An 1884 petition signed by 139 residence of Jefferson Township, Ohio requesting their congressman support an amendment for women’s suffrage.
WAC Lewanna Jo Milam
Katherine “Katie” Stinson (1891-1977) earned her pilot’s license in 1912, making her the fourth women in the US to become a licensed pilot. Originally, flying was merely a way for her to earn money to fund her musical studies, but Katie soon became well known on the exhibition circuit. After only a few years of flying, Katie and her sister Marjorie (the ninth woman to become a licensed pilot in the US) opened a flight school in Texas, the first female owned flight school in the world.
Known as the “Flying Schoolgirl,” Katie was the first woman skywriter, the first woman to loop the loop, and the first woman to fly in Canada, Japan, and China. Through her exhibition flights, Katie raised two million dollars for the Red Cross.
In 1917, Katie put her aviation career on hold to volunteer as an ambulance driver in World War I. Unfortunately, she contracted tuberculosis while in Europe and the effects of the illness permanently ended her flying career.
Following the war, Katie settled in New Mexico and became an architect. Inspired by Katie and Marjorie, their brother Eddie founded the Stinson Aviation Company. A middle school in San Antonio is named for her.
Every year, the incoming freshman class at Annapolis takes part in “plebe summer,” a demanding six weeks of training run by upper class students.
In 1979, the first class of female students at Annapolis became seniors. The idea of a woman in a position of power in the military was so novel that this photo of Sandee Irwin putting Don Holcomb through his paces made the front cover of the Washington Post.
A 272 CE coin depicting Zenobia
Alice Robertson (1854-1931) was the daughter of missionaries to the Creek Nation in what is today Oklahoma. She graduated from Elmira College and moved to Washington to become the first female clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. At age 25 she returned to Oklahoma to teach in schools for Native Americans. Alice eventually founded Minerva Home, a school for Creek girls, that eventually developed into the University of Tulsa.
Alice was a supporter of Teddy Roosevelt who described her as “one of the great women of America.” In 1905 Teddy appointed Alice as the postmistress of Muskogee, Oklahoma, making Alice the first female postmaster of a first class post office in the US.
Already in her 60s, Alice ran for and won an eastern Oklahoma congressional seat in 1920. The second woman elected to Congress, Alice was also the only woman to represent Oklahoma until Mary Fallin’s election in 2006. Although she was a white woman, in Congress Alice was an advocate for Native Americans and a critic of women’s groups.
The photo above was taken on June 21, 1920, the day after Alice became the first woman to preside over a session of the House of Representatives. The session she oversaw was a roll call vote on funding a United States delegation to the centennial celebrations of Peru’s independence.
Alice failed in her bid for a second term and she returned to Oklahoma in 1923 where she lived out her days in relative obscurity.
A portrait of Alice can be seen on the fourth floor of the Oklahoma State Capitol.
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