# Greatest American Woman (Elimination Game) **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [December 20, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929 "2017-12-20T16:20:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 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:** [December 20, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/1 "2017-12-20T16:20:35Z")
Belatedly, I have pulled out (nearly) all of the women who were proposed for greatness in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=752486). (Technically, the were proposed for the $20 bill, but I feel like that’s a close enough comparison.) The format is similar to the former [Greatest Military Leader](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=574323) thread that was run some years ago. My hope is that people will learn a bit more about each of these women, so I would hope that you will write some defense or prosecution as you feel fit, from your knowledge or as you learn about them. Each player has 5 votes per round. They can assign up to 2 points per person that they want to **eliminate**. I will tally votes every three days at Midnight PST. Any person who receives 5 or more votes will be eliminated. **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 **Louisa May Alcott** - Writer of Little Women **Marian Anderson** - Classical singer (contralto). First African American person to perform at the Metropolitan Opera. **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 **Annie Jump Cannon** - Astronomer who developed the stellar classification system. **Rachel Carson** - Environmentalist, wrote Silent Spring **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 **Georgia Neese Clark** - Actress, Banker, First woman Treasurer of the United States **Cornelia Clapp** - Pre-eminent zoologist of the late 19th century. **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 **Amelia Earhart** - Aviator. First woman pilot to cross the Atlantic solo **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 **Martha Graham** - Modern dancer and choreographer. Created the Graham technique for dance. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction **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 **Helen Keller** - Deaf-blind woman turned author and campaigner for women’s suffrage, labor rights, socialism, and pacificism. **Dorothy 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. **Wilma Mankiller** - First woman chief of the Cherokee Nation. Improved relations between the US Federal government and Cherokee. **Barbara McClintock** - Cytogeneticist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. **Patsy Mink** - First woman of color and the first Asian American woman elected to Congress, first Asian American to seek the presidential nomination **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. **Carrie Nation** - Radical member of the temperance movement. Fan of hatchets. **Georgia O’Keeffe** - Artist, “Mother of American Modernism”. Most expensive painting by a woman in the world. **Annie Oakley** - Sharpshooter and entertainer from the Wild West. Promoted women in the military and womens self defense. **Rosa Parks** - Activist, symbol of the Civil Rights Movement **Alice Paul** - Principal champion of the 19th Amendment **Florence Price** - First African American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and have her music played by a major orchestra. **Ayn Rand** - Author, founder of Objectivism **Sally Ride** - Physicist and astronaut. First American woman in space. **Eleanor Roosevelt** - Longest serving First Lady, first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights **Betsy Ross** - Creator of the American flag **Deborah Sampson** - Served (in disguise) as part of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War **Margaret Sanger** - (More-or-less) founder of Planned Parenthood **Susan Sontag** - Essayist, writer and filmmaker, teacher and political activist **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 **Harriet Beecher Stowe** - Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Abolitionist. **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. **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 **Edith Wilson** - Functional Executive of the United States 1919-21 Note: I removed from the original thread anyone who was still alive or was fictional. I also removed all of the artists (actors, musicians, etc.) who did not seem to have some verifiable first, started a school of thought, holds a set of awards, or otherwise has a claim to greatness. Since there is a yearly Oscar for the Best Actress, I discluded the Oscar Awards. I may have overcropped, but I didn’t want half the list to be 50s Starlets. I also removed some women who had similar accomplishments as one another, in favor of the one who seemed more impressive. If there is someone who you truly honestly think should have been in here, please let me know before the first round of voting finishes. First tally will be EOD Friday. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/2 "2017-12-20T16:37:12Z")
Peersonally, I think the list should include Dorothy Parker. Seriously. She was more than just funny. She invented the “slice of life” short story, which many people think of as a “_New Yorker_” short story. It’s an entire form of literature that is now used world-wide. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/3 "2017-12-20T16:54:13Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Peersonally, I think the list should include Dorothy Parker. Seriously. She was more than just funny. She invented the “slice of life” short story, which many people think of as a “_New Yorker_” short story. It’s an entire form of literature that is now used world-wide. I’ll add her in round two, since you specify that she started a form of literature that carries on. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/4 "2017-12-20T16:57:08Z")
**Rivkah** , I agree about Dorothy Parker. In addition to the accomplishments that you listed, she was a poet, a book reviewer, and a scathing wit. She belongs on that list, in my opinion. ETA: I see that she will be added. Thanks, **Sage Rat**! ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/5 "2017-12-20T19:55:56Z")
Add\*\* Flannery O’Connor\*\*, for sure. And\*\* Sandra Day O’Connor\*\*, who was not only the first woman on the Supreme Court but was the de facto Chief Justice for much of her term. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/6 "2017-12-20T20:03:32Z")
Others who should be on slate: Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science Mary Cassatt, Impressionist painter Kay Graham, Washington Post publisher Jeanette Rankin, first woman in Congress Ida Tarbell, investigative journalist Oprah Winfrey (I WISH I were joking, but I’m not) ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/7 "2017-12-20T20:09:59Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Others who should be on slate: > > Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science > Mary Cassatt, Impressionist painter > Kay Graham, Washington Post publisher > Jeanette Rankin, first woman in Congress > Ida Tarbell, investigative journalist > Oprah Winfrey (I WISH I were joking, but I’m not) The person must be dead. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/8 "2017-12-20T20:17:11Z")
I am astonished [Frances Perkins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Perkins) hasn’t been listed. She was the first woman in the US Cabinet by a margin of decades and was an important figure in much of the New Deal including Social Security. You could make a good case that she is the most important woman in US government history and also one of the most important Cabinet members. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/9 "2017-12-20T20:33:10Z")
Like Ayn Rand, Hedy Lamarr was a naturalized American citizen. Aside from acting and glamour, she is best known as an inventor. > **[Hedy Lamarr | Inventor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr#Inventor)** > > Although Lamarr had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she tinkered in her spare time on various hobbies and ideas, which included a traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink. The beverage was unsuccessful; Lamarr herself said it tasted like Alka-Seltzer. > During World War II, Lamarr read that radio-controlled torpedoes had been proposed. However, an enemy might be able to jam such a torpedo's guidance system and set it off course. Whe... ---
**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:** [December 20, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/10 "2017-12-20T21:50:35Z")
Well, maybe let’s turn this into a nomination thread and start the game in a week? 😃 I had figured the previous thread would have been reasonably complete. ---
**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:** [December 21, 2017, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/11 "2017-12-21T21:40:47Z")
Ida B. Wells needs to be added. ---
**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:** [December 23, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-american-woman-elimination-game/804929/12 "2017-12-23T12:10:14Z")
Marion Pritchard