Deborah N. Archer ’93
First Black president of the ACLU
Barbara Hulley Ackermann ’48
First woman mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts
Marylin Bender Altschul ’44
First woman editor of The New York Times business section
Christine Von Wedemeyer Beshar ’53
First woman partner in New York City’s largest law firm
Hari Brissimi ’48
First woman director in the office of the UN High Commission
Adelaide Brown 1888
First woman on California State Board of Health
Ann Brown ’59
First woman chair of Consumer Product Safety Commission
Barbara Pierce Bush ’47 and Nancy Davis Reagan ’43
First ladies of the United States
Ann Baumgartner Carl ’39
First woman to fly a jet plane
Eunice Hunton Carter 1921
First black woman district attorney in New York City
Victoria Chan-Palay ’65
First woman to receive a medical degree summa cum laude from Harvard
Helen (Penny) Bates Chenery ’43
First woman president of Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association
Mitsuru Claire Chino ’88
First female executive officer of any major trading company in Japan, and the youngest
Adelaide Cromwell ’40
First African American faculty member at Hunter College and at Smith College
Otelia Cromwell 1900
First African American woman to receive a doctorate from Yale
Lucile Atcherson Curtis 1913
First woman appointed to the U.S. Foreign Service
Madeline McWhinney Dale ’43
First woman officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York City
Katherine Woodruff Fanning ’49
First woman president of American Society of Newspaper Editors
Renee Clair Fox ’49
First woman chair of a department (sociology) at UPenn
Martha Euphemia Lofton Haynes 1914
First African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics
Gloria W. Heath ’43
First woman to be awarded the Barbour Air Safety Award
Harriet Putnam Henry ’45
First woman judge in Maine