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

Community leader Helen Connor Laird was the inspiration for the Laird Endowment Fund for the Arts in central Wisconsin.

Elected by the La Crosse Area Synod in 1992, Rev. April Ulring Larson became the first female Lutheran bishop in North America and the second in the world.

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.

Ruth DeYoung Kohler was a journalist, a historian, and an outspoken advocate for women's rights.

Ellen Kort was Wisconsin’s first poet laureate.

Janet Jennings, a news reporter, became known as “the Angel of the Seneca” for her heroic nursing work during the Spanish-American War.

Jessie Jack Hooper, a suffragist, was president of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters and also ran for the U.S. Senate in 1922.

Ada James was a Wisconsin suffragist leader who worked for women’s rights and other reforms in the early 20th century.

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