Topic: Women's History
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...
Rosa Gourdine Franklin was the first African American woman to serve in the Washington State Senate and the first Black woman in the United States to be voted Senate President Pro Tempore by her ...
This biography of Fay (Swick) Frederick, wife of the founder of Frederick & Nelson's Department Store, was written by her great grandson, Gordon Padelford. It is an unusual and slightly juicy biog...
Caroline Rosenberg Kline Galland, an early and important Seattle philanthropist, devoted her life to serving the community. Her will bequeathed funds for a home for the Jewish aged and for other chari...
Bel Marie Williams Gardner was a teacher, police matron, and social worker who made child welfare her primary purpose and legacy. A woman of significance at a significant time in Everett's history, sh...
The Seattle civic activist and philanthropist Mary Gates and her husband William H. Gates strived to create a quality environment for their children inside their home, as well as outside in the commun...
Willetta Esther Riddle Gayton was the first African American professional librarian in Seattle. She was the daughter of Whatcom County pioneers William and Salome Riddle, and wife of James Gayton, who...
Anne Gerber (1910-2005) was a lifelong supporter of contemporary, cutting-edge art in Seattle. She and her husband Sid Gerber (d. 1965) were collectors both of modern art and of Native American art. T...
Hiram C. Gill served as a Seattle City Councilman for 12 years and as mayor twice. His support for an "open-town" where "vice" carried on in brothels, gambling parlors, and saloons went unsuppressed, ...
Cheryl Linn Glass was the first African American female professional race-car driver in the United States. Growing up in Seattle, at the age of 9 she started her own doll business and also began drivi...
Film star Frances Farmer (1913-1970) was a senior at West Seattle High School in April 1931 when she gained her first taste of national notoriety, with this award-winning essay, titled "God Dies." The...
Maxine Cushing Gray was a Seattle writer, critic, editor, and arts advocate. Over the course of her long career, she served as an arts critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, covered the arts for t...
This is a first person account reprinted from From the Ground Up: A Seattle Feminist Newspaper, June 1974. In it, Helen Dunn describes the inequities and gender politics of hospital work in the mid-19...
Musician, songwriter, singer, and major hit-maker, Seattle's Bonnie "Guitar" Buckingham was one of the biggest stars to ever emerge from the Pacific Northwest's music scene. And her path to fame was o...
Hadassah, a Jewish women's organization, was founded with the goals of fostering Zionist ideals in America through education and to begin public health nursing and nurses' training in Palestine. Gisel...
Lulu Haddon served in the Washington State House of Representatives during the 1933 and 1935 sessions representing the 23rd Legislative District of Kitsap County. She was elected to the Washington Sta...
Missouri T. B. Hanna, often known as "Mrs. M. T. B. Hanna," was born in Texas and grew up in Arkansas. She moved with her husband and three children to Spokane Falls, Washington Territory, in 1882 but...
Cecile Ann Hansen -- a descendant within the family of Chief Si 'ahl ("Chief Seattle") -- has served as the elected chair of her people since 1975. During those decades the Duwamish (or in the Salish ...
Julia Butler Hansen was one of the most powerful female legislators in Washington state history, amassing a long list of "firsts." She served nine years on the Cathlamet, Washington, Town Council, 21 ...
Architects around the world, and particularly women architects in Seattle and Washington, have long looked to L. Jane Hastings as an exemplar and professional leader -- and often the first to achieve ...
Despite a late start in politics and competing in a field dominated by men at the time, Jeannette C. Hayner became one of Washington's most powerful state legislators. In 1972 -- 30 years after gettin...
Hazel Wolf (1898-2000), Seattle's quintessential activist, championed many causes in her 101 years. First an advocate of women's rights, she went on to support labor and environmental issues. She was ...
The Hebrew Ladies Free Loan Society grew out of a whist (card game) and sewing club established in 1909 by women from Bikur Cholim synagague. Bikur Cholim's rabbi refused to accept the women's offer o...