Topic: Women's History
Ellen Powell Dabney, founding president of the Washington State Home Economics Association, came to Seattle in 1907 to teach at the new Lincoln High School, and at the age of 46 began a career in educ...
Dotty Beum DeCoster was a longtime community activist, researcher, writer, and historian based in Seattle. Over her lifetime she turned her considerable organizational and administrative skills to the...
Following World War I, the Seattle Garden Club worked with veterans organizations to plant some 1,400 elm trees along Des Moines Memorial Way S, dedicating each one to a fallen veteran. In a separate ...
Emma Smith DeVoe was a major figure in the American woman suffrage movement and a Republican Party activist. Although she spent the bulk of her political life in Washington state, she was also a paid...
Thelma Dewitty was the first black teacher to be hired by the Seattle Public Schools. She joined the corps in September 1947, after intervention on her behalf by the Seattle Urban League, NAACP, the C...
Place has primacy in the writing of Annie Dillard, and the history and geography of Washington figure notably in several of her books. Even though she resided only four years in the state, two of thos...
Daughter of Chief William Shelton -- the famed Tulalip storyteller, wood-carver, and cultural leader -- Harriette Shelton Williams Dover, followed her father's fine example and invested her entire adu...
Dr. Samuel Goldenberg (1921-2011), a Seattle psychologist, organized the Citizens' Abortion Study Group after being unable to help two of his patients obtain legal abortions in 1967. The group, later ...
Emily Inez Denny (1853-1918) wrote this tongue-in-cheek essay on the perils of women's clothing to be read to fellow members of the Woman's Century Club. A daughter of Seattle pioneers David (1832-190...
Bonnie Dunbar, the first woman from Washington state to become an astronaut, rocketed into space five times. Only a handful of other American astronauts have heard the countdown to liftoff from the in...
Oregon suffragist Abigail Jane Scott Duniway was a nationally known pioneer leader for women's suffrage who worked regionally in what became the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Born on an Ill...
Jennifer Dunn was the first woman to serve as Washington State Republican Party chair and went on to serve six terms as a U.S. Representative from the 8th Congressional District in east King County, i...
Marjorie Ann Duryee was an artist and adventurer who pursued several careers in her lifetime – teacher, photographer, painter, poet, photo journalist – and achieved success in all. Bo...
Zoe Dusanne, Seattle's first professional modern-art dealer, introduced modern art to many residents of the Puget Sound region, and helped to catalyze the rise and international fame of the Northwest ...
Myrtle Edwards served on the Seattle City Council from 1955 to 1969, and in March 1969 became president of the council. She carried out her work in public life within the League of Women Voters, the G...
Norwegian immigrant and suffragist Helga Estby is remembered for her heroic seven-month walk from Spokane to New York City in 1896, a publicity wager that she expected would pay her $10,000 and save t...
Lucinda Collins Fares was the first white woman to settle in the Snoqualmie Valley. She was the daughter of Luther and Diana (Borst) Collins, and as a 13 or 14 year old was a member of the Collins par...
Seattle-born actress Frances Farmer, a rising star in the 1930s, is remembered today more for her unfortunate life story than for her once promising career. Talented and beautiful, Farmer was also wil...
Mary Farquharson, a lifelong activist for social justice issues, was a Social Democrat who served two terms in the Washington State Senate from 1934-1942. As part of a small but influential faction of...
Agnes "Aggie" Guttormsen Johnson (b. 1928), is an Everett native. After graduating from Providence Everett School of Nursing in 1949 Agnes was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and admitted to Fir...
In 1980, a year after graduating from the University of Washington, Kevin Catherine Castle was in the first group of women to join International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Seattle Local 19, ...
Judge Betty Binns Fletcher was appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) in 1979 and carried a full caseload there for 33 years, working to within days of her...
A Harvard-educated biologist, Kathy Fletcher worked for the Carter White House and spent five years as a staff scientist in various environmental organizations. Since the early 1980s, she has devoted ...
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was a Socialist activist in the Spokane Free Speech fight that began in October 1909. The free speech movement was an action by members of the Industrial Workers of the World (I...