Women.Bourne.Works | US-NC | North Carolina

1750s

Anne Robertson Johnson Cockrill (10 feb 1757 – 13 oct 1821 | Wake County NC – Nashville TN) pioneer landowner, first female to receive land grant in Tennessee


1760s

Dolley Payne Todd Madison (20 may 1768 – 12 jul 1849 | North Carolina Province, British America – Washington DC) US First Lady, memoirist, letter correspondent


1800s

Catherine White Coffin (10 sep 1803 – 22 may 1881 | Guilford NC – Avondale OH) Quaker, Underground Railroad activist

Anna McNeill Whistler (27 sep 1804 – 03 jan 1881 | Wilmington NC – Hastings UK) folk figure, artist’s model, letter correspondent, aka Whistler’s Mother

Sarah “Sallie” Chapman Gordon Law (27 aug 1805 – 28 jun 1894 | Wilkes NC – Memphis TN) first recorded Confederate Civil War nurse, Southern Mothers Association president, aka Mother of the Confederacy 


1810s


1820s

Jane Evans Elliot (07 apr 1820 -05 dec 1886 | Fayetteville NC – Ellerslie Plantation NC)  Civil War and post-war diarist, three-volume diaries spanning four decades

Virginia Jane Kyle Campbell (25 jan 1822 – 30 jan 1882 | Raleigh NC – St Louis MO) Irish-American philanthropist, social / political hostess, St. Louis high society matron / activist

Virginia Caroline Tunstall Clay-Clopton (16 jan 1825 – 23 jan 1915 | Nash County NC – Gurley AL) author, memoirist, political wife, suffragist, United Daughters of the Confederacy member


1830s

Mary Anna Morrison Jackson (21 jul 1831 – 24 mar 1915 | Lincoln NC – Charlotte NC) author, memoirist, military / political wife, aka Widow of the Confederacy

Sarah Marshall Boone (02 feb 1832 – 1904 | near New Burn NC – New Haven CT) inventor, dressmaker, seamstress, patented a wooden ironing board

Lillie Devereux Blake (12 aug 1833 – 30 dec 1913 | Raleigh NC – Englewood NJ) author, suffragist, social reformer, aka Tiger Lily 

Lucy Higgs Nichols (10 apr 1838 – 25 jan 1915 | Halifax County NC – New Albany IN) escaped slave, aka Aunt Lucy, Civil War Union nurse, Grand Army of the Republic sole female honorary member

Sarah Malinda [Sam] Pritchard Blalock (10 mar 1839 – 09 mar 1901 | Avery County NC – Watauga County NC) US Civil War female soldier, fought for both North and South


1840s

Frances Christine Tiernan (05 jul 1846 – 24 mar 1920 | Salisbury NC – Salisbury NC) author, novelist, aka Christian Reid 


1850s

Mary Theodora [Dora] Starbuck Ebert (14 oct 1856 – 29 feb 1924 | Winston NC – Old Richmond NC) boarding house owner / operator, Moravian church and settlement family member

Ella R. Starbuck Montague (25 jul 1859 – 07 jan 1910 | Winston NC – Winston NC) boarding house owner, Moravian church / settlement family member

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (10 aug 1859 – 27 feb 1964 | Raleigh NC – Washington DC) author, scholar, speaker, fourth African-American female PhD


1860s

Adelaide [Addie] Worth Bagley Daniels (01 may 1869 – 19 dec 1943 | Raleigh NC – Raleigh NC) writer, memoirist, suffragist leader, political family member, US delegate to Eighth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance [1920]


1870s

Mary T. Martin Sloop (09 mar 1873 – 13 jan 1962 | Davidson NC – Crossnore NC) physician, educational reformer, autobiographical author, Crossnore School founding director, established women’s Weaving Room, funded social works by selling used clothing 

Mary Bayard Morgan Wootten (17 dec 1875 – 06 apr 1959 | New Bern NC – New Bern NC) artist, teacher, photographer, designed original Pepsi logo

[Aunt] Samantha Bumgarner (31 oct 1878 – 24 dec 1960 | Dillsboro NC – Love Field NC) banjo / fiddle player, first female country solo recording artist


1880s

Sadie Oglesby (10 apr 1881 – 01 feb 1956 | Concord NC – Boston MA) race unity activist, early African-American Bahá’í member, secretary / treasurer of Boston Spiritual Assembly, third black pilgrim / first black woman pilgrim / first black pilgrim to meet Bahá’í leader Shoghi Effendi

Frances Reed Elliott Davis (28 apr 1883 – 02 may 1965 | Shelby NC – Mount Clemens MI) first African-American nurse officially admitted to the American Red Cross Nursing Service

