Kentucky Women Remembered is an exhibit in theKentucky State Capitol that honors the contributions of women from theCommonwealth. The exhibit consists of over 60watercolor portraits of outstanding Kentucky women. The Kentucky Commission on Women receives nominations and selects two to four honorees each year to be included. The exhibit includes famous Kentucky musiciansLoretta Lynn andRosemary Clooney as well as civic leadersMae Street Kidd andGeorgia Davis Powers.[1]
GovernorEdward T. Breathitt established a commission on the status of Kentucky women in April 1964. The commission determined that Kentucky women's status would be improved through a permanent agency and GovernorLouie Nunn signed an executive order establishing the Kentucky Commission on Women in November 1968. Legislative action made the Commission official in 1970. In 1978, the Kentucky Commission on Women started a campaign to recognize Kentucky women that history had overlooked. The exhibit "Kentucky Women Excel" began at that year'sKentucky State Fair. In 1996 the exhibit was moved to a first floor hallway of the west wing of the Capitol building. The first 17 portraits were created by artist Paula Jull.[2] Other portrait artists that have created works for the exhibit include Alison Davis Lyne[3] and Mary Lou Hall.[4]
The Kentucky Women Remembered Committee accepts nominations for new honorees. Nominees may be living or deceased and must have been born in Kentucky or spent a significant part of their lives living in the state. Candidates are required to be role models, to have strengthened Kentucky or the United States through their work, and to have shown leadership in elevating the status of women. New portraits are typically unveiled at a ceremony that takes place duringWomen's History Month in March.[1]
| Name | Image | Birth–Death | Year honored | Area of achievement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lilialyce Akers | (1927–2008) | 2005 | Lilialyce Akers was a Kentucky educator and prominent advocate for women who taughtwomen's studies and sociology at theUniversity of Louisville. She encouraged her students to support the Kentucky Equal Rights Amendment and bussed an entire class to the 1977National Women's Conference in Houston. Akers left $500,000 of her estate to the UofL to create the Lilialyce Akers Scholarship Fund.[5][6] | |
| Sophia Alcorn | (1883–1967) | 1996 | Sophia Alcorn was a Kentucky educator who invented theTadoma method of communicating withdeafblind students. She developed the technique while teaching at theKentucky School for the Deaf inDanville. She was also the first woman elder in the Stanford Presbyterian Church.[7][8] | |
| Mary Willie Arvin | (1879–1947) | 2006 | Mary Arvin is Kentucky's most highly decorated female veteran of World War I. A general practice nurse, she received the BritishRoyal Red Cross, the FrenchCroix de Guerre and aPurple Heart.[9] | |
| Hannah Hume Baird | (1939–2004) | 2004 | Hannah Hume Baird was a community activist and advocate for women. She was a member of President Carter's National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity and chaired the Kentucky Women's Political Caucus as well as the Kentucky Commission on Women. She also helped to restore theDinsmore Homestead.[1][10] | |
| Nelda Lambert Barton-Collings | (1929–2014) | 2007 | Nelda Lambert Barton-Collings was a community leader and licensed nursing home administrator. She had been a delegate to theRepublican National Committee and was appointed to the Federal Council on Aging.[1][11] | |
| Anne Braden | (1924–2006) | Anne Braden was a civil rights activist, organizer and writer who advocated for racial equality,school desegregation, social justice,fair housing andLGBT rights. She received national media attention in 1954 when she and her husband bought a house for an African American couple in an all-white neighborhood close toShively.[12] | ||
| Carolyn Bratt | (1943–) | 2004 | Carolyn Bratt is a Kentucky attorney and professor at theUniversity of Kentucky College of Law. She was the first chair of the University of Kentucky President's Commission on Women and helped to found the Women's Studies Program at the University of Kentucky.[1] | |
