Category: Historical / page 8

Clare Boothe Luce
Clare Boothe Luce


Clare Boothe Luce served as U.S. ambassador to Italy from 1953 to 1956, the first American woman appointed to a major ambassadorial post abroad. She also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1943 to 1947. Luce was born March 10, 1903, in New York City. Her original ambition was to become an actress and she briefly attended a school of the theater in New York City. She was also active in the suffrage movement as a young woman. She married George Tuttle Brokaw, a New […]
Theresa Serber Malkiel
Theresa Serber Malkiel


Theresa Serber Malkiel was an influential Jewish labor activist and suffragist in the early twentieth century. Born on May 1, 1874 in the town of Bar, Theresa Serber escaped anti-Semitic persecution in Russia to seek refuge in the United States with her family in 1891. Though she had been part of a Jewish middle class in Russia and was fairly well-educated, Serber was forced to work in sweatshops in New York City. Serber discovered her interest in workers’ rights quickly and joined the Russian Workingmen’s Club. After finding work in […]
Katherine McCormick
Katherine McCormick


Katharine Dexter McCormick was a biologist, suffragist and philanthropist. McCormick was born on August 27, 1875, in Dexter, Michigan, and grew up in Chicago. Her family was wealthy, and both of her parents believed in the education of women. In 1904, she earned a Bachelor of Science in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the second woman to graduate from MIT. While a student, she successfully argued that a rule requiring female students to wear feathered hats was a fire hazard in laboratories, and MIT changed their policy. She […]
Golda Meir
Golda Meir


Golda Meir was the world's third female prime minister, serving as prime minister of Israel. She assumed the position after the sudden death of Levi Eshkol in 1969. Meir served as prime minister until 1974. Meir was born on May 3, 1898, in Kiev, Ukraine. At the age of 8, her family immigrated to the United States and she grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When she was young, Meir joined the Poalei Tzion youth movement. At the end of 1917, she married Morris Meyerson, and they immigrated to the Land […]
Inez Milholland
Inez Milholland


For more information on her sister, Vida Milholland, visit her profile here: https://wp.las.iastate.edu/cattcenter-awpc/directory/vida-milholland/. Inez Milholland was a militant suffragist, often referred to as “the most beautiful suffragette.” Milholland was born on August 6, 1886, to wealthy philanthropists John E. Milholland and Jean Torry. Along with her sister, Vida, she got involved in activism early on when she studied at Vassar College. Milholland defied Vassar’s policy prohibiting suffrage clubs when she invited New York suffragist and daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Stanton Blatch, to speak on campus. When the talk […]
Vida Milholland
Vida Milholland


For more information about her sister, Inez Milholland, visit her profile here: https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/directory/inez-milholland/ Vida Milholland was a suffragist, peace activist and performer. Milholland was born on January 17, 1888, to wealthy philanthropists John E. Milholland and Jean Torry. Along with her sister, Inez, she got involved in activism early on when she studied at Vassar College. Although she had aspirations of becoming an opera singer, Milholland gave it up in 1910 to become a full-time suffragist. Milholland and her sister toured the United States under the direction of Alice Paul […]
Abby Crawford Milton
Abby Crawford Milton


For information on her colleague, Catherine Talty Kenny, visit her profile at https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/directory/catherine-talty-kenny/. Abby Crawford Milton was the youngest of the Southern suffrage leaders who made Tennessee the prized 36th vote to ratify the 19th Amendment. Born on February 6, 1881, in Milledgeville, Georgia, Milton was the daughter of a prominent Georgia family. In 1904, she married George Fort Milton, editor of the pro-suffrage Chattanooga News and moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Milton would go on to have three daughters between 1913 and 1917, some of the most consequential years in […]
Virginia Minor
Virginia Minor


Virginia Louisa Minor was a suffragist leader in Missouri. Minor was born on March 27, 1824, in Virginia. After her 1843 marriage, she and her husband moved to St. Louis, later purchasing a farm there just before the start of the Civil War. During war, Minor volunteered in area hospitals and provided produce from her farm for soldiers stationed nearby. Minor was the first woman in Missouri to publicly state that women should be given the right to vote. In 1867, she helped to found the Woman Suffrage Association of […]
Alice Dickerson Montemayor
Alice Dickerson Montemayor


Alice Dickerson Montemayor was a Texas feminist, artist and leader in the League of United Latin American Citizens. Though she wasn’t a suffragist in the traditional sense, Montemayor was a model for women’s political involvement and a fierce voice for gender equity. Montemayor was born on August 6, 1902, in Laredo, Texas to John and Manuela Dickerson. She graduated from high school in 1924 and hoped to study law. After her father’s death, however, she stayed in Laredo to help her mother and attended Laredo Business College for a year. […]
Mary Foulke Morrisson
Mary Foulke Morrisson


Mary Foulke Morrisson was a suffragist, peace activist and political organizer. Morrisson was born in Richmond, Indiana, on November 14, 1879, to parents who were also suffragists. Her father, William Dudley Foulke, served as president of the American Woman Suffrage Association from 1886-1890. She married James William Morrisson in 1900 and relocated to Chicago, where she worked with Jane Addams at Hull House and with Carrie Chapman Catt on woman suffrage. She participated in the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention of 1916. After the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, Morrisson […]