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Frances Estill
Beauchamp (Madison, 1857-1923)
Beauchamp was an active member of the Lexington Women’s
Christian Temperance Union and was its president in 1895. She chaired the state Prohibition party for ten years and
served as the secretary of the Prohibition National Committee from
1912 until her death.
Malinda Gatewood
Bibb (Trimble, c. 1815-n. d.)
Few slaves left
records that can tell us about their lives.
Bibb was a slave who escaped with her family several times,
but was finally caught, separated from her husband and sold “down
river,” never to be heard from again.
Sallie
Bingham (Jefferson, b.
1937)
Bingham gave $10
million dollars in 1985 to establish the Kentucky Foundation for Women in
Louisville as an investment in women’s artistic and creative
projects. She is a
writer of books, short stories, and plays who incorporates her
Kentucky heritage into her writing.
Anne
Braden (Jefferson, b.
1924)
Braden has devoted her life to the search for peace and racial and
economic justice. As
one of the few role models for white women who wanted to join the
civil rights movement, she has won countless awards for her work.
Learn
more about Anne
Braden.
Madeline
McDowell Breckinridge (Fayette,
1872-1920)
Breckinridge
founded many institutions for social justice and reform in
Lexington. But her work
as a suffragist, fighting for women to win the right to vote, led to
the ratification of the 19th amendment in Kentucky.
Hannah E.
Brooks (McCracken,
1841-1926)
Brooks
was the editor of the Kentucky
Citizen, writing under the pen name of Hebe Hamilton.
She was an ardent suffragist and supporter of prohibition.
Clara
Brown (Gallatin, n. d.)
After being freed through her owner’s will, Brown earned enough
money to return to Kentucky to buy freedom for her family.
Her family could not be found, so she paid the rail expenses
for 26 other former slaves to leave the state.
Not until she was in her 80s did she find her daughter and a
brother.
Laura
Clay
(Madison,
1849-1941)
Supported
herself and her activism by becoming a farm manager. She was an
ardent suffragist who believed that the women’s vote should be
extended by each state, not by a federal amendment.
This caused a split with other Kentucky suffragists.
Mary
Barr Clay (Madison,
1839-1924)
President of
the American Women Suffrage Association, an organization which
helped aid women to fight for the right to vote.
Mary
Desha (Fayette,
1851-1911)
One of the
three founders of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1890.
She began life as a teacher and in 1885 was one of the first
women to teach Native Americans in Alaska.
Elizabeth
Cooke Fouse (Fayette,
1875-1952)
A member of
the African American women’s club movement who joined co-workers
in adopting the motto, “Lifting as we Climb,” an ethic that
guided her commitment to social reform and racial equality.
Helen Fisher
Frye (Boyle, b.
1918)
Re-energized the Danville chapter of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the 1950s-60s,
and for 10 years remained its first female president.
She also accompanied a group of high school girls who staged
sit-ins in downtown Danville while the boys were involved in
after-school athletics. Until
her retirement, she was a teacher at Bates Middle School.
Margaret
Garner (Boone, 1833-n.
d.)
A Kentucky slave who escaped with her four children in 1856.
When arrested in Ohio, Garner killed her two-year-old
daughter rather than see her returned to a life of slavery.
Toni Morrison’s well-known book Beloved
is based on her story.
Read
the article written about Margaret Garner in the Cincinnati
Enquirer at the time of her escape. Read
about the Margaret Garner archaeological
project and view
photos of her former home.
Eula
Hall (Floyd,
b. 1927)
Born on Greasy
Creek in Pike County, she knew that simple preventive health care
would make a difference in people’s lives. After years of striking
with coal miners and picketing for high utility rates, she founded
the Mud Creek Clinic. Inducted
into the Kentucky Women Hall of Fame in 1987.
Josephine
Henry (Woodford,
1843-1928)
Dedicated her life to justice and equality for KY women.
She lobbied for the Married Woman’s Property Act that
passed in 1894, and she was a suffragist who wrote for Elizabeth
Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s
Bible and authored Marriage
and Divorce.
Belinda
Mason (Letcher
1958-1991)
A Whitesburg native who was the only person with AIDS
appointed to the National Commission on AIDS in 1990.
A gifted spokesperson for the disease, a writer, and
playwright.
Lois
Morris (Jefferson,
1919-1989)
Morris was a city alderman and civil rights leader
as well as a founder and president of the Louisville chapter of the
National Council of Negro Women and the founder and executive
director of the National Black Women for Political Action.
Carry
Nation (Garrard,
1846-1911)
The infamous
hatchet-swinging leader of the Temperance Movement, she dedicated
her life to eradicating alcohol as a destroyer of family life.
Carry
Nation moved to Kansas in 1890.
The Kansas Historical Society has many items associated
with
her in their collection.
Visit their site for more information about Nation, as well
as a photo of her hammer
and her purse.
Eliza
Caroline Calvert Obenchain
(Warren, 1856-1935)
The author
of poems, essays, and short stories about western Kentucky, as well
as a suffragist who worked to promote women’s rights to property
and divorce.
Judi Conway
Patton, First Lady of KY (Pike,
b. 1940)
Has shaped the
role of First Ladies by tackling tough issues like domestic
violence, child abuse, and breast cancer.
A tireless champion for the protection of families and
children, she credits her mother as the inspiration for the work she
does today.
Visit
First Lady Judi Patton’s Web
site.
Alma
Randolph (Daviess,
b. 1957)
A council
member at age 23 in Beaver Dam.
When she realized that some school children needed clothing,
she established Alma's Friends Foundation in Owensboro.
As a gospel singer, she gives a benefit performance each year
to raise money for these kids.
Charlotte
Richardson (Greenup, b.
1938)
A descendent of both the Cherokee and Creek nations, she has
spent time as an advocate for Native Americans of Kentucky. Served on Governor Patton’s Native American Heritage
Commission which works on issues such as laws to protect Native
American burial grounds.
Joan
Robinett (Harlan,
b. 1957)
A tireless
activist chemical dumping in her own back yard.
“This has been done to us because we were poor.”
Helped start Dayhoit Citizens Group, which encourages people
to get involved.
Delia Ann
Webster (Trimble,
1817-1876)
Operated
a farm in Trimble County which used the paid labor of freed blacks
instead of slaves and operated as an Underground Railroad station
for slaves seeking freedom in the North.
Because of her abolitionist beliefs and actions, Webster was
arrested, had her farm set on fire, and was ordered to leave the
state of Kentucky. Visit KET's
Web site to learn more about the Underground Railroad in Kentucky
and people such as Delia Webster.
Mary
Sue Whayne (Hickman, b.
1933)
Successfully
fought a waste dump that would have brought 20,000 tons of
out-of-state garbage a day into Hickman. Her sense of justice helped
her overcome feelings of intimidation and helplessness.
Corinne
Whitehead
(Marshall, b.
1923)
Whitehead, a
Benton native, has been an advocate for clean air, water, and land
for decades. She helped found the Coalition for Health Concerns and
continues to get the public’s attention with her passionate
environmental agenda.
Evelyn
Williams (Knott, b.
1915-2002)
Williams sat down
in her road to protest an oil and gas truck from entering her
property to service a well. Kentuckians
for the Commonwealth joined her fight.
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