Idaho's Women of Influence is a database originally compiled in 2014 by researchers Annie Gaines and Mike Bullard. The women listed are considered by the university to be some of the most accomplished in Idaho's history. It is a living database continually updated by librarians, educators, museum staff, tribal authorities, women’s organizations. The database is provided by the University of Idaho Library, and is open to credibly sourced submissions from the general public.
This list is not to be confused with the East Idaho Women of Influence, sponsored by the East Idaho Business Journal and the Adams Publishing Group. [1]
Name | Image | Birth–Death | Notability | Ref(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Margaret Cobb Ailshie | (1883–1959) | Publisher of the Idaho Statesman | [2] | |
Verda Rebecca White Barnes | (1907–1980) | Chief of Staff and political strategist for US Senator Frank Church | [3] | |
Carol Ryrie Brink | (1895–1981) | Children's author who won the Newbery Medal for Caddie Woodlawn | [4] | |
Mary Brooks | (1907–2002) | Director of the United States Mint under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. United States Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon presented her with the Alexander Hamilton Award. | [5] | |
Helen Chenoweth-Hage | (1938–2006) | United States House of Representatives January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2001 | [6] | |
Mary Elizabeth Donaldson | (1851–1941) | aka (Mary Craker) Physician, co-founder of Idaho Sanitarium Institute, the Donaldson Home for the Aging, and Idaho Magazine. | [7] | |
Abigail Scott Duniway | (1834–1915) | Suffragist, newspaper editor and writer. | [8] | |
Permeal J. French | (1867–1954) | Dean of Women at University of Idaho, and the first woman elected to state-wide office in Idaho. | [9] | |
Maggie Hall | (1853–1888) | aka Molly B'Damn – brothal madam in Murray, Idaho, who used her income to feed and house the homeless. Annual Molly B'Damn Gold Rush Days honors her legacy. | [10] | |
Christine Holbert | (b. 1952) | Founding director of Lost Horse Press | [11] | |
Minnie Howard | (1872–1965) | Physician whose civic involvement, often as president or chair of any civic organization, helped build the Pocatello Public Library. | [12] | |
Mary Kirkwood | (1904–1995) | Artist and a professor at the University of Idaho | [13] | |
Edith Miller Klein | (1915–1958) | Judge of the Municipal Court in Boise. Employed by Federal Communications Commission and was admitted to the United States Supreme Court Bar in 1954. She was elected to the Idaho House of Representatives in 1964, and elected to the Idaho State Senate in 1968–1982. | [14] | |
Velma Morrison | (1920–2013) | Philanthropist, the Velma V. Morrison Center for the Performing Arts on the Boise State University honors her efforts. | [15] | |
Lee Morse | (1897–1954) | Jazz and blues singer-songwriter, composer, guitarist, and actress. | [16] | |
Sarah Palin | (b. 1964) | Politician, former Governor of Alaska. Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 Presidential election, alongside Arizona Senator John McCain. Born in Sandpoint, Idaho | [17] | |
Gracie Pfost | (1906–1965) | Five-terms United States House of Representatives. | [18] | |
Marjorie Reynolds | (1917–1997) | Actress | [19] | |
Margaret Ritchie | (1895–1986) | Head of the Home Economics department at the University of Idaho 1938–1959. | [20] | |
Marilynne Robinson | (b. 1943) | Novelist and essayist. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. | [21] | |
Louise Shadduck | (1915–2008) | Journalist, author, political activist. | [22] | |
Jennie Eva Hughes Smith | (1877–1939) | First African-American to graduate from the University of Idaho. The university's Jennie Eva Hughes Award is given annually for involvement in multicultural issues and dedication to campus multiculturalism. | [23] | |
Nellie Stockbridge | (1868–1965) | Photographer | [24] | |
Belle Sweet | (1879–1964) | Served as the University of Idaho Librarian 1905–1948, compiling the largest library collection in the state of Idaho. | [25] | |
Dorice Taylor | (1901–1987) | Public relations for Sun Valley, Idaho. Author of two books, Sun Valley in 1980, and Idaho ghost towns : past and present, with special insert on the Yankee Fork. 1984 Inductee into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. | [26] | |
Lana Turner | (1921–1995) | Actress | [27] | |
Betty Penson-Ward | (1914–2002) | Journalist | [28] | |
Benedicte Wrensted | (1859–1949) | Danish photographer documentation of the Northern Shoshone, Lemhi, and Bannock tribes in Idaho between 1895–1912. | [29] | |
Mary Allen Wright | (1868–1948) | Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives, and served as Clerk of the House. Owner of Wright's Loan and Investment Company. | [30] | |
Emma Russell Yearian | (1866–1951) | Educator, sheep herder, and first woman to represent Lemhi County in the Idaho House of Representatives. Nicknamed the Sheep Queen of Idaho. | [31] | |
Moscow is a city and the county seat of Latah County, Idaho. Located in the North Central region of the state along the border with Washington, it had a population of 25,435 at the 2020 census. Moscow is the home of the University of Idaho, the state's land-grant institution and primary research university.
