Top 10 Firsts for Women in History

In her early childhood, Madeleine Albright’s father worked for the Czech government. The family eventually fled to the United States for political reasons, and this early personal indoctrination into foreign political power fueled her own career. Thirty-nine years of age and the mother of three children before she held a government job (which was as chief legal assistant to US Senator Ed Muskie), Albright got a bit of a late start. But she ultimately made up for lost time and her impact on American and global history is intense and undeniable. In 1993, she became the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and then the first ever female Secretary of State. This committed woman is still active in politics today.

Her novels include The Touchstone, The House of Mirth and of course the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence. Edith Wharton’s funny and complex psychological writing often deals with the upper classes in the United States, of which she had intimate knowledge, being from a wealthy New York family. Though sisters Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott won a Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1917, Sara Teasdale won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1918, and Zona Gale won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921, Wharton would be the first woman to win the Pulitzer for literature in Fiction, and was also nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Elizabeth Blackwell was born at a time when women simply could not be doctors. Originally from England, she moved with her family to the United States as a young child. By the time she was in her early twenties, Elizabeth was determined to become a doctor anyway. That was easier said than done, though, because almost every medical school she applied to turned her down because she was a woman. At last, she was accepted to Geneva College – now Hobart College - in New York, as the only woman in a class of 150. After she became the first woman to achieve a medical degree in America, she furthered her studies in Europe and then opened her own hospital in Europe. She would go on to help start the Woman’s Medical College so that other women could follow in her footsteps.

Katharine Graham’s father owned The Washington Post newspaper, and he eventually left it not to her, but to her husband Philip. Katharine explains in her autobiography that she was neither insulted nor surprised by this, and that it never occurred to her that she might run the company. Everything changed, though, when her husband committed suicide in 1963. Katharine took control of the newspaper, intending only to do so temporarily, but ending up maintaining control until her retirement in 1991. Her reign saw the newspaper through some of its most important developments, including publication of the Pentagon Papers and a series of articles on Watergate. Her success led to Katharine becoming the first female Fortune 500 CEO.

At a time when women were not even allowed to own property, it took a lot of courage to seek a patent. But Mary Kies didn’t let societal backwardness stop her from claiming her intellectual property. Like many women living in New England at the time, she made her living by weaving straw hats. When she invented a new way of using thread to weave straw with silk and other materials, a technique that had great commercial potential, she successfully took out a patent. Reportedly, the First Lady was so impressed that she sent Mary a letter praising her work after her husband President James Madison signed the patent. Tragically, fickle fashion soon made Kies’ offerings obsolete and this determined woman sank into poverty.

Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, was one of the first non-white nations within Western Europe to institute universal suffrage in 1931. Less than thirty years later, it became the first nation in the world to elect a female head of government, the formidable Sirimavo Bandaranaike. It was a time of instability, only twelve years after the country gained independence, but Bandaranaike stepped up to the challenge. She went to serve three non-consecutive terms – 1960-1965, 1970-1977, and 1994-2000 – playing a significant role in Asian politics and in the Non-Aligned Movement. Since that time, she had been followed by many more female heads of state, including Benazir Bhutto, who became the first democratically elected female head of a mostly Islamic state in 1988.

The first Nobel Prizes, established by the will of Alfred Nobel, were awarded in 1901. Two years later, despite great adversity and many attempts to keep her off the list of nominees, Doctor Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. She won jointly with her husband Pierre and their friend Henri Becquerel. Their work with radioactivity, a term coined by Marie Curie, remains hugely influential. She went on to win another Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, in 1911, making her the first person and only woman to win a Nobel Prize twice, her one of the only people to win two Nobel Prizes and the only person to win twice in more than one science.

Born into slavery in Maryland, Harriet Tubman rose against all odds to have a profound effect on American history. After escaping captivity, Tubman risked her life again and again to help other slaves escape. Not only was she active in the Underground Railroad, but during the American Civil War she served as both a nurse and a spy. She is also credited as the first American woman to lead an armed assault, guiding soldiers up the Combahee River to attack multiple plantations and freeing over 750 slaves in the process. She was nicknamed “Moses” for her role in leading her people to freedom.

Born to a poor Soviet family, Tereshkova started working fulltime when she was only seventeen. In her free time, she learned how to parachute, and that skill is what took her from a textile factory to outer space. In 1963, she became the first woman to travel in space as the pilot of the Vostok 6. Though the mission lasted a little less than three days, the spaceship orbited Earth forty-eight times! After the voyage, she studied engineering and was honored as a “Hero of the Soviet Union.” Since then, many women have followed her into outer space, including the first American woman and youngest American astronaut, Sally Ride.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions:

First Woman to Chair the Federal Reserve Board (2014)
Janet Yellen

First Female Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (2011)
Christine Lagarde
First Female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979)
Margaret Thatcher

First Woman to be Awarded an Honorary Degree from Harvard University (1955)
Helen Keller

First Woman to Circumnavigate the World via a Non-Stop Solo Sail
Kay Cottee

Airplanes weren’t even invented until after Amelia Earhart was born, and she was just a teen when Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to receive an airplane pilot’s license in 1910. It didn’t take Amelia long to follow in Laroche’s footsteps. In the following decades, she set a lot of records – both for women and for human flight in general – including her famous non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. In just under fifteen hours, she flew her Lockheed Vega 5B plane from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, to Culmore, Ireland. Unfortunately, not all of her flights were successful, and she mysteriously disappeared in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the planet.

Do you agree with our list? What’s your favorite first in women’s history? For more exciting Top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to MsMojo.