# Corrected: Greatest American Woman (Elimination Game) **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [December 23, 2017, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167 "2017-12-23T21:51:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/61 "2018-01-18T17:12:32Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Mary Bowser 2 Whoa there…! I would have considered Bowser a mid-to-late game contender. Might I ask your reason for targeting her? (More impressive people in the same category?) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/62 "2018-01-18T19:28:26Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Whoa there…! I would have considered Bowser a mid-to-late game contender. Might I ask your reason for targeting her? (More impressive people in the same category?) Pretty much. Honorable as her service was, she’s just not in the same league with some of the other big names here. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/63 "2018-01-19T02:50:44Z")
Patsy Mink -2 Harriet Tubman -2 Florence Price -1 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/64 "2018-01-19T03:32:48Z")
I’m going to go with the same votes, since they inexplicably are still in the game when women who did interesting things are being eliminated: Jeanette Rankin Patsy Mink Barbara Jordan Shirley Chisholm Bessie Coleman ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/65 "2018-01-19T04:13:02Z")
Why is Rosalind Franklin not on the list? She did much of the research into the structure of DNA, and probably would have been recognized with Watson, Crich, and Wilson, had she not been a woman. I’d also like to add–too late to count, but in her defense, that I was speechless to see a vote against Flannery O’Connor. She continues to be an enormously influential writer whose works are widely read. I doubt you could take a course in 20th century American fiction that doesn’t include O’Connor. I hope we’re not simply eliminating people on the basis that we may not have heard of them but are using this as a means of educating ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/66 "2018-01-19T04:16:31Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > …I hope we’re not simply eliminating people on the basis that we may not have heard of them… I think a lot of the votes are ignoring the women people haven’t heard of, and instead voting against those who are famous enough to be recognizable. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/67 "2018-01-19T05:26:39Z")
I think we have an issue. This is a very broad topic. The thread that was the partial inspiration for this one was focused solely on _military_ leaders, a relatively narrow category that uses consistent criteria. Here we have politicians, artists, soldiers, scientists, writers, feminists and historical leaders all heaped together: no consistent criteria. Furthermore, we’ll inevitably evaluate which roles are most important, not necessarily which women. Are suffragettes more important than scientists? Political leaders more so than poets? ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/68 "2018-01-19T12:03:41Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Why is Rosalind Franklin not on the list? She did much of the research into the structure of DNA, and probably would have been recognized with Watson, Crich, and Wilson, had she not been a woman. > > I’d also like to add–too late to count, but in her defense, that I was speechless to see a vote against Flannery O’Connor. She continues to be an enormously influential writer whose works are widely read. I doubt you could take a course in 20th century American fiction that doesn’t include O’Connor. I hope we’re not simply eliminating people on the basis that we may not have heard of them but are using this as a means of educating ourselves. ROsalind Franklin was English- I made a similar goof earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/69 "2018-01-21T22:25:33Z")
Hedy Lamarr - 2 Patsy Mink - 2 Annie Oakley - 1 ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/70 "2018-01-21T22:34:23Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > I think we have an issue. This is a very broad topic. The thread that was the partial inspiration for this one was focused solely on _military_ leaders, a relatively narrow category that uses consistent criteria. Here we have politicians, artists, soldiers, scientists, writers, feminists and historical leaders all heaped together: no consistent criteria. Furthermore, we’ll inevitably evaluate which roles are most important, not necessarily which women. Are suffragettes more important than scientists? Political leaders more so than poets? Really, it’s just an excuse to discuss and learn about these women in a somewhat ordered manner. While it is a bit unfair that you have to compare a woman that took photographs to another woman who helped to sneak slaves to the North, before the Civil War, I think that everyone is aware of that, and are trying to balance the conditions of the time that person lived in and what mattered at that point, and trying to keep these parallel streams alive in a somewhat fair manner. The thread was also partially (and mostly) started by the question of what woman would be best to put on the $20 bill. And there, like in this thread, there can only be one person. So who, of all American women, would make the most powerful and poignant message sat at the table with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, etc. - and who should it be that kicks out Andrew Jackson? