20 Women Firsts (Mostly U.S.) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sandra Day O'Connor

Following terms on the Arizona Superior Court and the AZ Court of Appeals, O'Connor was named to the U.S. Supreme Court by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and was unanimously confirmed. The second woman named to the Court was Ruth Bader Ginsberg, appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton and confirmed in 1993.

The first woman judge in the country was Esther McQuigg Morris. She was appointed justice of the peace in a mining town in Wyoming in 1870.

Answer: Mary Kies

Kies was not the first American woman inventor, but she was the first to receive a U.S. patent in her own name. In many states in the early 1800s women could not own property independent of their husbands so they didn't bother to patent their inventions. Mary Kies broke that pattern on May 15, 1809.

Although Eli Whitney received the patent for the cotton gin, Catherine Greene is said to have posed both the problem and the basic idea to Whitney. The first U.S. patent awarded to a woman was awarded to Hannah Slater in 1793 for perfecting cotton sewing thread.

Her husband, Samuel Slater, invented a sturdy, reliable, American version of Arkwright's English mill for spinning thread. Some of the other items patented by women: windshield wipers, dandruff shampoo, a dishwasher, the first disposable diaper, and a compact, portable hair dryer. Suggested reading: "Women as Inventor" by Matilda Gage.

Answer: Susan B. Anthony

The U.S. mint first made the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin in 1979. This coin was minted for three years only because the public did not accept it, probably because its size was too similar to a quarter and the public preferred the paper dollar. A second attempt at a dollar coin was the gold-colored coin picturing Sacagawea, first minted in 2000. The 'Miss Liberty' who has frequently appeared on U.S. coins was a creation of designers at the mint and is not a real person.
The first woman to appear on a U.S. coin was Queen Isabella of Spain, on a commemorative quarter in 1893.

Answer: Annie Edson Taylor

Taylor rode her barrel over Niagara Falls on 20th October 1901 wearing a long black dress and a flowery hat. Although she claimed to be 46 years old at the time, recent research indicates she was actually 64. Taylor's four-and-a-half-foot-long barrel was built with white Kentucky oak held together by seven iron hoops.

It was 22 inches in diameter at the head, 34 inches in diameter in the middle and 15 inches in diameter at the foot and weighed 160 pounds. For ballast, an approximately-100-pound anvil was placed in the barrel's bottom.

When released from her barrel Mrs. Taylor said, "nobody ought ever do that again." She had hoped to make enough money from her notoriety to pay off her debts. However, she was not a success on the speaking circuit and died a pauper in 1921.

Answer: Arabella Mansfield

Arabella Mansfield became the first female lawyer in the US when she was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1869. Although Myra Bradwell began publishing the Chicago Legal News (a very successful legal journal) in 1868, laws in Illinois prevented her from practicing law because of her sex.

In 1892 those laws were changed and she was admitted to practice in Illinois and before the U.S. Supreme Court. Belva Lockwood was the first U.S. woman to *practice* law (arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1879 and before that in the District of Columbia).

Answer: Janet Guthrie

Guthrie was the first woman to drive at Indy (on 7th May 1977), but mechanical troubles forced her to retire from the race after 27 laps. In 1978 she again qualified and for the first time finished, placing ninth in the field despite a broken wrist. Lyn St. James qualified for the Indianapolis 500 for the first time in 1992.

In the 2000 race Sarah Fisher (a 19-year-old rookie) and St. James, who gave the Indianapolis 500 its first two-woman field, wound up squeezing each other out of the race when they collided on lap 74.

In the 2005 race Danica Patrick became the first woman to lead the race but she finished fourth. She was named the Indy Rookie of the Year.

Answer: Charlotte Cooper

Cooper won her gold medal at the second (modern) Olympics, the 1900 Paris Games, in the tennis championship. The only other sport allowed at these games for women (at that time) was golf. Women were traditionally prohibited from participating in the Ancient Olympic Games. They could not even enter the playing areas or the stadium as spectators.

At the turn of the century, when the modern games came into being, many debates took place on the principles of women's participation. The founder of the modern games, Pierre de Coubertin, declared himself against women's participation, expressing the opinion that if they could not play in every sport on equal terms with men they should not be allowed to take part at all. This view was opposed by several International Olympic Committee (IOC) members who supported the stand that women had the right to participate in the games, competing in sports to suit their capabilities.

Answer: Jeannette Rankin

Rankin served two separate terms representing Montana, and was first elected in 1916, four years before the 19th Constitutional amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. She is the only Representative to have voted against American entry into both World Wars (in 1917 and 1941).

A lifelong pacifist, Rankin worked for peace until her death in 1973. Historical note: These four states/territories all gave women the right to vote before 1900 in order to encourage females to settle there: Wyoming territory (1869), Utah territory (1870), Colorado (1893), and Idaho (1896).

Answer: Margaret Chase Smith

Margaret Chase Smith came in second to Barry Goldwater in the balloting at the 1964 Republican National Convention. Smith was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate in her own right. Beginning her political career by taking her deceased husband's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, she then ran for and became a U.S. Senator from Maine, the first woman to do so in her own right.

She served out four terms. In 1972 Shirley Chisholm became first black woman to receive delegate votes for the U.S. presidential nomination by a major political party (Democrats). Victoria C. Woodhull was the first woman to run for U.S. president (in 1872) for a minor party (The Equal Rights Party).

