Rebecca Mathias (right) founds MothersWork, Inc., a firm that makes fashionable maternity clothes.
After her first album is released in 1964, Cree Indian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie receives many honors and awards. She wins an Academy Award in 1982 for her song “Up Where We Belong,” which is the theme song for the movie An Officer and a Gentleman. Sainte-Marie’s talents are in many fields; she appears on Sesame Street for five years with her son, she operates the Nihewan Foundation for Native American education, and she earns a Ph.D. in fine art.
Writer Alice Walker publishes the Pulitzer Prize—winning novel The Color Purple; she is the first black woman to win this award.
Standup comic and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is selected as the funniest woman in America by the cable channel Showtime.
Maria de Lourdes Sobrino establishes Lulu’s Desserts to manufacture and distribute ready-to-eat gelatin-based desserts; it is now a multimillion-dollar business.
Chicana academics found Mujeres Activas en Letrasy Cambio Social (MALCS): Women Active in Leaders and Social Change to support Chicana/Latina and Native American students and faculty and to fight race and gender discrimination in higher education.
Nancy Brinker (on left) founds the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation in memory of her sister, who died of breast cancer in 1981 at age thirty-six. One of Brinker’s early funding strategies is the Race for the Cure, at that time a unique way to raise money for charity. The Komen Foundation continues to raise money and awareness of breast cancer and supports research aimed at its eradication.
Violinist Ellen Zwilich is the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize in music; later she is named the first-ever occupant of Carnegie Hall’s Composer’s Chair. Her music is described as having “fingerprints,” immediately recognizable as the product of a particular composer.
Jenny Craig founds the weight loss and nutritional food company Jenny Craig, Inc.