Women

Oprah Winfrey, one of the nation's most popular female entertainers, was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, on January 29, 1954, to Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey. The racially segregated town offered few opportunities for African Americans, and the Winfreys migrated north,…

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex"--Nineteenth Amendment, U.S. Constitution. In August 1920 the Tennessee General Assembly ratified the Nineteenth…

Located in Knoxville, the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame opened in 1999. A project of the Knoxville Sports Corporation and headed by President and Chief Executive Officer Gloria Ray, the Hall of Fame is housed in a two-story, thirty-thousand-square-foot building…

After attending the first national convention of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the nation's largest anti-alcohol association, in November 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio, Tennessean Elizabeth Fisher Johnson (1835-1883) returned home and organized a local chapter of the WCTU in…

The Women's Missionary Union (WMU) was formed in 1888 as an auxiliary of the Southern Baptist Convention for the purpose of religious evangelism. Part of a trend beginning in the early nineteenth century to establish women's missionary societies within many…

Frances Wright was arguably the most radical utopian thinker and activist in antebellum America. She advocated the freedom and equality of women, African American slaves, and white working people and designed social experiments to bring the United States closer to…

Frances Fitzpatrick Wright, author of books for children and adolescents, was born Fannie Bell Fitzpatrick near Gallatin. She spent her childhood in Arizona, but when she was orphaned at fifteen, Fannie Bell returned to the home of her Fitzpatrick grandparents…

Sammye Wynn, educator and children's advocate, was the first black female educator to work in the Educational Opportunities Planning Center founded by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1966. It trained teachers from four southern states in ways to desegregate…