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

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

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.

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

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, “founder of American college dance,” created a dance major — the first in the U.S. — at the University of Wisconsin in 1926.

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.

Ruth Gruber was a journalist and humanitarian known for her work documenting the lives of refugees.