1848 The world’s first women’s rights convention is held in Seneca
Falls, New York, July 19 and 20. A Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions is debated and ultimately signed by 68 women and 32 men, setting the agenda for the women’s rights movement that followed.

1850 The first national women’s rights convention attracts over
1,000 participants to Worchester, Massachusetts, from as far away as California. Only lack of space kept hundreds from attending. Annual national conferences are held through 1860 (except 1857).

1855 The University of Iowa becomes the first state school to admit women. In 1858, the board of managers tries, but fails, to exclude women.

1862 Mary Jane Patterson is the first African-American woman to receive a full baccalaureate degree, for Oberlin College. Three European-American women had been graduated in 1841 from Oberlin College: Mary Hosford, Elizabeth Smith Prall, and Caroline Mary Rudd.

1872 November 5: Susan B. Anthony and fourteen women register and vote in the presidential election to test whether the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment can be interpreted as protecting women’s rights. Anthony is arrested, tried, found guilty, and fined $100.00, which she refuses to pay.

1878 The Susan B. Anthony Amendment, to grant women the vote, is first introduced in the U.S. Congress.

1909 Women garment workers strike in New York for better wages and working conditions in the Uprising of the 20,000. Over 300 shops eventually sign union contracts.

1910 The number of women attending college has increased 150% since 1900.

1920 Female college undergraduates have doubled in number since 1910.

1933 Frances Perkins, the first woman in a Presidential cabinet, serves as Secretary of Labor during the entire Roosevelt presidency.

1945 Equal Pay for Equal Work bill is again introduced into Congress (see 1872). It passes in 1963.

1957 The number of women and men voting is approximately equal for the first time.

1963 Betty Friedan’s best seller, The Feminine Mystique, detailed the “problem has no name.” Five million copies are sold by 1970, laying the groundwork for the modern feminist movement.

1970 Betty Friedan organizes the first Women’s Equality Day, August 26, to mark the 50th anniversary of women’s right to vote.

1972 Ms. magazine begins regular publication, reaching a circulation of 350,000 within a year.

1972 Barbara Jordan (D-TX) becomes first black woman elected to Congress from a Southern state.

1974 Ella Grasso becomes the first woman to win election as governor in her own right, in Connecticut.

1977 The First National Women’s Conference is held in Houston, Texas, Chaired by Bella Abzug. 130,000 women attended preparatory meetings held in every state to draft recommendations for a national Plan of Action and to elect 2,000 delegates to the conference-the most diverse group ever elected in the U.S. The delegates publish a 25-point Plan of Action.

1981 At the request of women’s organizations, President Carter proclaims the first “National Women’s History Week,” incorporating March 8, International Women’s Day.

1992 “The Year of the Woman.” A record number of women run for public office, and win. Twenty-four are newly-elected to the House of Representatives (total: and six to the Senate. They include: the first Mexican-American woman and the first Puerto Rican women in the house, Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) and Nydia Velazquez(D-NY); the first black woman Senator, Carole Moseley Braun, (D-IL); and both Senators for California, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, who are both Democrats.

1996 U.S. women’s spectacular success in the Summer Olympics (19 gold medals, 10 silver, 9 bronze) is the result of large number of girls and women active in sports since the passage of Title IX.

1997 Elaborating on Title IX, the Supreme Court rules that college athletics programs must actively involve roughly equal numbers of men and women to qualify for federal support.