Attorney and judge Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1952, when she finishes her law degree at Stanford, graduating third in her class, no California law firm is willing to hire her because she is a woman. O’Connor says: “As the first woman nominated as a Supreme Court Justice, I am particularly honored. But I happily share the honor with millions of American women of yesterday and today whose abilities and conduct have given me this opportunity of service.”
In 1981, Gerda Lerner is the first woman in fifty years to become president of the Organization of American Historians; she is acknowledged as one of the foremost scholars in the field of women’s history. Dr. Lerner has published ten books on women in history, encompassing topics such as the Grimké sisters and the need to eliminate the invisibility of women. She says, “We stand at the beginning of a new epoch in the history of humankind’s thought, as we recognize that … woman, like man, makes and defines history.”
Writer and human rights advocate Bette Bao Lord writes her first novel, Spring Moon, which becomes an international best seller and American Book Award nominee for best first novel. A Chinese immigrant, Bao Lord has continued to write both novels and nonfiction, and her writings have been translated into fifteen languages. She also lectures frequently on foreign affairs.
Wilhelmina Holladay opens the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Producer and Emmy winner Marcy Carsey founds the production studio Carsey Werner; she is later named one of the fifty greatest women in radio and television.
Inventor Anne Chiang is best known for her work on low-temperature glass-compatible polysilicon coatings for large-area electronics, otherwise known as thin-film transistor technology, or TFT. Today’s flat-panel-display personal computers are a direct result of her work, which also enables cell phone and other portable communications systems.
At age twenty-one, sculptor Maya Lin is selected to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; she wins international acclaim for her site-specific art and architectural projects.
Political scientist Jeane Kirkpatrick is the first female U.S. delegate to the United Nations. She says: “Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal.”