Women’s History Month Quiz – NYC-Style
These women all lived and worked in NYC! Match the woman with their accomplishment:
The first person who submits all 26 correct answers will receive a gift certificate for a free walking tour of up to 10 people. Your choice of neighborhood - or my special Greenwich Village Women's History Tour. Email me at hank.orenstein@corcoran.com if you would like the answers.
1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
2. Gloria Steinem
3. Elizabeth Jennings Graham
4. Edna St. Vincent Millay
5. Eleanor Roosevelt
6. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
7. Elizabeth Holtzman
8. Jane Jacobs
9. Shirley Chisholm
10. Lillian Wald
11. Emily Roebling
12. Nydia Velasquez
13. Emma Lazarus
14. Muriel Siebert
15. Bella Abzug
16. Margaret Sanger
17. Frances Perkins
18. Toni Morrison
19. Eva LaGallienne
20. Edith Wharton
21. Elizabeth Blackwell
22. Madame CJ Walker
23. Frances Cabrini
24. Pura Belpre
25. Victoria Woodhull
26. Martha Graham
A) Born at 14 West 23rd Street, she was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1921.
B) The only woman District Attorney in the City’s history and 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 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 between Spruce and Beekman brought a successful lawsuit to end discrimination in public transportation in NYC.
H) The first woman to operate a stock brokerage and 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, Eva willingly abandoned a career as a Broadway star in 1926 and founded the Civic Repertory Theatre on West 14th Street to present classings and important foreign plays at low admission prices. It had 1,100 seats. Through her productions and traanslations sshe introduced NYC audiences to the works of Chekhov, Ibsen and others.
N) A trained nurse who opened 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.
O) 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 Steinem 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) In 1968, became the first Black woman elected to Congress; she served in the House of Representatives from 1969-1983. In 1972, Chisholm 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.