Oregon Women Who Shaped Science & Society

Celebrating International Women’s History Month & International Women’s Day

This month OBW honors and celebrates trailblazing Oregonian women whose shoulders we stand on.  Their pioneering work in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and politics positively impacted countless lives and accelerated women’s rights in the US.

Here’s to just a few of Oregon’s trailblazers, innovators, leaders and changemakers.  Let’s continue in their mission of improving lives, creating opportunities for the underserved and making the world an overall better place. 

Bethenia Owens-Adair (1840-1926):  The first woman west of the Mississippi to hold a medical degree.  Married at 14, divorced her abusive husband by 16. She started a successful millinery business in Portland, then decided to pursue a career in medicine. She attended the University of Michigan Medical School, finished her MD & Surgery degree in in 1880, at age 40, returned to Portland and became the first woman to practice in Oregon.

Esther Pohl Lovejoy (1869-1967):  The second woman to earn a medical degree from the University of Oregon's medical school.  In 1907 she was appointed the chairman of the Portland Board of Health - the first woman in the U.S. to hold such a position in a major city. She was a tireless Public Health leader, combated infectious diseases by instituting school inspections and school nurses, and launched an awareness campaign about rats to prevent bubonic plague.  She served as Oregon’s representative to the national suffrage movement. 

Minnie Hill (1863-1946):  First female steamboat captain west of the Mississippi.  She was the only woman on the Pacific Coast licensed to command a steamer until 1907.  She specialized in moving jetty stone from a quarry east of Vancouver, Wash., downstream to a U.S. Army Engineer tow boat, which took the loads to Astoria. The stone was used to build the south jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Ava Bertha Milam Clark (1884-1976):  A pioneering home economist during the first half of the twentieth century, she worked to integrate science into the study of and research on home economics and to expand the field in other countries.  Dean of the School of Home Economics at Oregon State College from 1917 to 1950, she helped develop the third largest home economics program in the US.  She helped to establish the home economics department at Yenching University in China in the 1920s, taught in Korea in the 1940s, and in Syria in the 1950s.

Cornelia Marvin Pierce (1873-1957):  Led the OR State Library for 24 years. She created the first "books by mail" program in the US. This innovative program served rural populations isolated by limited access to telephones, newspapers or other sources of news.

Edith Green (1910-1987):  Elected to Congress in 1955, she served 10 terms and focused on women's issues, education and social reforms. In her first term, she proposed the Equal Pay Act to ensure that men and women were paid equally for equal work. She is most noted for her work developing the legislation that was to become Title IX, which prohibited sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions.

Maj. Gen. Jeanne Holm, USAF (1921-2010): First female general in the Air Force and the first two-star general in the Armed Forces.  She enlisted in the military during WWII, in the Women's Army Corps (WAC).  In 1971 she became the first woman to be appointed brigadier general in the Air Force. In 1973, she became the first woman in any branch of service to reach the rank of major general. She served as Special Assistant on women's issues for President Gerald Ford and is recognized as a driving force behind women achieving opportunities and equal rights in the military.