The first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate was Hattie Caraway of Arkansas (in 1932).

However, she had first been appointed to the U.S. Senate to succeed her deceased husband.

Answer: Queen Isabella of Spain

Queen Isabella was depicted on the 5-cent, 8-cent, $1 and $4 values of the Colombian stamp series of 1893. The painting from which the 5-cent value was designed ('Columbus Soliciting the Aid of Isabella') is displayed in the lobby of the Manoir Richelieu Hotel in Quebec, Canada.

The first American woman to be depicted on a U.S. stamp was Martha Washington, on the 8-cent value in the 1902-03 series. Queen Victoria was pictured on the world's first postage stamp, the "Penny Black" issued in 1840 by Great Britain.

Answer: Eileen Marie Collins

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Collins commanded the space shuttle Columbia in spring 1999 at age 42. A highlight of her mission was a successful deployment of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Collins also served as pilot of the space shuttle Discovery in 1995 during a mission to rendezvous with space station Mir. Dr. Sally Ride was the first U.S. woman in space (on the space shuttle Challenger in 1983), but she functioned as a flight engineer assisting Commander Robert Crippen and pilot Rick Hauck. Two Russian women preceded her in space. Pam Melroy piloted the space shuttle Discovery in October 2000.

Answer: Ella Grasso

Although Nellie Tayloe Ross (Wyoming in 1924) and Miriam Ferguson (Texas in 1925) were elected state Governors earlier than Ella Grasso was, they were both preceded by husbands who were also Governors. Grasso was elected Governor of Connecticut in 1974, the first woman to be elected Governor in her own right.

Although she was reelected to a second four-year term (in 1978), she resigned in 1980 due to ill health.

Answer: Ann Bancroft

Ann Bancroft was the first woman to travel across the ice to the North Pole (as the only female member of the Steger International Polar Expedition) in 1986. In 1988, Helen Thayer, at the age of 50, became the first woman to complete an unsupported walk to the magnetic North Pole.

She skied and walked for four weeks, dragging a sled, accompanied only by Charlie, a dog that she brought for protection from polar bears. The hint was added to get you thinking about the movie "The Graduate" and the actress Anne Bancroft.

Answer: Geraldine Ferraro

Ferraro was chosen to be the VP running mate of Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Walter Mondale in the 1984 election. She had been an assistant district attorney in New York and had served in Congress. They lost to Reagan and Bush (Reagan's reelection). Victoria Woodhull was the first woman nominated to be a presidential candidate in 1872 (of the Equal Rights Party).

The first woman to win an Electoral College vote was Tonie Nathan, the VP running mate of Libertarian Party presidential candidate John Hospers in the 1972 election.

Answer: Blanche Stuart Scott

Scott's solo plane flight was in September 1910. She was also the first and only woman to receive instruction from pilot Glenn Curtiss. She was bothered by the public's interest in crashes and the lack of opportunities for women as engineers or mechanics, so she retired from flying in 1916. Scott is pictured on a 1980 U.S. airmail stamp. Harriet Quimby earned a pilot's license on 8/1/1911 and was the first U.S. woman to do so.

She is pictured on a 1991 U.S. airmail stamp. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (in May 1932). She is pictured on a 1963 U.S. airmail stamp. Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran was the first woman to break the sound barrier and was the first American woman to pilot a jet. She is pictured on a 1996 U.S. airmail stamp. In 1909, 22-year-old Alice Ramsey and three female companions drove a Maxwell automobile from New York City to San Francisco in 59 days.

Answer: Elizabeth Blackwell

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) was the first woman to be awarded an MD degree in the U.S. She was born in Britain but was refused admission to medical school in her country because of her sex. She applied to and was accepted by Geneva (NY) Medical School (now Hobart and William Smith College) and earned her medical degree in 1849. Esther Hill Hawks, MD, was a Northerner suffragist who went south to care for black Union troops and newly-freed slaves during the U.S. Civil War period. Bethenia Owens-Adair, MD, became the first woman west of the Mississippi with an MD degree, in 1895.

Answer: Shirley Chisholm

In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became first black woman elected to Congress, representing the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, NY. Chisholm was also the first black woman to receive delegate votes for the U.S. presidential nomination by a major political party (Democrats in 1972). Barbara Jordan (1936--1996) was the first black woman to deliver the keynote address at the convention of a major political party (Democrats in 1976).

She was also the first black woman elected to Congress from the South since Reconstruction (1973).

The first American black woman to run for a national political office was Charlotta Bass, who ran as the VP candidate of the Progressive Party in the 1952 U.S. presidential election.

Answer: Frances Perkins

Appointed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the first woman to become Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins served for all of his years in office as president (1933-45). Madeleine Albright is the first female to hold the position of U.S. Secretary of State. She was unanimously confirmed in 1997 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton.

Answer: Marie Curie

Only two years after the Nobel Foundation was established, a Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Marie Curie (in 1903). Curie also won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1913, making her the first woman to win Nobel Prizes in two different categories.

Answer: Grace Hopper

Hopper was a computer pioneer and is especially well known for supposedly coining the phrase "computer bug" (for a moth that got lodged between some relay contacts). This was a million-dollar question and answer on the American TV show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" However, Thomas Edison used the word "bug" in the 1800s, and some say the word goes all the way back to Shakespeare.