The Michigan Women's Hall of Fame (MWHOF) honors distinguished women, both historical and contemporary, who have been associated with the U.S. state of Michigan. The hall of fame was founded in 1983 by Gladys Beckwith and is sponsored by the Michigan Women's Studies Association.[1] The formation of the Association and the Hall was prompted by five professors from Michigan State University, who were teaching a Women in American Society course.[2]
Nominations to the hall of fame are accepted from the public and are open to women who rose to prominence in or were born in Michigan, as well as those who have lived in the state for an extended period. A screening committee ranks the nominations by merit and a second committee makes the final determination, generally selecting eight to ten women annually for induction. Inductees are honored at a ceremony and dinner in October and are presented with a bronze Lifetime Achievement Award.[3] As of 2021, the Hall of Fame contains over 340 inductees.[4][5]
The MWHOF was housed in the Cooley-Haze House, built in 1903 and located at 213 W. Malcolm X St. (formerly W. Main Street), directly south of downtown Lansing, Michigan. It contained a resource library, as well as exhibit galleries dedicated to preserving and presenting Michigan women's history and art. The house was opened to the public on June 10, 1987. The center also contained the Belen Gallery, which featured art from Michigan women.[1]
Michigan Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame moved to its current location in Meridian Mall, 110 W. Allegan St., Suite 10 in 2017.
National Housewives League, founded Detroit Housewives League. Created Fannie B. Peck Credit Union. Created the first cemetery for African Americans in Detroit
Thoroughbred jockey Julie Krone is the only woman to ride the winner of a Triple Crown event (the 1993 Belmont Stakes), the first woman to win a Breeders’ Cup event (2003 Juvenile Fillies), and the first woman to win a million-dollar event (2003 Pacific Classic).
The 11 women delegates at the 1961–1962 Michigan Constitutional Convention: Vera Andrus, Ruth Gibson Butler, Anne M. Conklin, Katherine Moore Cushman, Ann Elizabeth Donnelly, Daisy Elizabeth Elliott, Adelaide Julia Hart, Lillian Hatcher, Dorothy Leonard Judd, Ella Demmink Koeze, and Marjorie Frances McGowan
Aviator, women's rights. Tested for fitness to enter NASA's astronaut training program, submitting to the same physical and psychological tests administered to the Mercury 7 astronauts.
Founder of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council. Member of the Michigan Natural Resources Commission, and the Governor's Advisory Committee on Electric Energy Alternatives and the first Natural Resources Trust Fund Board.
First African American woman to serve as executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Southwest Michigan. Co-founder of the Sojourner Foundation
First woman in the United States to earn a Doctorate in Animal Genetics. Trustee of Michigan State University. Founding member of the Oakland University Board of Trustees
W W II U. S. Army flight nurse, died in a plane crash in Lyons, France. Posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Aleda E. Lutz VA Medical Center in Saganaw honors her service.
Became a union leader while working at Kellogg's in Battle Creek. Co-founder of the Coalition of Labor Union Women. Founded the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek chapters of the National Organization for Women
Founder of Women's Crisis Center in Ann Arbor. Organized a boycott against Domino's Pizza for its anti-woman policies. Propelled the rape crisis center movement in Michigan.
Superintendent of Northern Michigan Children's Clinic. Helped found the Bay Cliff Health Camp. Worked with the American Red Cross to recruit and train workers for disaster recovery.
Founded a private elementary school for black children. Pushed for school desegregation, resulting in the Michigan Supreme Court's 1871 ruling ordering desegregation.
Attorney who argued for the plaintiff in Goesaert v. Cleary before the United States Supreme Court, in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the appellees and upheld the State of Michigan's discriminatory laws regarding hiring practices of women barkeepers. US Congresswoman Martha Griffiths' support of the US Equal Rights Amendment was based on this case.
First woman elected to the executive board of the United Auto Workers. Under her influence, the UAW in 1970 became the first national union to endorse constitutional ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
Founder of Merrill Palmer School for Motherhood and Home Training, first director of the Women's Department of the Massachusetts Life Insurance Company
First woman commissioned as American military Colonel, World War II Army Medical Corps, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner of Wayne County, 20 years research into Sudden infant death syndrome
First African-American woman to graduate from the Medical School of Wayne State University, the first to be accepted as an intern at Detroit Receiving Hospital.
and the first to become Chief Resident of a major Detroit hospital.
Medicine, health care, founder of the American Medical Women's Association in 1915, and the first woman to be head of a medical division at a coeducational university.
United States House of Representatives 1955–1974, guided the Equal Rights Amendment through both houses of Congress in 1972. Lt. Governor of Michigan 1983–1991
Michigan State University is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. After the introduction of the Morrill Act in 1862, the state designated the college a land-grant institution in 1863, making it the first of the land-grant colleges in the United States. The college became coeducational in 1870. Today, Michigan State has rapidly expanded its footprint across the state of Michigan with facilities all across the state and one of the largest collegiate alumni networks with 634,000 members.
The University of Detroit Mercy is a private Roman Catholic university in Detroit, Michigan. It is sponsored by both the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Sisters of Mercy. The university was founded in 1877 and is the largest Catholic university in Michigan. It has three campuses where it offers more than 100 academic degree programs.
Pewabic Pottery is a ceramic studio and school in Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 1903, the studio is known for its iridescent glazes, some of which grace notable buildings such as the Shedd Aquarium and Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The pottery continues in operation today, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1991.
