Many women worked together to create positive change for future generations of women.
As one of the largest women-led life insurance organizations, Royal Neighbors of America® was one of the first to offer coverage to women. In celebration of 120 years of “firsts” for women, we salute the first women to break barriers in all walks of life.
- On August 31, 1920, five days after the 19th amendment was signed into law, Mrs. Marie Ruoff Byrum became the first woman to vote.
- Annie Edson Taylor was an American adventurer who, on her 63rd birthday, October 24, 1901, became not only the first woman, but the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Awesome!
- There weren’t any female law professors until 1896 when Lutie A. Lytle, an African-American lawyer, was hired at Central Tennessee College of Law.
- Jeannette Pickering Rankin was elected as the first woman in the United States Congress in 1916. After her election she said, “I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote.” A pacifist, she voted against both World Wars.
- Sally Kristen Ride was not only the first American woman in space, but also the youngest American astronaut to travel to space. She hitched a ride twice on space shuttle Challenger, first in 1983 and again in 1984.
- Katharine Graham was named the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 1972 when she headed the Washington Post. She lead the Post during the Watergate Scandal, publishing many damning reports when other newspapers refused to follow suit.
- Loretta Walsh was the first woman allowed to serve on active-duty in the U.S. Navy in 1917. Twelve days after she was sworn in, Congress declared war and World War I began.
- In 1910, trailblazer Alice Stebbins Wells petitioned the mayor, police commissioner and the Los Angeles city council in order to become the first female police officer in the nation.