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/71 "2018-01-21T22:39:30Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > I’d also like to add–too late to count, but in her defense, that I was speechless to see a vote against Flannery O’Connor. She continues to be an enormously influential writer whose works are widely read. I doubt you could take a course in 20th century American fiction that doesn’t include O’Connor. I hope we’re not simply eliminating people on the basis that we may not have heard of them but are using this as a means of educating ourselves. I only have the Wikipedia article to go by. Care to explain? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/72 "2018-01-21T22:42:39Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Harriet Tubman -2 Given that I believed that she was slated to be in the top 3, I am curious that not only are you voting for her, but double-voting for her while we are still early in the game? I’m feeling like we may need to restore the 5 vote limit, now that people are starting to include big figures. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/73 "2018-01-22T01:23:04Z")
**1** Mary Cassatt **1** Willa Cather **2** Rachel Carson **1** Edith Wharton ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/74 "2018-01-22T19:49:17Z")
Hopefully, this isn’t taken as too arbitrary, but this round of voting didn’t pass what I would call the “[sniff test](http://www.womenon20s.org/candidates)” for validity. If we still have more than half the women in the game as we started with and a number of generally accepted top contenders from other similar surveys are already getting voted off the island, then I think it’s reasonable to say that the standards are too low to be reasonable. We needed a way to reduce the number of people being considered down to something more reasonable, so I changed from 5 votes to the “half the total rounded up” system. But now it needs to be changed back. One person shouldn’t be able to take out a contender on their own. For this particular case, I am going with “half, rounded down”, but after this it will be back to what was in the OP. (Granted, “half, rounded down” comes out equal in this case.) The bolded name is eliminated. **Patsy Mink - 5** Mary Bowser - 2 Rachel Carson - 2 Ella Fitzgerald - 2 Hedy Lamarr - 2 Harriet Tubman - 2 Mary Cassatt - 1 Willa Cather - 1 Shirley Chisholm - 1 Bessie Coleman - 1 Barbara Jordan - 1 Dorothea Lange - 1 Annie Oakley - 1 Florence Price - 1 Jeanette Rankin - 1 Edith Wharton - 1 Total: 25 points. 12 to remove. Preserving the group where the tally petered out. Updated list: **Bella Abzug** - U.S. Representative and a leader of the Women’s Movement. Founded the National Women’s Political Caucus **Abigail Adams** - Wife and advisor of the second President. Advocate for womens rights and abolitionist. **Jane Addams** - Co-founder of the ACLU, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and founder of social work as a profession in the USA **Maya Angelou** - Prolific author, poet, dancer, actress, singer, director, and producer **Susan B. Anthony** - Abolitionist, leader of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, backer of the 19th Amendment **Clara Barton** - Founded the American Red Cross **Nellie Bly** - Undercover investigative journalist, circled the Earth in 72 days, industrialist and inventor **Mary Bowser** - Former slave turned anti-Confederate spy during the Civil War **Pearl S. Buck** - Author, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Spread knowledge of Asia and China to the US **Rachel Carson** - Environmentalist, wrote Silent Spring **Mary Cassatt** - Painter, one of the original Impressionist painters **Willa Cather** - Author, won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours. **Shirley Chisholm** - First African American woman elected to Congress, first major-party black candidate for President of the United States **Jacqueline Cochran** - Aviator and racing pilot. Helped to form the Women’s Auxilliary Army Corps and Women Airforce Service Pilots. **Bessie Coleman** - First African-American woman pilot **Emily Dickinson** - One of American’s most reknowned poets **Gertrude Belle Elion** - Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for research into AIDS and immunosuppressants **Ella Fitzgerald** - Jazz singer, winner of 14 Grammies **Dian Fossey** - Conservationist. Writer of Gorillas in the Mist. **Betty Friedan** - Initiated the second wave of 20th century feminism **Katharine Graham** - First woman CEO in the Fortune 500, Pulitzer Prize winner, head of the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal **Virginia Hall** - WWII spy for British and later with the American CIA. Recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross **Billie Holiday** - Pioneering jazz singer and songwriter. **Grace Murray Hopper** - Programmer. Inventor of COBOL and “debugging” **Zora Neale Hurston** - Author and influential libertarian, best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. **Virginia E. Johnson** - Pioneer of the medical and scientific investigation of sex and sexual disfunction **Barbara Jordan** - First southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives **Christine