Special Report

Women Who Shaped History

The Smithsonian's American Women’s History Initiative is a comprehensive undertaking that documents, researches, collects, displays and shares the rich and compelling story of women in the United States. In celebration of the AWHI, Smithsonian magazine has collected representative examples of its coverage of diverse women throughout American history.

Amelia Earhart (left) and Eleanor Roosevelt (right) National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of George R. Rinhart, in memory of Joan Rinhart

Historian Martha S. Jones (bottom left) turned to ledgers, deeds, census records and government documents to unravel her family's story.

How a Leading Black Historian Uncovered Her Own Family's Painful Past—and Why Her Ancestors' Stories Give Her Hope

The New Jersey Morning Call said Billy Possum had “a head that is likely to give a baby [a] nightmare.”

How a Stuffed Animal Named Billy Possum Tried—and Failed—to Replace the Teddy Bear as America's National Toy

A group of women sewing a quilt on the porch of a property in Georgia, May 1939

From the Antebellum South to the Civil Rights Movement, Black American Women Have Long Told Their Stories Through Quilts

Researchers estimate the women were buried with more than 270,000 disc-shaped beads.

Why Were These Women Buried With More Than 270,000 Beads?

None

The Talented and Valiant Female Surgeon Who Joined Allied Forces in WWII and Broke Barriers Along the Way

The crusading physician pictured circa 1915, just a few years after she began her game-changing research among industrial workers.

How Alice Hamilton Waged a One-Woman Campaign to Get the Lead Out of Everything

At the Smithsonian

Sandra Day O'Connor, Michael Arthur Worden Evans, circa 1982

How Sandra Day O’Connor Brought Compromise to the Supreme Court

Barbie has held more than 250 jobs since her debut in 1959.

When Barbie Broke the Glass Ceiling

A vintage promotional photograph commissioned and approved by Redfeather around 1915 is now held in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

The Forgotten History of Tsianina Redfeather, the Beloved American Indian Opera Singer

Briana A. Thomas

Carol Burnett's charwoman costume from her award-winning variety show (above in 1973) is now held in the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Carol Burnett Reveals How She Came to Create the Charwoman

They Shaped Culture

Gertrud Eysoldt as Salome in a Berlin production of Oscar Wilde's notorious play, circa 1902

Why Oscar Wilde's Play About a Biblical Temptress Was Banned From the British Stage for Decades

The New Jersey Morning Call said Billy Possum had “a head that is likely to give a baby [a] nightmare.”

How a Stuffed Animal Named Billy Possum Tried—and Failed—to Replace the Teddy Bear as America's National Toy

A 1910 watercolor portrait of Belle da Costa Greene by Laura Coombs Hills

The Trailblazing Black Librarian Who Rewrote the Rules of Power, Gender and Racial Passing

Deborah W. Parker, The Conversation

Zora Neale Hurston wanted to tell the world about the "real ... historical Herod, instead of the deliberately folklore Herod."

Why Was Zora Neale Hurston So Obsessed With the Biblical Villain Herod the Great?

Women in STEM

None

The Talented and Valiant Female Surgeon Who Joined Allied Forces in WWII and Broke Barriers Along the Way

By Catherine Musemeche

The crusading physician pictured circa 1915, just a few years after she began her game-changing research among industrial workers.

How Alice Hamilton Waged a One-Woman Campaign to Get the Lead Out of Everything

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in June 2024. The duo took their first spacewalk together on January 30, 2025.

NASA's Starliner Astronauts Take Their First Spacewalk Together After Roughly Eight Months on the ISS

A dried sample of the original Penicillium mold that Fleming discovered in 1928.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

The ‘Penicillin Girls’ Made One of the World’s Most Life-Saving Discoveries Possible

Future of Women's History

Preet Chandi trains in Chamonix before starting her journey across Antarctica.

‘Polar Preet’ Sets Out to Become the First Woman to Cross Antarctica Solo and Unsupported

Margaret Osborne

Between March 19 and April 17, 1964, Geraldine "Jerrie" Mock (above: at the start of her journey at Ohio's Port Columbus Airport) flew her single-engine Cessna 180, dubbed "Charlie," solo around the globe setting a world record.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Who Was the First Woman to Fly Solo Around the World?

President Biden announced his pick to fill the US Supreme Court vacancy on Friday: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

What to Know About Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's Historic Nomination to the Supreme Court