| Madeline McDowell Breckinridge |  | (1872–1920) | 1996 | Madeline McDowell Breckinridge was a leader of thewomen's suffrage movement and one of Kentucky's leadingProgressive reformers. She was president of theKentucky Equal Rights Association and vice president of theNational American Woman Suffrage Association.[13] |
| Mary Carson Breckinridge | (1881–1965) | 1996 | Mary Carson Breckinridge was an American nurse-midwife who founded theFrontier Nursing Service to provide care for mothers and infants in Kentucky's eastern counties. A deeply religious woman, Breckinridge was a pioneer of home health care and started a midwifery school.[14] | |
| Sally Shallenberger Brown | (1911–2011) | 2008 | The granddaughter ofAshton C. Shallenberger, Sally Brown was a conservationist and the namesake of theCrutcher and Sally Brown Nature Preserves in theKentucky River Palisades. A longtime champion of environmental protection, she advocated for theKyoto Protocol and theArctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.[15] | |
| Willa Beatrice Brown |  | (1906–1992) | 2012 | Willa Brown was an aviator and educator. She was the first African American woman licensed to fly in the United States.[16] |
| Claire Louise Caudill | (1912–1998) | 1999 | Claire Louise Caudill was a country doctor fromRowan County who delivered 8000 babies and founded a hospital during her five-decade career.[17][18] | |
| Anna Mac Clarke | (1919–1944) | Anna Mac Clarke was a member of theWomen's Army Corps during World War II. She was the first African American women to be a commanding officer of an otherwise all-white regiment, breaking gender and racial barriers at a time when the United States military was still segregated.[19] | ||
| Laura Clay |  | (1849–1941) | 1996 | Laura Clay was a leader of the Americanwomen's suffrage movement and the co-founder and first president of theKentucky Equal Rights Association. She was active in the Democratic Party, a powerful orator and had important leadership roles in local, state and national politics, and in 1920 at theDemocratic National Convention was the first woman to be nominated for the presidency by a major political party.[7] |
| Rosemary Clooney |  | (1928–2002) | 2003 | Rosemary Clooney was a singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House", which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me", "Mambo Italiano", "Tenderly", "Half as Much", "Hey There" and "This Ole House". She also had success as a jazz vocalist and continued recording until her death in 2002. She is the aunt of actorGeorge Clooney.[20] |
| Martha Layne Collins | .jpg) | (1936–) | Martha Layne Collins is a former businesswoman and politician who was Kentucky's56thGovernor from 1983 to 1987. Prior to her election as Governor, she was the 48thLieutenant Governor of Kentucky, underJohn Y. Brown, Jr. Her election made her the highest-rankingDemocratic woman in the U.S. The state experienced record economic growth under Collins' leadership. She taught at several universities after her governorship and from 1990 to 1996, she was the president ofSaint Catharine College nearSpringfield.[21] | |
| Jane Todd Crawford | (1763–1842) | 1996 | Jane Todd Crawford was the first woman to undergo anoophorectomy. PhysicianEphraim McDowell performed the surgery.[7][22] | |
| Emma Guy Cromwell |  | (1869–1952) | 1996 | Emma Guy Cromwell was asuffragist,women's rights activist, and early femaleDemocratic Party politician. Cromwell became the first woman to hold a statewide office in Kentucky when she was elected state librarian in 1896 by a vote of the Kentucky State Senate.[23] In 1923, Cromwell was electedSecretary of State of Kentucky in an election against two other women. She went on to be electedKentucky State Treasurer in 1927, and because of her conservative handling of state money, which was heavily criticized at the time, Kentucky's state funds remained secure during theGreat Depression.[7][24] |
| Dolores Delahanty |  | (1929–) | 2002 | Dolores Delahanty is a social activist and political leader inLouisville, Kentucky. She was a founding member of theNational Women's Political Caucus during the earlyCivil Rights Movement, and she was critical to the success of Kentucky's Fair Credit Law. Delahanty has devoted her life to improving the lives of others, primarily those of Kentucky women and children.[25] |