Kootenai County is located in the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, its population was 171,362, making it the third-most populous county in Idaho and the largest in North Idaho, the county accounting for 45.4% of the region's total population. The county seat and largest city is Coeur d'Alene. The county was established in 1864 and named after the Kootenai tribe. Kootenai County is coterminous with the Coeur d'Alene metropolitan area, which along with the Spokane metropolitan area comprises the Spokane–Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area.
Coeur d'Alene is a city and the county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. It is the most populous city in North Idaho and the principal city of the Coeur d'Alene Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 54,628 at the 2020 census. Coeur d'Alene is a satellite city of Spokane, which is located about thirty miles (50 km) to the west in the state of Washington. The two cities are the key components of the Spokane–Coeur d'Alene Combined Statistical Area, of which Coeur d'Alene is the third-largest city. The city is situated on the north shore of the 25-mile (40 km) long Lake Coeur d'Alene and to the west of the Coeur d'Alene Mountains. Locally, Coeur d'Alene is known as the "Lake City," or simply called by its initials, "CDA."
Wallace, Idaho is a city in and the county seat of Shoshone County, Idaho, in the Silver Valley mining district of the Idaho Panhandle. Founded in 1884, Wallace sits alongside the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River. The town's population was 791 at the 2020 census.
Carol Ryrie Brink was an American writer of over thirty juvenile and adult books. Her novel Caddie Woodlawn won the 1936 Newbery Medal and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.
Caddie Woodlawn is a children's historical fiction novel by Carol Ryrie Brink that received the Newbery Medal in 1936 and a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. The original 1935 edition was illustrated by Newbery-award-winning author and illustrator Kate Seredy. Macmillan released a later edition in 1973, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.
The Inland Northwest, historically and alternatively known as the Inland Empire, is a region of the American Northwest centered on the Greater Spokane, Washington Area, encompassing all of Eastern Washington and North Idaho. Under broader definitions, Northeastern Oregon and Western Montana may be included in the Inland Northwest. Alternatively, stricter definitions may exclude Central Washington and Idaho County, Idaho.
The Coeur d'Alene Tribe are a Native American tribe and one of five federally recognized tribes in the state of Idaho.
The Coeur d'Alene Reservation is a Native American reservation in northwestern Idaho, United States. It is home to the federally recognized Coeur d'Alene, one of the five federally recognized tribes in the state.
The Idaho panhandle—locally known as North Idaho, Northern Idaho, or simply the Panhandle—is a salient region of the U.S. state of Idaho encompassing the state's 10 northernmost counties: Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Clearwater, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, and Shoshone. The panhandle is bordered by the state of Washington to the west, Montana to the east, and the Canadian province of British Columbia to the north. The Idaho panhandle, along with Eastern Washington, makes up the region known as the Inland Northwest, headed by its largest city, Spokane, Washington.
Nellie Stockbridge was an early Idaho frontier mining district photographer.
The Coeur d'Alene is a U.S. National Forest located in the Idaho panhandle and is one of three forests that are aggregated into the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. Coeur d'Alene National Forest is located in Shoshone, Kootenai, and Bonner counties in northern Idaho. It has a total area of 726,362 acres.
The Idaho Panhandle National Forests are a jointly administered set of three national forests located mostly in the U.S. state of Idaho. In 1973, major portions of the Kaniksu, Coeur d'Alene, and St. Joe National Forests were combined to be administratively managed as the Idaho Panhandle National Forests (IPNF). The IPNF consists of more than 2.5 million acres (10,000 km2) of public lands in the panhandle of north Idaho, with small areas extending into eastern Washington (4.7%) and western Montana (1.2%). The northernmost portion of the IPNF share a boundary with Canada. The Forest Supervisor's office is located in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho with district office's in Bonners Ferry, Sandpoint, Priest River, Fernan and Smelterville, and St. Maries and Avery.
Willis Sweet was the first United States Representative elected from Idaho following statehood in 1890. Sweet served as a Republican in the House from 1890 to 1895, representing the state at-large. He vigorously demanded "Free Silver" or the unrestricted coinage of silver into legal tender, in order to pour money into the large silver mining industry in the Mountain West, but he was defeated by supporters of the gold standard.
For the American educational theorist and educator, see Janet Hale.
State Highway 3 (SH-3) is a state highway in northern Idaho, connecting U.S. Route 12 near Spalding, east of Lewiston, with Interstate 90 near Rose Lake, east of Coeur d'Alene. It is 117.68 miles (189.4 km) in length and runs north–south, east of and generally parallel to Idaho's primary north–south highway, U.S. Route 95.
Mary Elizabeth Thomas Peavey Brooks was an American politician. She directed the United States Mint from September 1969 to February 1977.
David Ryrie Brink was an American attorney from Minnesota and a former president of the American Bar Association.
Raymond Woodard Brink was an American mathematician. His Ph.D. advisor at Harvard was George David Birkhoff.