calendar