Tammy Baldwin was the first woman elected to represent Wisconsin in Congress and the first openly gay senator in U.S. history.

Before Ineva Reilly Baldwin championed the “Wisconsin Idea,” she was a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant commander during World War II—the highest rank ever attained by a woman at that time.

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

Debra Amesqua was the first woman chief of the Madison Fire Department and one of the first women fire chiefs in the country.

Ellen Ainsworth, a nurse in the US Army Nurse Corps, was the only woman from Wisconsin to die from enemy fire in World War II.

Shirley S. Abrahamson was the first woman justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the first female chief justice in state history.