NEW YORK CITY IS SPIRITUAL HOME OF WOMEN PIONEERS
New York City women have forged a path of progress in every category: politics, literature, sports, business, public service and health.
Today, New York has a trifecta of female power: Kathy Hochul, New York State’s first female governor, Keechant Sewell, NYPD’s first female police commissioner, and Laura Kavanagh, NYPD’s first female fire commissioner.
The long history of New Yorkbased women’s rights activists dates back to the 1800s with Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Individually and collaboratively, they fought for the expansion of women’s rights locally and nationally. A former slave, Sojourner Truth was bought and sold four times, suffered tremendous hardships, yet became an advocate for abolition, civil rights and women’s rights.
Eleanor Roosevelt championed human and women’s rights and racial equality as a bornand-bred New Yorker. During her time as first lady when her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, she held her own press conferences — and only invited female members of the press.
These activists and suffragettes paved the way for New York women to hold office, practice law and lead by example. Brooklyn-born Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress and to receive delegate votes for the presidential nomination of a major party.
Geraldine Ferraro, a congresswoman from Queens,
became the first woman nominated by a major political party as a candidate for vice president. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives. Currently, 19 New York state senators and 49 New York Assembly members are women.
New York women represent in law, too. Brooklyn-born Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the first Jewish woman and second woman appointed to the Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor, from the Bronx, is the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court. They could thank Belva Lockwood and Kate Stoneman for their appointments. Belva Lockwood was the first woman to practice law in New York State and the first to argue a case before the Supreme Court (in 1879). Stoneman became the first woman admitted
to the New York State Bar.
However, her application to the New York Bar was rejected on the basis of her gender. She and other suffragettes successfully lobbied for a bill that allowed all qualified applicants to be admitted regardless of race or gender.
New York City also has a long literary legacy of women writers whose works received wide acclaim. Edith Wharton was the first female Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, awarded in 1921 for “The Age of Innocence.” She was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature three times and is known for her sly criticisms of the Gilded Age’s upper class, of which she was a member. You can visit Wharton’s house at 14 W. 23rd St. in Manhattan to see if it’s a “House of Mirth.”
Toni Morrison, the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature, also won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for “Beloved,” and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her works address the harsh realities of racism and the Black female experience and are included on many schools’ curricula and brought to film. Although born in Ohio, Morrison worked, taught and settled in New York, living in Tribeca during her final years.
Writer and editor Dorothy Parker was the only female member of the original Algonquin Round Table, joining Harpo Marx, Russell Crouse and the other members to make sophisticated jokes and wry social commentary. You can raise a toast in her honor by visiting the recently renovated Algonquin Hotel Bar.
The New York City culture club beats that of any other city. From Billie Holiday, singing her singular jazz in clubs around
her Harlem neighborhood, to Washington Heights’ own Cardi B (the first female rapper to have a certified diamond single, meaning it went platinum ten times), New York’s female artists have popped, rocked and shocked our world.
Current sound-shapers Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Cyndi Lauper, Patti Smith, and Alicia Keys continue the work of Holiday, Etta Jones and Carmen McRae, who stretched racial and gender barriers with their music.
Sports? Yes, we’ve got exceptional women athletes, too. Manhattan-born Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel in 1926, setting a record for both men and women with her time of 14 hours and 34 minutes. She even got a ticker tape parade when she returned, the first woman to receive that honor. Althea Gibson, the Harlem-raised tennis player who won five major tennis tournaments, including Wimbledon twice, also received that honor.
New York women have built, preserved and cultivated the city. Emily Warren Roebling successfully completed the building of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband, engineer John A. Roebling got sick. When Grand Central Station was about to be demolished, Jaqueline Kenney Onassis stepped in, becoming an early influencer and using her celebrity status to help preserve the Beaux-Arts masterpiece. These days, singer-actress Bette Midler works on behalf of the New York Restoration Project, the charity she founded, which plants trees, restores parks and keeps the city green.