Charlotte [Lottie] Eugenia Hawkins Brown (11 jun 1883 – 11 jan 1961 | Henderson NC – Sedalia NC) educator, school founder

Margaret Flagg Holmes (06 sep 1886 – 29 jan 1976 | Durham NC – New York NY) English and Latin teacher, founder Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, equal rights educational activist

Ruth Faison Shaw (15 oct 1889 – 01 dec 1969 | Kenansville NC – Fayetteville NC) artist, painter, pioneer progressive educator, children’s school founder, finger painting innovator, workshop founder / facilitator, aka First Lady of Finger Painting, patented / produced nontoxic finger paint, lecturer at Columbia University Teachers College


1890s

Annie Elizabeth Delany (03 sep 1891 – 25 sep 1995 | Raleigh NC – Mount Vernon NY) author, dentist, memoirist

Bernice Kelly Harris (07 oct 1891 – 13 sep 1973 | Wake County NC – Durham NC) author, teacher, theater director

Elizabeth [Libba] Nevills Cotten (05 jan 1893 – 29 jun 1987 | Carrboro NC – Syracuse NY) folk figure, musician, banjo player, singer-songwriter, domestic worker, self-taught left-handed guitarist, original innovator of Cotten-picking guitar playing

Maggie Axe Wachacha (16 sep 1894 – 03 feb 1993 | Snowbird Gap NC – NC) herbalist, midwife, translator, public speaker, Cherokee Tribal Council Clerk

Worth Tuttle Hedden (10 jan 1896 – 14 sep 1985 | Raleigh NC – Augusta ME) author, novelist

Margaret D. Craighill (16 oct 1898 – 20 jul 1977 | Southport NC – Southbury CT) author, psychiatrist, obstetrical surgeon / physician, first woman officer US Army Medical Corps, women’s post-WWII Army veterans’ leader / liaison


1900s

Dorothy Hansine Andersen (15 may 1901 – 03 mar 1963 | Asheville NC – New York NY) author, essayist, physician, professor, researcher, first to identify / describe cystic fibrosis

Eliza Jane Pratt (05 mar 1902 – 13 may 1981 | Anson County NC – Charlotte NC) newspaper editor, first female NC State Representative

Mabel Hampton (02 may 1902 – 26 oct 1989 | Winston-Salem NC – New York NY) African-American, lesbian activist, philanthropist, Harlem Renaissance dancer, donated ephemera / memorabilia / written records to Lesbian Herstory Archives

Ellis Credle (18 aug 1902 – 21 feb 1998 | Hyde County NC – Chicago IL) author, illustrator, children’s / young adult writer

Flemmie Pansy Kittrell (25 dec 1904 – 03 oct 1980 | Henderson NC – Washington DC) child health / nutrition researcher, Dean of Home Economics at Hampton Institute, first African-American female to earn PhD in Nutrition

Clara McBridge Hale (01 apr 1905 – 18 dec 1992 | Elizabeth City NC – New York NY) aka Mother Hale, humanitarian, founded Hale House, abandoned / addicted infant activist

Eliza Atkins Gleason (15 dec 1909 – 15  dec 2009 | Winston-Salem NC – Chicago IL) author, librarian, educator, first African-American female PhD Library Science, first dean and founder of Atlanta U School of Library Science


1910s

Edith Harrison Henderson (09 jun 1911 – 12 oct 2005 | Charlotte NC – Atlanta GA) columnist, landscape archtiect, first female elected officer of American Society of Landscape Architects

Lucielle Browning Somers (19 feb 1913 – 08 aug 2011 | Jacksonville NC – Okaloosa FL) musician, operatic mezzo-soprano

Dovey Mae Johnson Roundtree (17 apr 1914 – 21 may 2018 | Charlotte NC – Charlotte NC) attorney, civil rights activist, ordained minister, US Army veteran, African-American leader

Carol Brice (16 apr 1918 – 14 feb 1985 | Sedalia NC – Norman OK) operatic contralto

Marie M. Runyon (20 mar 1915 – 07 oct 2018 | Brevard NC – Manhattan NY) centenarian, cameo film actress, Granny Peace Brigade member, political / tenants’ rights activist, former Executive Director of Harlem Restoration Project

Maycie Copeland Herrington (07 nov 1918 – 24 may 2016 | Raleigh NC – Long Beach CA) African-American, social worker, black history conservator, community volunteer, WWII Red Cross worker, Tuskegee Airmen history preservationist

Charity Edna Adams Earley (05 dec 1918 – 13 jan 2002 | Kittrell NC – Dayton OH) teacher, community activist, first African-American WAAC officer, friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

