There have always been women who said, “I don’t give a damn if no woman has ever done this before. I’m doing it anyway!” Each of these First Women chipped away at glass ceilings, pushed against brick walls, and challenged legal barriers.

In this blog, I present profiles of First Women from U.S. history and current news to celebrate their accomplishments. These women deserve our accolades, our admiration, our imitation. They are our past and also our future.

They are little-known women, like Victoria Claflin Woodhull who was the First Woman to run for president of the United States in 1872. It would be another 48 years before women in the United States won the right to vote.

They are well known-known women whose lives we do not fully know, like Maya Angelou who was the First Woman streetcar conductor in San Francisco, before she became the First African American Woman to have a nonfiction best-seller.

They are also famous modern women like Madeleine Albright, the First Woman Secretary of State.

The goal of this blog is to provide inspiration, generate discussion, and encourage other First Women to share their stories, in hopes that one day it will no longer be necessary to designate First Women. I anticipate the day when women will participate fully in our society and there will be no assumptions that a woman cannot do a job or hold a position she desires to fill.