HERSTORY - A Timeline of Major Moments in American History - by TJ Leone

1636 

Anne Hutchinson, who has challenged the teachings of the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, is tried for heresy and banished. She and her family move to Rhode Island.

1692 

In an outbreak of hysteria in and around Salem, Mass., hundreds of people, mostly women, are accused of witchcraft. Nineteen are put to death.

1701 

The first sexually integrated jury hears cases in Albany, New York.

1773 

As an adjunct to the Sons of Liberty, women form the Daughters of Liberty.

1777 

All states pass laws which take away women’s right to vote.

1834 

The Factory Girls Association stages a strike at the mills in Lowell, Mass.

1837

Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke College for women.

1837 

Oberlin becomes the first co-educational college in the United States.

A national convention of female anti-slavery societies meets in New York.

1840 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton attends the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London and is turned away by male organizers.

1845 

Sarah Bagley establishes the Female Labor Reform Association in Lowell, Mass.

1850 

The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania is founded.

1854 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony present a petition with 10,000 signatures demanding suffrage and married women’s property rights to the New York legislature.

1861 

Two weeks after the onset of war, women found 20,000 aid societies throughout the country. In the north, they are coordinated by the Sanitation Commission. By the end of the war, women have raised $15 million worth of supplies.

1863 

The Women’s National Loyal League is founded to encourage a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery and granting women’s suffrage.

1869 

Stanton and Anthony, leading the National Woman Suffrage Association, oppose ratification of the 15th Amendment because it omits any mention of voting rights for women. The alliance between feminists and abolitionists disintegrates. 

Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell found the American Woman Suffrage Association in support of the 15th Amendment.

1879 

Through special Congressional legislation, Belva Lockwood becomes first woman admitted to try a case before the Supreme Court.

1890

Florence Kelley founds the National Consumers’ League in an effort to harness women’s purchasing power in order to demand better labor conditions.

1896 

The National Association of Colored Women is formed.

1910 

Washington state grants women the right to vote.

1911 

California grants women the right to vote.

1912 

Kansas, Oregon, and Arizona grant women the right to vote.

1916 

Suffragettes demonstrate at the Republican and Democratic national conventions.

1920 

The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified.

NAWSA becomes the League of Women Voters.

1921 

The first Miss America Beauty Pageant is held in Atlantic City.

1932 

Frances Perkins becomes the first female in the Cabinet when she is appointed Secretary of Labor.

1937 

During a sit-down strike at a General Motors plant, the Women’s Emergency Brigade organizes a continuous delivery of supplies that makes the strike possible.

1941 

During World War II, women’s participation in the workforce increases by nearly 60%.

1942 

The military creates women’s branches in each of the armed services. Close to 350,000 women serve in the WAVES (Navy), WACS (Army), SPARS (Coast Guard), MCWR (Marines), and WASP (Air Force).

1945 

Women are forced to retreat from the labor pool. In the auto industry the proportion of women on the assembly lines falls from 25% to 7.5%.

1955 

When Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Joanne Robinson, president of the Local Women’s Political Council, organizes the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. 

1957 

Daisy Bates, president of the Little Rock, Arkansas NAACP, wins a suit to integrate Little Rock High School.

1963 

Congress passes the Equal Pay Act in an attempt to eliminate the practice of paying women less for the same work performed by men.

1964 

The National Woman’s Party encourages the amendment of Title VII to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sex. The amendment is successful.

1966 

Friedan joins with other feminists and creates the National Organization for Women (NOW).

1973 

The Supreme Court establishes a woman’s right to legal abortion in Roe v. Wade.

1974 

The Coalition of Labor Union Women is formed.

1981 

Sandra Day O’ Connor is sworn in as the first female Supreme Court justice.

1984 

Geraldine Ferraro is nominated as a major party’s first female vice-presidential candidate.

1989 

In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the Supreme Court limits abortion rights, but stops short of overturning its decision in Roe v. Wade.

1990

Underground punk feminist movement, Riot grrrl is founded in Washington State.

1993 

President Clinton appoints Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a feminist activist and former attorney for the ACLU, to the Supreme Court.

President Clinton signs the Family and Medical Leave Act.

1996 

Madeleine Albright is appointed the first female Secretary of State.

1998 

Time magazine asks, “Is Feminism Dead?” The cover photo features Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and television character Ally McBeal.

2000 

CBS Broadcasting agrees to pay $8 million to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit by the E.E.O.C. on behalf of 200 women.