For decades, Elizabeth Hawkes was the only practicing woman attorney in northern Wisconsin, and she was the first woman president of the Wisconsin State Colleges Board.

Peg Lautenschlager was the first female district attorney for Winnebago County, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin, and the first female Attorney General of Wisconsin.

Trial lawyer Dorothy Walker was the first female district attorney in Wisconsin.

Mabel Raimey was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, attend Marquette University Law School, and practice law in Wisconsin.

Vel Phillips achieved many firsts, including first woman and first African American to be elected to the statewide office of secretary of state.

Lavinia Goodell was the first female lawyer admitted to the bar of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leader in critical race theory, introduced the term "intersectionality" to describe the multiple ways people can be oppressed.

Carin Clauss was the first woman Solicitor in the U.S. Department of Labor.

Angie Brooks is best known as the first African woman to serve as president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Elizabeth Baird’s newspaper stories about the developing Green Bay area in the 1800s were among the earliest written accounts of life in Wisconsin.