Lou Anna Kimsey Simon is an American academic administrator who served as the 20th president of Michigan State University (MSU). Simon was appointed interim president of the university in 2003, then served as president from 2005 until her resignation in 2018.
Carol Sue Hutchins is an American former softball coach. In 38 years as the head coach of Michigan Wolverines softball, (1985–2022), she won more games than more than any other coach in University of Michigan history in any sport, male or female with 1,684 wins. Hutchins had a career record of 1,707 wins, 551 losses, and five ties, for a .759 winning percentage. She led the Wolverines to their first NCAA softball championship in 2005.
The Arizona Women's Hall of Fame recognizes women natives or residents of the U.S. state of Arizona for their significant achievements or statewide contributions. In 1979, the office of Governor Bruce Babbitt worked with the Arizona Women's Commission to create the Hall of Fame. The first inductees were in October 1981. During its first decade, the Hall of Fame was overseen by the Arizona Historical Society and the Arizona Department of Library, Archives and Public Records. A steering committee would each year select a varying number of women to be inducted. The 1991 inclusion of Planned Parenthood creator Margaret Sanger resulted in disapproval being heard from some in the Arizona Legislature, and funding dried up. With the lone exception of María Urquides in 1994, there were no Hall of Fame inductees for over a decade. Inductions finally resumed in 2002, when the Hall of Fame has only inducted new honorees every two years. The award returned to being annual in 2018.
The 1938 Michigan State Spartans football team represented Michigan State College as an independent during the 1938 college football season. In their sixth season under head coach Charlie Bachman, the Spartans compiled a 6–3 record and lost their annual rivalry game with Michigan by a 14 to 0 score. In inter-sectional play, the team defeated West Virginia (26–0), Syracuse (19–12), and Temple (10–0), and lost to Santa Clara (7–6).
Martha Louise Rayne (1836–1911) was an American who was an early woman journalist. In addition to writing and editing several journals, she serialized short stories and poems in newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, and the Los Angeles Herald. In addition to newspaper work, she published a guidebook of Chicago, etiquette books, and several novels. In 1886, she founded what may have been the first women's journalism school in the United States and four years later became a founding member and first vice president of the Michigan Woman's Press Association. Rayne was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2002.
Marion Weyant "Babe" Ruth was an American aviator and aviation instructor. She was inducted into the Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame, the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame, and the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame during her lifetime.
Gladys Eloise Beckwith was an American academic and women's rights activist. She was the co-founder of the Michigan Women's Studies Association and the founder of the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. Beckwith was one of the first professors of women's studies in the United States, teaching at Michigan State University. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2012 for her accomplishments in the fields of education and women's rights.
Waunetta McClellan Dominic was an Odawa rights activist who spent her career advocating for the United States government to adhere to its treaty obligations to Native Americans. She was one of the founders of the Northern Michigan Ottawa Association and her influence was widely recognized, especially after winning a 1971 claim against the government for compensation under 19th-century treaties. She was also a proponent of Native American fishing rights being protected. In 1979, she was named by The Detroit News as "Michiganian of the Year" and in 1996, she was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
Jean Ledwith King was an American attorney, teacher, political activist, and women's rights activist. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1989.
Eliza Seaman Leggett was an American suffragist and abolitionist.
Agatha de LaVigne Biddle (1797–1873) was a woman of Odawa and French heritage, who primarily identified with her Odawa kin. She resided on Mackinac Island during the fur trade era and after. She acted as a partner with her husband in running their fur trade business, and Biddle was known as a shrewd businesswoman and her kinship connections were an integral part of the Biddle business. Following in the footsteps of another native woman, Maw-che-paw-go-quay, Agatha Biddle was also a woman serving as chief for the Mackinac Island band of the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians. She was pivotal in the negotiations of the 1855 Treaty of Detroit where she used her relationships with local Indigenous peoples and settlers to negotiate on behalf of the Ojibwe and Odawa peoples. Biddle was also renowned for her charity, and the aid she provided to her community, including needy children. The home she shared with her husband, independent fur trader Edward Biddle, known as Biddle House, still stands on Mackinac Island and was the site of many local gatherings. Agatha Biddle was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame on October 18, 2018.
Ethelene Jones Crockett (1914–1978) was an American physician and activist from Detroit. She was Michigan's first African-American female board certified OB/GYN, and the first woman to be president of the American Lung Association. In 1988, Crockett was inducted posthumously into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
Mamie Geraldine Neale Bledsoe was an American educator and civil rights activist, director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Division of Michigan. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1983.
L. Anna Ballard was an American physician. After graduating from medical school, Ballard became Lansing, Michigan's first female medical physician. She also worked to change the age of consent from 10 to 14 years in Michigan. In 2012, she was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
Eva Lois Allmon Evans was an American educator based in Lansing, Michigan, and the 24th international president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2005.
↑ Wright, Charles H (1995). The National Medical Association demands equal opportunity: nothing more, nothing less. Charro Book Co. p.273. OCLC607128751. Lewis F. Boddie, MD was cert. obg, 1949; William Goins, MD was cert. obg, 1950; Authur D. Harris, MD was cert. obg in 1952; Charles H. Wright MD was cert. obg in 1955; Ethelene Crockett, MD was cert. obg in 1955.
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