Women | US-NH | New Hampshire

1760s

Tabitha Gilman Tenney (07 apr 1762 – 02 may 1837 | Exeter NH – Exeter NH) author, novelist


1770s Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford (10 oct 1774 – 02 dec 1852 | Concord NH – Concord NH) educator, philanthropist, first US woman to be named Countess, founded school for motherless girls


1780s

Lois Lathrop Cutler (24 sep 1788 – 23 mar 1878 | Lebanon NH – Oak Lake MN) Mormon pioneer, mother of fourteen, Female Relief Society activist

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (24 oct 1788 – 30 apr 1879 | Newport NH – Philadelphia PA) poet, editor, author, letter correspondent, aka Mother of Thanksgiving, author of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ nursery rhyme, completed Bunker Hill Monument project


1790s

Cynthia Farrar (20 apr 1795 – 25 jan 1862 | Marlborough NH – Ahmednagar, India) educator, pioneering single American female foreign missionary in India


1800s

Sarah Hall Benham Boardman (04 nov 1803 – 01 sep 1845 | Alstead NH – Saint Helena Island) author, hymnist, translator, missionary to Burm

Jane Means Appleton Pierce (12 mar 1806 – 02 dec 1863 | Hampton NH – Andover MA) US Presidential First Lady, aka The Shadow of the White House

Sarah George Bagley Duro (19 apr 1806 – 23 jun 1883 | Candia NH – Brooklyn NY) labor leader / organizer, newspaper editor / publisher, women’s rights activist / advocate, co-founded Lowell Female Labor Reform Association [LFLRA]

Mary Ann White Johnson (24 aug 1808 – 05 may 1872 | Westmoreland NH – New York NY) abolitionist, lecturer on physiology, matron of Sing Sing Prison, prison reform advocate, founding member of New England Non-Resistance Society


1810s

Mary Sargeant Neal Gove Nichols (10 aug 1810 – 30 may 1884 | Goffstown NH – London UK) writer, lecturer, educator, suffragist, visionary, vegetarian, health reformer, autobiographer, hydrotherapy advocate, women’s rights activist

Harriet Farley Dunlevy (18 feb 1817 – 12 nov 1907 | Claremont NH – New York NY) editor, writer, social / cultural activist, founded and managed Lowell Offering literary magazine published by women textile mill workers


1820s

Mary Baker Eddy (16 jul 1821 – 03 dec 1910 | Bow NH – Chestnut Hill MA) poet, author, spiritual leader, founded First Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science Church)

Harriet Ward Sanborn Grosvenor (22 jan 1823 – 07 sep 1863 | Hampton Falls NH – Newburyport MA) poet, writer, novelist

Harriet [Hattie] E. Wilson (15 mar 1825 – 28 jun 1900 | Milford NH – Quincy MA) Spiritualist, public speaker, housekeeper, first recognized female African-American novelist

Julia Amanda Sargent Wood (13 apr 1825 – 09 mar 1903 | New London NH – St Cloud MN) poet, author, novelist, newspaper editor

Mary Elizabeth Wilson [M.E.W.] Sherwood (27 oct 1826 – 12 sep 1903 | Keene NH – Manhattan NY) poet, essayist, memoirist, travel / etiquette writer, autobiographical author

Hannah Maria Libby Smith (29 jun 1828 – 21 sep 1906 | Ossipee NH – Provo UT) bobbin doffer, rug weaver, needleworker, historical figure, Mormon pioneer / educator

Edna Dean Proctor (18 sep 1829 – 18 dec 1923 | Henniker NH – Framingham MA) poet, author, short fiction writer, known as a master of pathos

Ada Lydia Howard (19 dec 1829 – 02 mar 1907 | Temple NH – Methuen MA) educator, first female president of Wellesley College

Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman (21 dec 1829 – 24 may 1889 | Hanover NH – Boston MA) poet, pioneer deaf-blind student, developed unique tapping alphabet for communicating with others


1830s

Mary Clement Leavitt (22 sep 1830 – 05 feb 1912 | Hopkinton NH – Boston MA) educator, suffragist, social reformer, girl’s school founder, women / children’s rights activist, international temperance leader / lecturer / founder

Catherine [Kate] Furbish (19 may 1834 – 06 dec 1931 | Exeter NH – Brunswick ME) botanist, illustrator, watercolorist, co-founded Maine Botanical Society

Harriet McEwen Kimball (02 nov 1834 – 03 sep 1917 | Portsmouth NH – Portsmouth NH) poet, hymnist, philanthropist, aka The Poetess of the Church, funded / founded Portsmouth Cottage Hospital

Jane Elizabeth [Jenny] Twichell Kempton (04 oct 1835 – 13 mar 1921 | Dublin NH – Los Angeles CA) operatic contralto, operatic voice teacher, concert tour singer, aka The Favorite American Contralto, founding member of Dominant Music Club (LA), aka Mother of Music in Southern California


1840s

Constance Fenimore Woolson (05 mar 1840 – 24 jan 1894 | Claremont NH – Venice, Italy) poet, novelist, travel writer, short story writer

Marilla Marks Young Ricker (18 mar 1840 – 12 nov 1920 | New Durham NH – Dover NH) author, attorney, suffragist, free-thinker, humanitarian, women’s rights activist

Flora Adams Darling (25 jul 1840 – 06 jan 1910 | Lancaster NH – New York NY) author, memoirist, founding president US Daughters of 1812, born Sophronia A. Adams

