Topic: Women's History
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 ...
Jan Drago is a Seattle politician who served on the Seattle City Council and the Metropolitan King County Council. Jan and her husband Noel Drago moved to Seattle in 1980 to operate Häagen-Dazs i...
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 ...
Polly Dyer was a Seattle conservationist and environmentalist. Her dedication to safeguarding Washington's Olympic coastline and forests and to protecting wilderness areas across the state had a profo...
Joni Earl (b. 1953) was the executive director and CEO of Sound Transit from 2001 to 2016, responsible for rescuing Puget Sound's massive rapid transit agency from disaster. When she joined Sound Tran...
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...
Helen Engle is an environmental activist with a formidable resume of involvement, especially in issues involving South Puget Sound. Early on she joined the Seattle Audubon Society and in 1969 co-found...
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...
Dorothy Helen Eustis was a child-prodigy pianist from Seattle whose precocious skills led to an astonishing performance with the Seattle Symphony as a mere youth in 1930. After studying at the Cornish...
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...
One of the first women to practice law in Seattle and the first to represent the 44th District in the state senate, Lady Willie Forbus was a liberal Democrat, nicknamed the Steel Magnolia for her tena...
The Mount Rainier Ordnance Depot served the United States Army between 1942 and 1963 as a primary vehicle-, arms-, and missile-repair facility. This depot provided ordnance equipment to the Pacific ar...