Elizabeth Duncan Koontz (03 jun 1919 – 06 jan 1989 | Salisbury NC – Salisbury NC) author, teacher, first African-American National Education Association president, US Labor Women’s Bureau director


1920s

Wilma Dykeman Stokely (20 may 1920 – 22 dec 2006 | Asheville NC – Asheville NC) novelist, nonfiction writer

Eleanor Ross Taylor (30 jun 1920 – 30 dec 2011 | Norwood NC – Falls Church VA) poet

Barbara Guest (06 sep 1920 – 15 feb 2006 | Wilmington NC – Berkeley CA) poet, prose stylist

Kathryn Grayson (09 feb 1922 – 17 feb 2010 | Winston-Salem NC – Los Angeles CA) actress, operatic soprano, born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick

Elizabeth [Betty] Anne McMahan (05 may 1924 – 17 aug 2009 | Pino NC – Chapel Hill NC) author, cartoonist, professor, entomologist, psychologist, world traveler, children’s book writer

Amanda Crowe (16 jul 1928 – 28 sep 2004 | Qualla Boundary NC – Cherokee NC) Eastern Band Cherokee artist, educator, wood-carver

Betsy Cromer Byars (07 aug 1928 – 26 feb 2020 | Charlotte NC – Seneca SC) children’s / young adult novelist, historical / realistic fiction author

Veronica Estelle [Bonnie] Angelo (24 jan 1929 – 17 sep 2017 | Winston-Salem NC – Bethesda MD) author, political journalist, special focus on Mothers of US Presidents

Eloise Greenfield (17 may 1929 – Parmele NC) poet, biographer, children’s book author


1930s

Dorothy Foreman Cotton (05 jan 1930 – 10 jun 2018 | Goldsboro NC – Ithaca NY) African-American Civil Rights Movement leader, Educational Director for Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Citizen Education Program activist, SCLC’s highest-ranking female member, Negro spiritual singer / preservationist

Evelyn Patricia [Pat] Foote (19 may 1930 – Durham NC) retired US Army Brigadier General, first female public relations officer in Vietnam (1967), first female faculty member appointed to US Army War School (1979), first female brigade commander in Europe and first female Inspector General in US Army (1986)

Ann Atwater (01 jul 1935 – 20 jun 2016 | Hallsboro NC – Durham NC) civil rights activist, aka Roughhouse Annie, anti-poverty Operation Breakthrough member

Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford [Lidd] Dole (29 jul 1936 – Salisbury NC) author, speaker, politician, civic activist, charitable worker, former president of Red Cross, founded Elizabeth Dole Foundation to help caregivers of wounded warriors

Bertha Harris (17 dec 1936 – 22 may 2005 | Fayetteville NC – New York NY) lesbian novelist, biographer

Clara Leach Adams-Ender (11 jul 1939 – Willow Springs NC) memoirist, retired US Army officer, management consultant, former chief of US Army Nurse Corps, first black female graduate of US Army War College, first female Master’s graduate in military arts and sciences from US Army Command and General Staff College

Molly Haskell (29 sep 1939 – Charlotte NC) author, memoirist, film professor, feminist film critic

Gail Einhart Haley (04 nov 1939 – Charlotte NC) artist, author, illustrator, storyteller, puppeteer


1940s

Ruby Puryear Hearn (13 apr 1940 – Winston-Salem NC) African-American biophysicist

Beverly Buchanan (08 oct 1940 – 04 jul 2105 | Fuquay NC – Ann Arbor MI) painter, sculptor, focus on Southern vernacular architecture

Mary Elizabeth Rivers [Beth] Curry (05 sep 1941 – 16 nov 2015 | Wadesboro NC – New York NY) philanthropist, investment firm co-founder

Mary Burrus Williams (05 sep 1941 – Elizabeth City NC) historical novelist / co-author with sister, pen name: Bronwyn Williams

Christine Mann Darden (10 sep 1942 – Monroe NC) author, mathematician, data analyst, aeronautical engineer, NASA research focus on sonic booms and supersonic flight, first African-American woman at NASA’s Langley Research Center promoted into the Senior Executive Service

Dorothy [Dot] Spruill Redford (07 aug 1943 – Columbia NC) author, historian, genealogist, former executive director of Somerset Place historic site

Sarah Ann Douglas (25 jan 1944 – Asheville NC) computer scientist, professor emerita of Computer and Information Science, research focus on human-computer interaction [HCI]

Mary Ellen Snodgrass (29 feb 1944 – Wilmington NC) author, professor, known for textbooks / general reference works, former columnist for Charlotte Observer, traveling lecturer for NC Humanities Commission

