20 Female Firsts: Janet Yellen and Other Groundbreaking American Women
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The founder of the Christian Science movement, Eddy (1821-1910) is the "only American woman to found a lasting American-based religion," according to the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1908, two years before she dies at age 89, Eddy also launched The Christian Science Monitor.
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Wharton wrote a great deal during her career, but it was her 12th novel, The Age of Innocence, that won her the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, making her the first woman to receive the award.
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The first woman elected as governor of a U.S. state, Ross was chosen by Wyoming voters to complete the term of her husband, William Bradford Ross, after he died while in office. She served as governor from January 5, 1925 to January 3, 1927. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Ross to be the first woman to head the U.S. Mint.
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The Arkansas Democrat was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1931 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband Thaddeus Caraway. She was the second woman to serve in the Senate, after Rebecca Latimer Felton (D-GA_ in 1922, but became the first woman elected to the upper house of Congress in 1932. She won a second term in 1938 and served until 1945. The press labelled her "Silent Hattie" because she didn't often speak on the Senate floor, but Caraway would become the first woman to chair a Senate committee, in 1933, and the first woman to preside over the chamber, in 1943.
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Amelia Earhart achieved many things in her life, ultimately becoming a feminist icon before her premature disappearance. The feat that she's most known for, though, was being the first female to fly solo across the Atlantic.
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Buck wrote more than 70 books, but she is best known for her Pulizer Prize-winning The Good Earth. In 1938, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces."
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Known as Mickie, Siebert forever left her mark on the Wall Street boys' club in 1967 by becoming the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Siebert was also the first woman to head one of the exchange’s member firms. Siebert died in 2013 at age 84.
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A biochemist, Rogers became interim president of the University of Texas, Austin, in 1974 and was named president in 1975, becoming the first woman to lead a major research university in the country. Hanna Holborn Gray, who was appointed provost at Yale University in 1974 and became acting president there in 1977, would go one to become president of the University of Chicago in 1978, making her the first woman president of a major private unviersity.
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O'Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981 after being appointed by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed, in a 99-0 vote, by the Senate. She would go on to set a much broader legal legacy. "O'Connor has emerged from the shadow of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the Court's conservative bloc with her own brand of pragmatic and centrist-oriented conservatism," an online biography at The Oyez Project notes. "This tendency to moderate, in turn, enhanced her importance in an often-splintered Court."
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Kirkpatrick was the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. After her death in 2006 at age 80, The New York Times remembered her as "a beacon of neoconservative thought who helped guide American military, diplomatic and covert action from 1981 to 1985."
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Ride, a physicist and astronaut, in 1983 became the first American woman to fly in space — and, at age 32, also the youngest American in space. Ride died on July 23, 2012 at age 61. "She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars and later fought tirelessly to help them get there by advocating for a greater focus on science and math in our schools," President Obama said in a statement after her death. "Sally's life showed us that there are no limits to what we can achieve, and I have no doubt that her legacy will endure for years to come."
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Her vice-presidential campaign alongside Walter Mondale set her place in U.S. history as the first female vice-presidential candidate for a major political party.
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Franklin started out singing gospel at her father's church and went on to become the Queen of Soul. In 1987 she added another distinction to her long and illustrious career, becoming the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
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The first female attorney general, Janet Reno served under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. Her tenure was fraught with controversies, from the siege of the Branch Davidian compund in Waco, Texas, and the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft to the return of Elián González to Cuba. Despite those heated issues, Reno was the longest-serving Attorney General of the 20th century.
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"What's happening on Wall Street / What's happening at the stock exchange / I want to know." Those are the lyrics from a tribute song by none other than Joey Ramone, but they highlight the important role Bartiromo played in market reporting at a time when more and more Americans were taking an interest in stocks. In 1995, Bartiromo became the first reporter to broadcast live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. After 20 years at CNBC, Bartiromo decamped for the Fox Business Network in late 2013.
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The first woman to become U.S. Secretary of State, Albright was followed in the post by Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. She would later recount how her granddaughter had asked, "So what’s the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State." When she took over the State Department in 1997, though, Albright became the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government.
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The highest-ranking female politician in U.S. history, Pelosi became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House in 2007. "This is an historic moment," she said after being elected as Speaker. "For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters, the sky is the limit, anything is possible for them." Pelosi held on to her party leadership post when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections and she remains the House Minority Leader.
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Bigelow, director of great action potboilers like Point Break and K-9: The Widowmaker beat ex-husband James Cameron at the 2009 Academy Awards to become the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker.
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Barra was labeled the 41st most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in 2012, but her position on that list is certain to change for the better - on Dec. 10, 2013 she was named as the new CEO of General Motors, making her the first female CEO of a major car manufacturer.
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This Brooklyn strong economist is set to become the first woman to head the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. She also served as the Fed's vice chair and had led the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as well as the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
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