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FEMALE FIRSTS

1793 Mrs. Samuel Slater gets a patent

Hannah Slater (under the name Mrs. Samuel Slater) receives the first U.S. patent granted to a woman, for a type of cotton thread. Her invention helps her husband build his successful textile business.

1849 Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D.

After graduating first in her class at Geneva Medical College in New York, British-born Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman doctor in the United States.

1872 A candidate for the history books

Although American women are unable to vote, activist Victoria Woodhull, a champion of such diverse causes as woman suffrage and free love, becomes the first woman to run for president of the United States; she wins no electoral college votes.

1903 A female Nobelist

Polish-born French physicist Marie Curie becomes the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, receiving the award in physics with her husband, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel. In 1911 she is the sole winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

1916 A “public nuisance”

American activist Margaret Sanger, a leader in the birth control movement, opens the first birth control clinic in the United States, in Brooklyn, New York, and is subsequently arrested and imprisoned for maintaining a “public nuisance.”