Lucy Hambert Hale (01 jan 1841 – 15 oct 1915 | Dover NH – Warren NH) society belle, engaged to John Wilkes Booth, later political wife / hostess

Emma Elizabeth Brown (18 oct 1847 – 1907 | Concord NH – Massachusetts) poet, artist, author, essayist, biographer, watercolorist, pen names: B.E.E. and E.E.Brown

Mary Roxanna Platt Hatch (19 jun 1848 – 28 nov 1935 | Stratford NH – Santa Monica CA) editor, author, playwright, club woman, magazine writer, pen-name Mabel Percy and Mary R. P. Hatch


1850s

Mary Mills Patrick (10 mar 1850 – 25 feb 1940 | Canterbury NH – Palo Alto CA) author, scholar, college president, autobiographer

Leonora Evelina Simonds Piper (27 jun 1857 – 03 jul 1950 | Nashua NH – Brookline MA) author, speaker, spiritual medium

Alice Chapin Ferris (28 aug 1857 – 05 jul 1934 | Keene NH – Keene NH) heiress, playwright, silent film actress, suffragist active in England

Alice Brown (05 dec 1857 – 21 jun 1948 | Hampton Falls NH – Boston MA) poet, novelist, biographer, playwright


1860s

Myra Belle Martin (06 oct 1861 – unknown | Grafton NH – unknown) author, teacher, financier, social activist, art historian, business executive, founded Patria Club of New York, first female president of Eastern Connecticut Teachers’ Association

Alice Van Vechten Brown (07 jun 1862 – 16 oct 1949 | Hanover NH – Middletown NJ) author, art educator, art historian, created first US courses in museum training (1911) and modern art (1927)

Helen May Butler Young (17 may 1867 – 16 jun 1957 | Keene NH – Covington KY) bandmaster, aka The Female Sousa, first all-women brass band leader

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (05 sep 1867 – 27 dec 1944 | Henniker NH – New York NY) pianist, composer, first successful large-scale artistic female music composer

Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau (04 oct 1867 – 28 jan 1922 | Exeter NH – Paris, France) artist, academic, portrait painter, first American woman to exhibit at the Paris Salon

Eleanor Hodgman Porter (19 dec 1868 – 21 may 1920 | Littleton NH – Cambridge MA) novelist, short story writer

Lunette [Louise] Lamprey (17 apr 1869 – 13 jan 1951 | Alexandria NH – Limerick ME) children’s author, nonfiction writer


1870s

Edith Elmer Wood (24 sep 1871 – 29 apr 1945 | Portsmouth NH – Cape May NJ) author, economist, housing expert

Martha Hale Shackford (25 aug 1875 – 11 jan 2013 | Dover NH – Wellesley MA) poet, editor, author, textbook writer, professor of English literature


1880s

Lucy Jennings Dickinson (28 aug 1882 – 15 feb 1971 | Winchester NH – Winchester NH) United Nations advocate, president of General Federation of Women’s Clubs, one of five US official women consultants at UN Charter Conference [San Francisco, 1945]


1890s

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (07 aug 1890 – 05 sep 1964 | Concord NH – Soviet Union) author, activist, feminist, essayist, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leader, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) founding member, Communist Party USA chairwoman

Maud Worcester Makemson (16 sep 1891 – 25 dec 1977 | Center Harbor NH – Weatherford TX) author, astronomer, researcher, observatory director

Helen Dore Boylston (04 apr 1895 – 30 sep 1984 | Portsmouth NH – Trumbull CT) nurse, serial novelist


1900s

Gladys Hasty Carroll (26 jun 1904 – 01 apr 1999 | Rochester NH – York ME) adult / children’s fiction / non-fiction author


1910s


1920s

Grace Metalious (08 sep 1924 – 25 feb 1964 | Manchester NH – Boston MA) American novelist, née Marie Grace DeRepentigny


1930s

Alanis Obomsawin (31 aug 1932 – Lebanon NH) American-born Abenaki Canadian engraver, printmaker, singer-songwriter, documentary filmmaker, First Nation’s Indigenous arts / cultural

activist Rebecca Quinn [Becky] Morgan (04 dec 1938 – Hanover NH) social activist, former State Senator, businesswoman, philanthropist, co-founded Morgan Family Foundation


1940s

Joan Jiko Halifax (30 jul 1942 – Hanover NH) author, Zen Buddhist, ecologist, anthropologist, hospice caregiver, civil rights activist, founding abbot / teacher at Upaya Zen [Peacemaker] Center in Santa Fe NM

Daphne Elizabeth Brown (28 apr 1948 – 10 dec 2011 | Manchester NH – Anchorage AK) architect, project manager for expansion of Anchorage Museum

Meredith Hall (25 mar 1949 – New Hampshire US) author, professor, essayist, memoirist


1950s

Barbara Cochran (04 jan 1951 – Claremont NH) author, newspaper writer, Olympic Gold Medalist, family member of Vermont’s The Skiing Cochrans

Daphne Joyce Maynard (05 nov 1953 – Durham NH) novelist, memoirist, journalist, former syndicated columnist

Katrina Swett (08 oct 1955 – Concord NH) educator, politician, president of Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, former chair of US Commission on International Religious Freedom

Ann [Annie] McLane Kuster (05 sep 1956 – Concord NH) author, politician

Janet Heaney (12 apr 1958 – 10 jan 1997 | Mont Vernon NH – Los Angeles CA) tv / film screenwriter

Mary Roach (20 mar 1959 – Hanover NH) author, humorist, popular science writer, monthly humor columnist for Reader’s Digest