Day 17: In Light of Women's History Month

Women’s History Month Quiz

Created by Margaret Zierdt, National Women's History Project Board member

Can You Identify These Women of Great Vision and Achievement Whose History Is Our Strength

1. Who became the first female Secretary of State of the United States, appointed by President Clinton in 1997?
2. Who took over management of Columbia Sportswear Company in the late 1930’s, when it was near bankruptcy, and turned it into the largest American ski apparel company worth $4 billion in 1972?
3. Who was the first woman in modern history to lead a major Native-American tribe, the Cherokee Nation?
4. Who was the first American woman poet whose poetry was published in London in 1650?
5. Who is considered the first American woman to be ordained by full denominational authority in 1864, and who also campaigned vigorously for full woman suffrage?
6. Who was the first woman of color elected to the U.S. Congress and was a founding member of the National Women’s Political Caucus?
7. Who was the ecologist writer whose path breaking book, "Silent Spring" in 1962 initiated the environmental movement?
8. Who was the first black woman and the youngest poet laureate in American history when she was appointed in 1993?
9. Who was imprisoned and then hanged for her Quaker faith in Boston in 1660, and 400 years later her statue was placed in front of the state House?
10. Who was the female lawyer who worked for equal rights and suffrage, co-founded the ACLU in 1910, and helped write the Equal Rights Amendment?
11. Who led the fight to criminalize lynching, helped form the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and aided many black people who migrated from the South to Chicago?
12. Who became the first female president of Harvard University when she was named its 28th president in 2007?
13. Who became the first woman vice-president candidate on a major political party ticket when selected in 1984?
14. Who volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War, earning the nickname “Mother,” and after peace became an attorney advocating for veterans?
15. Who was the United States delegate to the United Nations who championed and won approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948?
16. Who earned a graduate degree from Oberlin College in 1888, was the first black woman to serve on a Board of Education (in D.C.), sued to integrate restaurants in the 1950’s, integrated the American Association of University Women at age 85, and was a founding member of NAACP?
17. Who wrote "The Feminine Mystique" in 1968 and became a leading figure in the Women's Movement?
18. Who was the first woman promoted to brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force (1971) and the first female major general in any armed forces in 1973?
19. Who was a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy credited with developing the COBOL computer language, and with coining the phrase “debugging” to fix a computer?
20. Who was one of the first black physicians in New York City and the first black woman to graduate from Bellevue Hospital medical school in 1926?
21. Who was the free-thinking woman who was forced out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and sought sanctuary in Roger Williams' Rhode Island in 1637?
22. Who is the architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., which she designed when she was only 21 years old?
23. Who wrote the path-breaking book, "On Death and Dying" in 1969 which educated and supported helpers who provide compassionate care?
24. Who was the American founder and leader of the Shakers in the 1770's who advocated equality, individual responsibility and peace?
25. What woman ran for president on the National Equal Rights Party, receiving 4,149 votes in 6 states in 1884?
26. Who was the first woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1983 for her discovery that genes can change positions on the chromosome?
27. Who led the fight to integrate military nursing services in WW II and then achieved the integration of the American Nurses Association in 1948?
28. Who was the U.S. president's wife who saved historic paintings when the British army burned the White House in 1814?
29. Who is the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics in 1963 after she discovered the structure of atoms?
30. Who is the longest-serving female U.S. senator, elected in 1986?
31. Who was the astronomer who discovered a comet, named for her, on October 1, 1847, and who was the first woman elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1850), and the first professor of astronomy at Vassar College?
32. Who was first black woman lawyer in the United States and the first woman admitted to District of Columbia bar in 1872?
33. What woman met Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the International Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 and worked with her for women's equality for the next half century?
34. Who worked with W.E.B. DuBois' Niagara Movement and was one of the few white co-founders of NAACP in 1910?
35. What woman attended the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, signed the Declaration of Sentiments, and lived to see women win the vote in 1920?
36. Who ran a plantation in South Carolina and successfully introduced the cultivation of indigo as a commercial staple?
37. Who was the first black prima donna soprano at the Metropolitan Opera, starring from 1961 to 2007, the first black singer to earn the top fee of $2750 for each performance (second only to Birgit Nilsson who got $3000), and winner of 19 Grammy awards?
38. Who became the first female rabbi in the U.S. and the second in the world when she was ordained in Cincinnati in 1972?
39. Who sculpted the full scale marble statue of Lincoln which is in the Capitol Rotunda, becoming the first female and youngest artist to receive a commission from the government for a statue?
40. Who was the first black woman symphonic composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra - her Symphony in E Minor was performed in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony?
41. Who was the Zionist leader who founded Hadassah, an organization working on health issues for Jewish people in Palestine, and also rescued thousands of children from Germany in the 1930’s?
42. Who was the female Brigadier General who was the driving force behind the establishment of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Building in Arlington Cemetery which opened in 1997?
43. What woman wrote the first novel by an American to sell more than a million copies, "The Wide, Wide World”?
44. Who was the friend of Abigail Adams who fostered political agitation with her satirical plays and then a three-volume history of the American revolution in 1805?
45. Who was the first Native American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 for her work in decreasing infant mortality and decreasing tuberculosis?
46. Who was the author of "Our Nig," published in 1859, the first novel by a black person in English, which described racism in the treatment of free blacks in the North by abolitionists?
47. Who was the first woman mountaineer to climb over 23,000 feet on Nun Kun in the Himalayas in 1906, a record unbroken until 1934?
48. Who is the first woman conductor of a large orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, appointed in 2007?
49. Who introduced America to French cooking in her books and television series from 1963 through the 1990's?
50. What woman has won a total of 56 Grand Slam tennis competitions events and 9 Wimbledon women's singles titles?

You can find the answers on the answers at the National Women's History Project website.