| Alice Allison Dunnigan | .jpg) | (1906–1983) | 2007 | Alice Allison Dunnigan was an African-American journalist,civil rights activist and author. She was the first African-American female correspondent to receive White House credentials, and the first black female member of theSenate andHouse of Representatives press galleries.[26] |
| Mary Elliott Flanery | (1867–1933) | 2005 | Mary Elliott Flanery was aprogressive erasocial reformer,suffragist, politician, and journalist who is best remembered as the first women elected to theKentucky General Assembly and first women elected to a state legislature south of theMason–Dixon line.[27] She was an advocate for equal rights for women, and actively worked to pass legislation that would give women the right to vote.[5][28] | |
| Lois Howard Gray | (1920–2012) | 2013 | Lois Howard Gray was a Kentucky physician. She founded the Rural Kentucky Medical Scholarship Fund. She was aWAVES officer in the Navy during World War II.[29] | |
| Mary (Cissy) Peterson Gregg | (1903–1966) | 1996 | Mary Gregg was a Kentucky cookbook author and daily food columnist for theCourier-Journal. She encouraged the inclusion of more green vegetables in theAmerican diet and argued that it should include less potatoes, meat, and bread.[30] | |
| Eula Hall | (1927–2021) | 1999 | Eula Hall is a prominent Appalachian activist and healthcare pioneer who founded Grethel's Mud Creek Clinic inFloyd County, Kentucky. During President Johnson'swar on poverty she joined the VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program and later became one of two localAppalachian Volunteers working in the area.[18][31] | |
| Josephine Henry | .jpg) | (1843–1928) | 1999 | Josephine Kirby Henry was aprogressive erawomen's rights leader,suffragist,social reformer, and writer fromVersailles, Kentucky. She was a strong advocate for women and a leading proponent of legislation that would grant married womenproperty rights. Henry lobbied hard for the adoption of the Kentucky 1894 Married Woman's Property Act, and is credited for being instrumental in its passage. Henry was the first woman to campaign publicly for a statewide office in Kentucky.[18] |
| Allie Hixson | (1924–2007) | Allie Corbin Hixson was awomen's rights activist and important leader in the effort to secure anEqual Rights Amendment for the United States Constitution. She is presumed to have been the first woman to earn a doctorate in English from theUniversity of Louisville.[32] | ||
| Julia Britton Hooks | (1852–1942) | 1996 | Julia Britton Hooks was a musician, educator, and leader for African-American women. She was a charter member of the Memphis branch of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and her example served as an inspiration for her grandson,Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP from 1977 to 1992.[7] | |
| Nelle Pitcock Horlander | (1929–2008) | 2009 | Nelle P. Horlander was a labor leader and advocate for women. She started her career as an operator forSouthern Bell and was a longtime member of theCommunications Workers of America.[33] | |
| Marie Caldwell Humphries | (1919–2017) | 2014 | First chair of the Kentucky Commission on Women[34] | |
| Louise Gilman Hutchins | (1911–1996) | 2004 | Born to missionaries in China, Louise Gilman Hutchins was a physician who devoted herself to maternal and child health in Kentucky. She was a pediatrician inBerea and was the medical director of Berea's Mountain Maternal Health League for five decades.[35] | |
| Margaret Ingels | (1892–1971) | 1996 | Margaret Ingels was an engineer andair conditioning specialist. In 1916 she became the first woman to earn a mechanical engineering degree from theUniversity of Kentucky and the second woman engineering graduate in the United States.[7][36] | |
| Grace Marilynn James | (1923–1989) | 2010 | Grace Marilynn James was aLouisville physician who was committed to the African American community. A pediatrician, she was the first African American woman on the Louisville Children's Hospital staff.[37][38][39] | |
| Mae Street Kidd | (1904–1999) | 1997 | Mae Street Kidd was a businesswoman, civic leader, and politician. She served in theRed Cross duringWorld War II, and was a member of theKentucky House of Representatives from 1968 to 1984. She sponsored a bill in 1972, later known as the Mae Street Kidd Act, which created theKentucky Housing Corporation (KHC). She also led the campaign for Kentucky to ratify theUnited States Constitution's13th (abolishing slavery),14th (defining citizenship) and15th (granting all men the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude) Amendments.[40] | |
