Women gained the right to vote in New York in 1917
These 26 women all lived and worked in NYC! Match the woman with their accomplishment: CONTEST: Win a free walking tour of the neighborhood of your choice for the first person who sends me 100% correct answers. The answers to this quiz will be provided Saturday, March 9th! If you would like the answers sooner email me at hank.orenstein@corcoran.com :
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Gloria Steinhem
Elizabeth Jennings Graham
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Eleanor Roosevelt
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Elizabeth Holtzman
Jane Jacobs
Shirley Chisholm
Lillian Wald
Emily Roebling
Nydia Velasquez
Emma Lazarus
Muriel Siebert
Bella Abzug
Margaret Sanger
Frances Perkins
Toni Morrison
Eva LaGallienne
Edith Wharton
Elizabeth Blackwell
Madame CJ Walker
Frances Cabrini
Pura Belpre
Victoria Woodhull
Martha Graham
a) Born at 14West 23rd Street, she was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1921.
b) The only woman District Attorney in tbe City’s history, was also elected NYC’s only female Comptroller. She was the youngest person elected to Congress in 1972 at age 31, a record that stood for 42 years. She earned national attention serving on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate Hearings.
c) Known as “the first woman of American Finance”, in 1967 she became the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange; later she served as the Superintendent of Banks for NY State’s Banking system.
d) Wrote the sonnet poem for the Statue of Liberty that includes the famous line: “give me your tired, your poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free”.
e) She was instrumental in overseeing the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge (1870-1883).
f) While residing in Greenwich Village, she helped stopped the City and Robert Moses from building a highway through Washington Square Park. She worked tirelessly for worker’s rights and civil rights, and led the effort to the passage of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
g) African American teacher and civil rights figure who in 1854 after having been thrown off a streetcar on Park Row near City Hall, brought a successful lawsuit to end discrimination in public transportation in NYC. She is considered by many to be the "Rosa Parks of the 19th century".
h) The first woman to operate a stock brokerage and also the first to run for President. She created her own political party, “The Equal Rights Party”.
i) Famous feminist who founded Ms. Magazine and the Ms. Foundation for Women, which sponsored “Take Your Daughters to Work Day”.
j) Pioneered the public health movement; founder of the Henry Street Settlement and the Visiting Nurse Service.
k) Sculptor and heiress who amassed a collection of 500 works of art, and opened the first major museum dedicated solely to American art.
l) In 1849 became the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree (Geneva Medical College). In 1857, opened the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children (the first hospital staffed by women serving women) at 64 Bleecker Street.
m) One of the grand figures of the American Stage she willingly abandoned a career as a Broadway star in 1926 and founded the Civic Repertory Theatre on West 14th Street to present classics and important foreign plays at low admission prices. Through her productions and translations, she introduced American audiences to the works of Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, and others.
n) A trained nurse who opened up the first birth control clinic in the United States in 1916 (Brooklyn). Her collaborative efforts led to the FDA approval of Enovid, the first oral contraceptive for women in 1960.
0) An urban writer and activist who championed new, community-based approaches to city planning. Her landmark book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” published in 1961, challenged the dominant traditional modernist professional urban planning model, asserting the wisdom and vision of empirical observation, organic neighborhood activity and community intuition.
p) Became the first woman cabinet member when FDR appointed her Secretary of Labor in 1933, a post she held until 1945. She was instrumental in the New Deal programs, especially in the creation of Social Security.
q) Early leader of the Women’s Rights Movement who spearheaded the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, she wrote the “Declaration of Sentiments” calling for equal rights for women. She co-edited the newspaper, “The Revolution” from an office in Lower Manhattan and lived on the Upper West Side in her later years.
r) In 1923 became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She also led a group of colleagues to convert a box factory into a small theatre in 1924. The Cherry Lane Theatre at 31 Commerce Street is the oldest continuously running Off-Broadway theatre.
s) Thought to be the first American woman self-made millionaire via her hair products business. She was also a philanthropist who donated money to groups working for racial equality.
t) The first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1993), worked for twenty years as a senior editor at Random House in New York City. She said: “My work requires me to think about how free I can be as an African-American woman writer in my genderized, sexualized, wholly racialized world."
u) A resident of the Lenox Hill neighborhood of the Upper East Side, this dancer and choreographer helped create the modern dance movement and ran a Studio.
v) Known as the Patron Saint of Immigrants, in 1946 became the first naturalized American to be canonized. She came to New York City in 1889 to minister to the growing number of impoverished immigrants.
w) Famously outspoken attorney, raised in The Bronx, served as a Congress member and helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus with Gloria Steinhem and Betty Friedan, as well as Women’s Strike for Peace. In 1975 she introduced the first Gay Rights Bill in congress and she worked tirelessly for women’s rights.
x) In 1992 became the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. The 12th Congressional District, which she represents, includes the Lower East Side of Manhattan
y) 1968, became the first Black woman elected to Congress; she served in the House of
Representatives from 1969-1983. In 1972 was the first Black woman to run for President of the United States, winning 151 delegates at the Democratic National Convention.
z) Author and folklorist, was the first Puerto Rican librarian in the New York Public Library system. Through her pioneering outreach beginning in the 1920’s with NYC’s Puerto Rican community, the 115th Street branch became a cultural center for the Latino residents of New York City. A Children's Book award named after her ward is a presented every year, to the Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.