22 Famous Women in History You Need to Learn About ASAP

In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt got the country out of the Great Depression by creating jobs under the Works Progress Administration. This included positions in the performing arts. Hallie Flanagan was the director of the Federal Theatre Project, an organization dedicated to producing theatre not just on Broadway in New York City, but all over the country by establishing regional and local theaters. Flanagan made theatre accessible for all Americans in a way that had never been done before. Under Flanagan's leadership, the project also focused on racial integration and justice in the performing arts. Unfortunately, due to liberal views and alleged Communism, Congress deemed the Federal Theatre Project controversial and pulled its funding. Flanagan was one of the first to testify in front of the Dies Committee, which would later become the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Wong was the first Chinese American movie star, both in Hollywood and internationally, and the first Asian American woman to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She overcame discrimination and racism in her personal life and in Hollywood; and ultimately changed how Asian people are viewed on screen for the better. Not only was she initially cast in stereotypical parts, but there were actual rules against interracial couples, called anti-miscegenation laws, that prevented her from being cast as a romantic interest at all. Wong was undeniable: she learned French and German when talkies became popular. She founded her own, albeit short-lived, production company. She worked on Broadway and lead a detective television show. Wong was a multi-hyphenate well before that became the norm.

You may have read Chilean American author Isabelle Allende's novel The House of the Spirits in high school, but her contribution to literature and magical realism cannot be overstated. Allende wrote The House of the Spirits when she was exiled in Venezuela following a political coup. She was the first woman to receive the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 1998. The award is given to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life."

Bessie Coleman was the first African-American woman and first Black person in general to receive a pilot's license. Because of gender and racial discrimination, she learned French and went to Paris to do so. When Bessie returned to the United States, she was a celebrity. She did dangerous stunts for money, earning the nicknames Queen Bess and Brave Bessie. She also refused to speak at any event that was segregated or didn't permit Black people to attend and stood up against segregation at aviation events with some success. Unfortunately, her story has a tragic ending–she died in a plane crash in 1926 during a test flight when she was only 34 years old.

In 2024, it feels like pulling teeth to get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scientists to recognize woman directors. But that doesn't change the fact that women have been directing film since its invention. In fact, French director Alice Guy-Blache was arguably the inventor of narrative film, meaning the first to use moving pictures to tell a story, along with her contemporaries the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès. Regardless of who was or was not the first, she was a pioneer filmmaker who made dozens of films and we never talk about her!

The first American-born Chinese female physician was a woman named Margaret Chung. She was ambitious from a young age and worked for a newspaper and as an English teacher before graduating from medical school. She served as a volunteer surgeon in World War II. She treated celebrities, including Mary Pickford. She dallied in the criminal underground with opium traffickers. She "adopted" military pilots who nicknamed her "Mom" Chung. She would have up to and sometimes over 100 people over for Sunday and Thanksgiving dinners, where the only rule was that the men cleaned up. She helped establish the Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, aka WAVES, but was not allowed to join because the government thought she might be a lesbian–which, even though the Lavender Scare officially started a few years later, was still grounds to blacklist people like Chung.

You may not have heard of the scientist and engineer, but Dresselhaus fundamentally changed our lives for the better. One of the first female professors at MIT, her research was at the cutting edge of carbon-based materials. She and her group made huge advances in carbon nanostructures, and the related technology appears in microelectronics, concrete, sports equipment, and elsewhere in our daily lives. She also fought for equality for women and helped create support systems for female scientists in academia. She's now known as the "Queen of Carbon"! (Fun fact: Dresselhaus was interviewed by Cosmo all the way back in 1976.)

The first sci-fi author to get a MacArthur Fellowship, Butler authored the Xenogenesis trilogy and The Parable series, among other works. Often considered one of the best science fiction authors of all time, she took a critical look at humankind—writing about possible futures to serve as a warning to her readers. Butler's novels are considered even more relevant today: She predicted the rise of U.S. political extremism, climate change, and religious fundamentalism, questioned the norms of gender identity, and told stories that centered on multi-ethnic communities. So it's no surprise she also made our list of Top Books to Read by Black Authors.

You probably know Woolf if you studied her literature, but you may be less familiar with her life: A bisexual who pursued relationships with women, she was an early feminist writer and helped expand access to the (male-dominated) literary world. She actively spoke out about the disadvantages female artists face and inspired many other women in her wake. All this is even more impressive, considering Woolf was also a survivor of early sexual abuse, and it's speculated she may have had what we now call bipolar disorder.

The first American woman and the third woman ever to go to space, flying on the Challenger in 1983, Ride was also the first known LGBTQ+ astronaut. She spent 27 years with her partner Tam O'Shaughnessy (and when President Obama bestowed Ride with a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, O'Shaughnessy accepted the award). After leaving NASA, Ride served as director of the California Space Science Institute; She also strove to help women and girls who wanted to study STEM subjects, working with science programs and authoring children's books. She was immortalized as a Barbie in 2019.

Know your Black history heroes! The first Black woman to serve in Congress in 1968, Chisholm (nicknamed "Fighting Shirley") was also the first Black person and the first woman to run for U.S. president. In 1964, she became the second Black person to serve in the New York State Legislature. She then co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus, was the first Black woman to serve on the House Rules Committee, and spent her life championing equality, pacifism, and ending poverty.

MacMullan helped pave the way for women in sports journalism. She's a Hall of Fame basketball writer and former Boston Globe reporter and columnist who won the PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing in 2019. "As I went along in my career, there were all these incredibly talented young women that were just looking for a little guidance, and it was my pleasure to provide that guidance," she said. She retired from ESPN in 2021, but she's still working, just unveiling a podcast miniseries with The Ringer network interviewing NBA superstars like Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal.

Storey is Great Britain's most decorated Paralympian, with 17 (!!) gold medals and 27 (!!) Olympic medals total. Born without a functional left hand, she dealt with bullying, eating disorders, and prejudice before becoming one of the world's most decorated, popular, and visible Paralympians. She and her husband run Storey Racing, which is focused on mentoring young women, and Storey's been vocal about equity in sports participation and coverage, saying, "It still doesn't receive the mainstream TV coverage and column inches that it deserves." As an advocate for accessibility, she's the Cycling & Walking Commissioner for Greater Manchester.

Johnson played a pivotal role in the progress of LGBTQ+ rights. In her own words, her middle initial, "P," stood for “Pay It No Mind,” which was her response when asked about her gender. She was present at the Stonewall Riots and cofounded one of the first transgender rights organizations in the country: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). Johnson, who identified as a transvestite but who is seen now as a transgender woman of color, is now being recognized more fully as the transformative figure she was.

Born as an enslaved person, Wells was a civil rights leader and one of the founders of the NAACP. In 1883, she was removed from a train because she refused to give up her seat; She sued the railway company. Wells became editor and co-owner of the Memphis Free Speech newspaper in 1889 and wrote about a myriad of issues around inequality, including revealing the practices of lynching. A white mob destroyed the newspaper office, but she continued to be an outspoken advocate of women's rights and civil rights. After her death, she received a Pulitzer Prize citation; She was also just immortalized in Barbie form for her "fearless activism."

This former filmmaker is a human rights campaigner whose films include India's Daughter, which centered around the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh. Based on what she learned, in 2016, she founded Think Equal to promote early childhood development, and has dedicated her life to ensuring every child around the world has access to foundational education that will enable them to live better lives. In 2019, she won the UN Women for Peace Activism in Arts and Education Award.