2. The growth of woman suffrage (throughout the 1900's)
Ratification of the 19th
Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920 granted women the
right to vote and opened the door for them to hold elected office and
other governmental positions. For the first time in U.S. history, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt brought a number of women into his Administration,
including the first female Cabinet secretary, Frances Perkins. Madeleine
K. Albright became the nation's first female secretary of state in 1997.
Women's electoral clout was on its greatest display in 1992, the Year
of the Woman in politics. That year, 24 women were elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives and 5 to the U.S. Senate, the greatest increase
in American history.
 
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Janet Z. Giele
is a Professor of Sociology in the Heller School for Social Welfare at Brandeis
University. She focused on the field of women's movements in the 1900's. This
Top 10 list celebrates a century of achievement for women and credits the
contributions of a number of outstanding women, including Margaret Sanger,
Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Betty Friedan, and Naomi Wolf. Susan Schantz, a Graduate Research Assistant in the Heller School for Social Welfare at Brandeis University, assisted Professor Giele in developing the list.
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