Bettina Aptheker (13 sep 1944 – Fort Bragg NC) author, feminist, professor, anti-war / civil rights / political activist

Charlotte Bunch (13 oct 1944 – West Jefferson NC) activist, author, journal founder, women’s / human rights movements organizer

Alma Shealey Adams (27 may 1946 – High Point NC) educator, politician, hat collector, African American Atelier co-founder

Cyndee Peters (08 sep 1946 – Granite Falls NC) author, gospel singer, born Cynthia Mana Pettice Strandell, former expatriate living in Sweden

Afeni Shakur (10 jan 1947 – 02 may 2016 | Lumberton NC – Sausalito CA) activist, lecturer, businesswoman, former Black Panther, mother of rapper Tupac Shakur

Ada Fisher (21 oct 1947 – Durham NC) teacher, conservative politician, civil rights activist, retired physician, rural health clinic / substance abuse director

Sharyn Elaine McCrumb (26 feb 1948 – Wilmington NC) serial novelist, short story writer

Anne McCue Graham Lotz (21 may 1948 – Montreat NC) author, Christian evangelist, AnGel Ministries founder

Katie Geneva Cannon (02 feb 1949 – 08 aug 2018 | Kannapolis NC – Richmond VA) author, theologian, womanist, black liberation activist, past president of Society for the Study of Black Religion

Dallas Denny (18 aug 1949 – Asheville NC) writer, editor, behavior analyst, transgender rights movement activist / leader


1950s

Katie Geneva Cannon (03 jan 1950 – 08 aug 2018 | Kannapolis NC – Richmond VA) author, ethicist, black / womanist / Christian theologian, first ordained African-American female minister in US Presbyterian Church

Hope Morgan Ward (18 sep 1951 – Corapeake NC) author, Methodist Bishop

Claire Ritter (31 may 1952 – Charlotte NC) pianist, jazz / classical / new music composer

Janice Bryant Howroyd (01 sep 1952 – Tarboro NC) author, entrepreneur, founder / CEO largest US minority woman-owned employment agency

Julianne Baird (10 dec 1952 – Statesville NC) operatic soprano, voice teacher, Baroque works specialist

Kathi Appelt (06 jul 1954 – Fayatteville NC) creative writing teacher, children’s and young adult poet / novelist / non-fiction author

Ava Clayton Spencer (15 dec 1954 – Concord NC) attorney, policymaker, academic administrator, second female president of Bates College in Maine

Colleen Ann Williams (06 mar 1955 – Winston-Salem NC) journalist, broadcast news anchor, former public school teacher

Debra Austin (25 jul 1955 – Raleigh NC) ballet dancer, ballet master, first female African-American principal of major American ballet company

Emilie M. Townes (01 aug 1955 –  Durham NC) African-American Christian social ethicist and theologian

Almyra Oveta Fuller (31 aug 1955 – Mebane NC) AME pastor, professor of microbiology, research specialist in HIV/AIDS and herpes simplex virus

Constance [Connie] Ray (10 jul 1956 – Hillsborough NC) playwright, film / television actress

Jacqueline Yvonne Harry (14 aug 1956 – Winston-Salem NC) aka Jackée, singer, actress, director, comedian, television personality

Lionel Margaret Ann Shriver (18 may 1957 – Gastonia NC) author, activist, journalist, ex-pat living in the UK

Silda Alice Wall Spitzer (30 dec 1957 – Chapel Hill NC) lawyer, social activist, former First Lady of New York State, cofounded children’s volunteering not-for-profit, cofounder / CEO of woman-owned New York States of Mind digital magazine / marketplace

Susan Jane Helms (26 feb 1958 – Charlotte NC) former NASA astronaut, retired Lieutenant General in US Air Force

Donna F. Edwards (28 jun 1958 – Yanceyville NC) lawyer, state politician, community activist, co-founder / first Executive Director of National Network to End Domestic Violence

Kimberly Marshall (08 may 1959 – Winston-Salem NC) author, organist, essayist, translator, organ scholar, professor of music

Carol Barbee (22 may 1959 – Concord NC) tv writer, actress, producer

Rolonda Watts (12 jul 1959 – Winston-Salem NC) actress, producer, radio / television host

Victoria Livengood (08 aug 1959 – Thomasville NC) operatic mezzo-soprano

Anne Daphne Yoder (09 aug 1959 – Charlotte NC) biologist, essayist, professor, researcher, Women in Science board member, founder / host of YoderLab.org, focus on preservation / conservation of biodiversity in Madagascar