Women's History Month
The Forward Celebrates Women's History Month
March 2nd, 2021
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States
Kamala Devi Harris is an American politician and attorney from Oakland, California. She is currently serving as the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the United States' first female vice president, the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, and the first African American and first Asian American vice president.
March 3rd, 2021
Marie Curie, Physicist
Marie Curie was the first woman to share a Nobel Prize award, the first and the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris in 1906.
March 4th, 2021
Lois Cooper, Engineer, CA State Division of Highways (Caltrans)
Lois Cooper became the first African American woman in California to become a licensed professional engineer with the California State Division of Highways, now known as Caltrans. She graduated from Los Angeles State College with a degree in mathematics in 1954. She worked on several major projects, such as the I-105 Century Freeway, the San Diego Freeway, the Long Beach Freeway, the San Gabriel River Freeway, and the Riverside Freeway.
March 5th, 2021
Murasaki Shikibu, Japanese Novelist
The world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, was published in Japan around A.D. 1000 by female author Murasaki Shikibu. It is still revered today for its masterful observations about court life and has been translated into dozens of languages.
March 8th, 2021
“Jackie” Mitchell, Baseball player
Virne Beatrice "Jackie" Mitchell was one of the first woman pitchers in professional baseball history. In April 1931, while pitching for the Chattanooga Lookouts (a Class AA minor league baseball team) in an exhibition game against the New York Yankees, she struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession.
March 9th, 2021
Dolores Huerta, American Labor Leader
Dolores Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez in 1962, co-founded of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW). She was the first and only woman to sit on the board of the UFW, until 2018. She coined the term “Si, Se Puede” (yes, we can) in 1972. She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
March 10th, 2021
Marilyn Jorgenson Reece, Civil Engineer
In 1954, Marilyn Jorgenson Reece was the first woman to be a registered civil engineer in the state of California. Following graduation from the University of Minnesota, she moved to California, and began working for the State Division of Highways, now known as Caltrans. Among the many projects she supervised, her most celebrated work is the iconic interchange between the 10 and the 405 freeways in Los Angeles, California. This interchange was designed to accommodate traffic moving at high speeds and represented the forefront of traffic engineering in its day. Reese was awarded the Governor's Design Excellence Award for her contributions to the project. In 2008, the interchange was named in her honor.
March 11th, 2021
Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink, American Attorney
Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink was an American attorney and politician from the State of Hawaii. After being denied the ability to take the bar due to being married and having a child, she challenged the statute and won. She passed the bar and opened her own law office in Chicago in 1953. In 1965, she was the first woman of color and Japanese American woman elected to the House of Representatives. Mink was the first Asian- American woman to seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in the 1972 election.
March 12th, 2021
Sarah Mcbride, Activist & Politician
Sarah McBride is an American activist and politician who is a member of the Delaware State Senate. She is the first transgender state senator in the country, making her the highest ranking transgender official in United ?States history. She was the first transgender person to speak at a major party convention when she addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2016. She was also the first out transgender White House staffer when she interned during the Obama Administration.
March 15th, 2021
Wilma Pearl Mankiller, American Activist
Wilma Pearl Mankiller was an American activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. When she was 11 years old, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Program relocated Mankiller and her family from their rural ancestral home in Oklahoma to San Francisco, California. As a teenager, she became involved in San Francisco’s Indian Center, and assisted and supported the Black Panther Party in its early days. Inspired by the social and political movements of the 1960s, she became involved in the occupation and attempted reclamation of Alcatraz Island. In 1998, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
March 16th, 2021
Tammy Duckworth, American Politician
Tammy Duckworth is an American politician and retired Army National Guard Lt. Colonel. She is an Iraq War Veteran and Purple Heart recipient. She was deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard. She is the first Thai American woman and the first woman with a disability elected to Congress.
March 17th, 2021
Michelle Dupree, Structural Steel Paint Supervisor
Michelle Dupree was the first African American woman to be hired as a Structural Steel Paint Supervisor at Caltrans in 2001. In her role as a Structural Steel Paint Supervisor, she managed a crew of 11 painters who were responsible for painting, scaffolding and maintaining all necessary equipment for the upkeep of the Bay Area’s seven state owned toll bridges. Michelle said, “No matter how many times you do it, it is always an awesome sight looking at the most beautiful city in the world…It doesn’t get any better than that”. She retired from Caltrans in 2014.