Jorgenson** - First popular voice for transgender issues **Hedy Lamarr** - Actress, inventor of frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology **Dorothea Lange** - Photojournalist and originator of documentary photography **Mary Lyon** - Teacher focused on STEM training for women. Founded Wheaton College and Mount Holyoke College. Provided education to the poor. **Barbara McClintock** - Cytogeneticist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. **Lucretia Mott** - Pacifist, women’s rights activist, abolitionist, and writer of the Declaration of Sentiments **Madalyn Murray O’Hair** - Activist for atheism. Stopped Bible-reading in schools. **Flannery O’Connor** - Southern Gothic writer of Complete Stories, 1972 National Book Award for Fiction. **Annie Oakley** - Sharpshooter and entertainer from the Wild West. Promoted women in the military and womens self defense. **Dorothy Parker** - Editor for The New Yoker, poet and wit, nominee for the Academy Award for Screenplays. **Rosa Parks** - Activist, symbol of the Civil Rights Movement **Alice Paul** - Principal champion of the 19th Amendment **Frances Perkins** - Secretary of Labor, first woman appointed to the US Cabinet, executor of the New Deal **Florence Price** - First African American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and have her music played by a major orchestra. **Marion Pritchard** - Worked with the Dutch underground movement against the Nazis, estimated to have saved 150 lives through her work **Jeannette Rankin** - First woman to hold Federal office, serving two terms in the House of Representatives **Eleanor Roosevelt** - Longest serving First Lady, first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights **Deborah Sampson** - Served (in disguise) as part of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War **Margaret Sanger** - (More-or-less) founder of Planned Parenthood **Edna St. Vincent Millay** - Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and feminist. **Elizabeth Cady Stanton** - Initiated the first organized women’s rights and women’s suffrage movements in the United States **Ida Tarbell** - Pioneer of investigative journalism, muckraker, wrote The History of the Standard Oil Company **Sojourner Truth** - Former slave, women’s rights speaker **Harriet Tubman** - Former slave, Union spy, abolitionist, and Underground Railroad operator **Elizabeth Van Lew** - Abolitionist. Founder and operator of an anti-Confederate spy ring during the Civil War **Mercy Otis Warren** - Writer and propagandist of the Revolutionary War. Compiled one of the first histories of the war. **Ida B. Wells** - Inventor (?) of data journalism, used data mining to demonstrate the financial causes of the lynching of African Americans **Edith Wharton** - Author of The Age of Innocence, first woman Pulitzer Prize winner **Frances Willard** - Campaigner for temperance and suffrage. Lead to the creation of the 18th and 19th amendments to the Constitution Next vote will be tallied EOD Thursday the 25th! ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/75 "2018-01-24T19:13:59Z")
Marion Pritchard -2 Annie Oakley - 2 Sojourner Truth - 1 ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/76 "2018-01-24T20:59:32Z")
Hm…well I’ll back you on Annie Oakley. I think there are more impressive women in the category of “fighty” women. Not too sure about the other two though. Annie Oakley - 2 Billie Holiday - 2 - Doesn’t seem to have done a lot outside of singing. Not much of a role model in her personal life, either. Rosa Parks - 1 - Seems like the smallest fish of the various civil rights women that we have? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/77 "2018-01-25T03:42:37Z")
Why Sojourner Truth? She was my (single) vote for the bill, fwiw. I’m going to go with mostly the same votes, since all but one of them continues to inexplicably remain while people are voting against Sojourner Truth and HArriet Tubman: Jeanette Rankin Barbara Jordan Shirley Chisholm Bessie Coleman And I’ll add back Florence Price who mostly seems to have been “first black woman to…” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/78 "2018-01-25T15:33:31Z")
Again: Mary Bowser 2 Ella Fitzgerald 2 Dorothea Lange 1 ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/79 "2018-01-25T21:29:00Z")
Latecomer to the thread. Quite interesting, I’ve learned about some folks I didn’t know about. 2 for Frances Perkins. 2 for Billie Holiday 1 for Annie Oakley ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167/80 "2018-01-25T23:34:11Z")
2 - [Madalyn Murray O’Hair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madalyn_Murray_O%27Hair) - Her big named achievement, stopping Bible readings in schools, would have happened on the same day if she’d been run over by a bus before filing her court case. The SCOTUS decision had her case rolled in with a separate case. Her advocacy for atheism was also pretty extreme. When her son became a Christian she commented - “One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess; I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times … he is beyond human forgiveness.” Some cleanup of others already receiving votes, 1 point each: Willa Cather Shirley Chisholm Barbara Jordan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corrected-greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/805167.md?page=5)