It’s no secret that woman have had to work hard to get to where we are now in the workplace. (And we’re still not on equal footing.) But it’s also no secret that African-American women in particular have had to work harder.
In research for their book, Documenting Desegregation, authors Kevin Stainback and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey found that since 1970, segregation between black and white women in the American workplace has increased – “so much so that it has eliminated progress made in the late 1960s,” they note in an article written for The Washington Post.
While we can’t yet claim equality based on race or gender, it’s worth looking back to see just how much progress has been made. In honor of Black History Month, here are 26 significant moments for African-American women in the workforce.
First known African-American woman to publish a book:
Phillis Wheatley, who wrote Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773
First college instructor:
Sarah Jane Woodson Early, Wilberforce College, 1858
First to receive a degree:
Mary Jane Patterson, Oberlin College in 1862
First to enlist in the U.S. Army:
Cathay Williams, in 1866
First to hold a patent:
Sarah E. Goode, for the cabinet bed, in 1885
First to found and become president of a bank:
Maggie L. Walker, with St. Luke Penny Savings Bank (now the Consolidated Bank & Trust Company), in 1903
First to earn a Ph.D. in the U.S:
Sadie Tanner Mossell, who earned her degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1921
First to head a federal agency:
Mary McLeod Bethune, head of the National Youth Administration in 1938
First to win a Pulitzer:
Gwendolyn Brooks, for her book of poetry, Annie Allen, in 1949
First ambassador of the United States:
Patrician Roberts Harris, ambassador to Luxembourg in 1965, who was later the first African-American woman to be elected to the U.S. Cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban development in 1977
First elected to U.S. House of Representatives:
Shirley Chisholm, a Democrat from New York, in 1968
First graduate of Harvard Business School:
Lillian Lincoln, in 1969
First mayor of a U.S. city:
Doris A. Davis, mayor of Compton, Calif., in 1973
First with a signature to appear on U.S. currency:
Azie Taylor Morton, the 36th treasurer of the United States, in 1977
First elected as to a U.S. judgeship, and first appointed to a state Supreme Court:
Juanita Kidd Stout, who achieved both milestones in 1988
First astronaut:
Dr. Mae Jemison on the Space Shuttle Endeavor in 1992
First elected to U.S. Senate:
Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat from Illinois, in 1992
First to win the Nobel Prize for Literature:
Toni Morrison in 1993, who also is the first African-American to be awarded the prize
First president of an Ivy League university:
Ruth J. Simmons of Brown University, appointed in 2001
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