Topic: Women's History
Anna Helfgott was a vigorous activist for progressive causes and a leader in Seattle's Gray Panthers. In her working years she was a dressmaker and fitter, and was an early member of the International...
Vi Hilbert, a member of the Upper Skagit tribe, had as her life's work to preserve the Lushootseed (Puget Salish) language and culture. Vi learned Lushootseed (the language of Chief Seattle) as a chil...
Dorothy Hollingsworth was the first Black woman in Washington to serve on a school board. She was elected in 1975 to the Seattle School Board and was elected its president in 1979, guiding the board d...
Toby Harris conducted this oral history interview of Jackie (Moen) Kalani, former resident of the Home of the Good Shepherd, on August 27, 1999, at the Good Shepherd Center, located at 4649 Sunnyside ...
The Home of the Good Shepherd, located at 4649 Sunnyside Avenue in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood, opened in 1907 to provide shelter, education, and guidance to young girls. The Home generated rev...
Ruth Madge Ouilette Hughbanks served as an officer of numerous community organizations in Seattle, including the board of Cornish School, the Parent-Teacher Associations of the former Webster Elementa...
Margaret Hurley, a teacher, mother, and elected official, represented the 3rd District in Spokane in the Washington State Legislature for 32 years. She was first elected to the House of Representative...
Spokane lawyer Reba (Rebecca Jane) Hurn was the first woman elected to the Washington State Senate, serving from 1923 to 1930. Before launching her legal and political careers, she pursued graduate w...
May Arkwright Hutton is probably the best-known woman's name in Spokane history. The woman suffrage leader and political activist grew up in Ohio and came west to the Coeur d'Alene mining area as a ...
In this People's History, Irene (Borlaug) Wilson recounts her memories of the Igloo Restaurant and World War II in Seattle. HistoryLink's Heather MacIntosh interviewed her in Seattle in May 1999.
Most Northwesterners have encountered the work of artist Fay Jones at one time or other: Her paintings and prints can be found on the walls of local museums, restaurants, and hospitals; her images hav...
Phoebe Judson was the first non-Indian woman to settle in the Lynden area (in northern Whatcom County) and became known as the "Mother of Lynden" during the half century that she lived there. Born in ...
Elizabeth Rider Montgomery Julesberg (1902-1985), known professionally as Elizabeth Rider Montgomery, was the co-author of many of the "Dick and Jane" reading primers published from the 1930s through ...
Claudia Kauffman was the first woman Native American elected to the Washington State Senate. She was raised in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle where her mother, Josephine, championed American ...
Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney, a child of migrant workers, served eight terms in the Washington State House of Representatives. Her parents came to America in 1919 from Mexico, and from the age of 5 Kenney...
Alice U. Kerr was elected mayor of Edmonds in December 1924, one of the first women mayors in Washington. She served a single two-year term (1925-1927) occupied with issues of a small, growing city, ...
Priscilla Maunder Kirk (1898-1992), an African American Seattleite, was born on August 9, 1898, in Seattle. In 1919 she moved to Montana with her husband, where she lived until 1929. She also lived in...
During World War I Americans of all ages were asked by the United States government to knit wool socks, sweaters, and other garments to warm American soldiers at home and abroad. Most of this knitting...
On the home front during World War II (1941-1945), knitting to help the war effort and to keep American soldiers warm was a major preoccupation of Americans, particularly women. The November 24, 1941,...
Jeanne Kohl-Welles represented Seattle's 36th District in the Washington State Senate from 1994 to 2015, when she left the legislature after winning election to an open seat on the King County Council...
Dr. Frans Koome was a Renton physician who provided unwillingly pregant women with safe abortions at a time when it was illegal to do so. On Thankgiving eve, 1969, Dr. Koome went several steps further...
Bertha Knight Landes, elected mayor of Seattle in 1926, became the first woman to lead a major American city. She ran on a platform of "municipal housekeeping," vowing to clean up city government. She...
Frances Payne Larrabee was a prominent and influential Bellingham clubwoman. She was instrumental in the founding of the Bellingham Bay Home for Children, a safe haven for homeless children. She becam...
Dr. Blanche Sellers Lavizzo was the first African American woman pediatrician in the state of Washington. She arrived in Seattle in July 1956 and began her pediatric practice on East Madison Street an...