City: Madison

Gerda Lerner

Gerda Lerner

University of Wisconsin scholar Gerda Lerner founded the academic field of women's history.
Barbara Lawton

Barbara Lawton

Barbara Lawton, forty-third lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, was the first woman to be elected to that position.
Belle Case La Follette

Belle Case La Follette

Belle Case La Follette was the first woman to graduate from law school in Wisconsin and an outspoken advocate for women's right to vote.
bell hooks

bell hooks

Best known for her work on gender, race, and class, University of Wisconsin graduate bell hooks was a prolific writer, speaker, and scholar.
Anita Herrera

Anita Herrera

Anita Herrera grew up in a family of migrant farm workers and devoted her career to improving education, employment, and living conditions for People of Color in Wisconsin.
Cordelia Harvey

Cordelia Harvey

Cordelia Harvey became known as the Wisconsin Angel for her work as a nurse and advocate for soldiers during the U.S. Civil War.
Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry's first Broadway play, A Raisin in the Sun, changed how Black people's lives were shown in American theater.
Margaret H'Doubler

Margaret H’Doubler

Margaret H’Doubler, “founder of American college dance,” created a dance major — the first in the U.S. — at the University of Wisconsin in 1926.
Frances Hamerstrom

Frances Hamerstrom

Frances Hamerstrom, an ornithologist who helped save the prairie chicken population in Wisconsin, was the first woman in the U.S. to earn a master’s degree in wildlife management.
Camille Guérin-Gonzales

Camille Guérin-Gonzales

Historian Camille Guérin-Gonzales, who directed the UW–Madison’s Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Program, was devoted to justice for working people.