March 18th, 2021
Kalpana Chawla, Astronaut & Engineer
Kalpana Chawla was an American astronaut, engineer, and the first Indian American woman to travel to space. Her first flight to space was on the Space Shuttle STS-87 Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. Her second flight on the Space Shuttle STS-107 Columbia, ended abruptly on February 1, 2003. She and the crew perished during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, 16 minutes prior to its scheduled landing. Her last mission provided extensive research into the study of space. Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and several streets, universities, and institutions have been named in her honor.
March 19th, 2021
Stacey Abrams, American Politician
Stacey Abrams is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. She founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the state, and in Georgia's 2020–2021 U.S. Senate election and special election, which gave Democrats control over the Senate. In 2021, Stacey Abrams was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in the 2020 election. She was the Democratic nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, becoming the first African- American female major-party gubernatorial nominee in the United States. In February 2019, she became the first African-American woman to deliver a response to the State of the Union address.
March 22nd, 2021
Chien-Shiung Wu, American Physicist
Chien-Shiung Wu was an American physicist who made significant contributions in the field of nuclear physics. Dr. Wu worked on the Manhattan Project, where she helped develop the process for separating uranium into uranium-235 and uranium-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion. She is best known for conducting the Wu Experiment, which proved that parity is not conserved. She is known as the "First Lady of Physics" and the "Queen of Nuclear Research". Dr. Wu became the first woman elected as president of the American Physical Society in 1975. She is regarded as one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century.
March 23rd, 2021
Alice Fletcher, American Ethnologist
Alice Fletcher was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and social scientist who studied and documented Native American culture. She was the first American woman surveyor. She was given the title of the “Measuring Woman”. Over her lifetime, she worked with and for the Omaha, Pawnee, Sioux, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Oto, Nez Percé, Ponca and Winnebago tribes. Fletcher became President of the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1903 and the first woman President of the American Folklore Society in 1905.
March 24, 2021
Dina El-Tawansy, District Director for Caltrans District 4
Dina El-Tawansy is the District Director for Caltrans District 4 (Bay Area). She is the first woman and the first woman of color to serve as the District Director in District 4. She was the first woman Chief Deputy District Director in District 4. Dina has 23 years of service with Caltrans and her leadership experience spans three Districts and multiple Divisions. While much of her career has been in District 4 and District 7, Dina also served in District 12, Orange County, as the Deputy District Director of Operations and Maintenance. Dina manages a $2 Billion budget of in-house and oversight investments and leads nearly 3,500 staff.
March 25th, 2021
Martha Wright Griffith, American Lawyer and Politician
Martha Wright Griffiths was a lawyer and judge before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1954. Griffiths was the first woman to serve on the House Committee on Ways and Means and the first woman elected to the United States Congress from Michigan as a member of the Democratic Party. She was instrumental in including the prohibition of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1982, Griffiths was the first woman elected Lieutenant Governor of Michigan.
March 26th, 2021
Amanda Gorman, American Poet & Activist
Amanda Gorman is an American poet and activist. She became the first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017. She presented her poem, The Hill We Climb, at the Biden-Harris inauguration on January 20, 2021 and in February 2021, was the very first poet to speak at the Super Bowl. Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Sociology
March 29th, 2021
Anousheh Ansari, Engineer & Businesswoman
Anousheh Ansari is an American engineer and businesswoman. She is the first Iranian American woman space tourist, and the first Muslim woman to travel to space. Ansari was the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. She wrote an autobiography, My Dream of Stars: From Daughter of Iran to Space Pioneer.
March 30th, 2021
Josefa Lianes Escoda, Civic Leader and Social Worker
Josefa Llanes Escoda was a civic leader and social worker. She was an advocate of women's suffrage and the founder of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines. She is memorialized on the Philippines' 1,000-Peso banknote depicting Filipinos who fought and died resisting the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during the Second World War at the Far Eastern University in Manila.
March 31st, 2021
Eliza “Lyda” Conley, American Lawyer
Eliza "Lyda" Conley was an American lawyer and the first woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association. She campaigned to prevent the sale and development of the Huron Cemetery in Kansas City, now known as the Wyandot National Burying Ground. She challenged the government in court, and in 1909, she was the first Native American woman and the third woman admitted to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court.
Email: ryan.hardy@dot.ca.gov