| Katherine G. Langley |  | (1888–1948) | 2006 | Katherine Gudger Langley was the first woman elected to Congress from Kentucky. She was member ofUnited States House of Representatives during theSeventieth andSeventy-first sessions of Congress. She was the wife ofJohn W. Langley and daughter ofJames M. Gudger, Jr.[41] |
| Lucille Caudill Little | (1909–2002) | 2002 | Lucille Caudill Little was apatron of the arts and philanthropist who served as president of the W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little Foundation in Lexington. She gave more than $21 million to arts and education causes.[25] | |
| Crit Luallen |  | (1952–) | 2012 | Crit Luallen is a formerLieutenant Governor and Auditor of Public Accounts for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. She served in GovernorWendell Ford's executive cabinet and was Secretary of the Executive Cabinet for GovernorPaul E. Patton.[42] |
| Loretta Lynn |  | (1932–2022) | 2004 | Loretta Lynn is acountry music singer-songwriter and author. She became a part of the country music scene inNashville in the 1960s, and in 1967 charted her first of 16 number-one hits that include "Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)", "You Ain't Woman Enough", "Fist City", and "Coal Miner's Daughter". She focused on blue collar women's issues with themes about philandering husbands and persistent mistresses, and pushed boundaries in the conservative genre of country music by singing about birth control ("The Pill"), repeated childbirth ("One's on the Way"), double standards for men and women ("Rated "X""), and being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam War ("Dear Uncle Sam"). Country music radio stations often refused to play her songs. Nonetheless, she became known as "The First Lady of Country Music". Her best-selling 1976 autobiography was made into anAcademy Award-winning film,Coal Miner's Daughter.[43] |
| Michael Leo Mullaney | (1922–2018) | 2006 | Sister Michael Leo Mullaney is a retired hospital administrator. She was the president of Lexington'sSaint Joseph Hospital. Mullaney was a nun with theSisters of Charity of Nazareth and the first woman to serve on the boards of the First Security National Bank & Trust and the Federal Reserve Board of Cleveland.[44] | |
| Jacqueline Noonan | (1928–2020) | 2008 | Jacqueline Anne Noonan is apediatriccardiologist best known for her characterization of a genetic disorder now calledNoonan syndrome.[45] She was also the original describer ofhypoplastic left heart syndrome.[46] | |
| Beula Cornelius Aspley Nunn | (1914–1995) | 2007 | Beula Cornelius Nunn was First Lady of Kentucky and wife to GovernorLouie B. Nunn. She worked to preserve Kentucky history and established the Kentucky Mansion Preservation Foundation.[1] | |
| Clara Sanford Oldham | (1921–2005) | 2009 | Clara Sanford Oldham was an advocate for women in Kentucky. In 1977 she founded Citizens Against Rape. She was co-founder of Owensboro National Organization for Women and was active with theAmerican Association of University Women.[33] | |
| Judi Patton |  | (1940–) | 2003 | Judi Patton is a former First Lady of Kentucky, wife to GovernorPaul E. Patton, and an advocate for the safety of women and children. She created the Office of Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Services and was responsible for over 20 pieces of legislation.[20][47] |
| Katherine Graham Peden | .png) | (1926–2006) | 2003 | Katherine Peden was a broadcasting executive and Kentucky Commissioner of Commerce. She served onJohn F. Kennedy'sPresidential Commission on the Status of Women and was a member of theKerner Commission. She was the Democratic candidate to represent Kentucky in the United States Senate in the1968 elections.[20][48] |
| Mary T. Meagher Plant |  | (1964–) | Mary T. Meagher is a swimmer, Olympic champion, andworld record-holder. In 1981 she bettered her own existing world records in the100-meter butterfly (57.93) and200-meter butterfly (2:05.96). These times stood as the respective world records for 18 and 19 years, and are considered to be among the greatest sports performances ever.[49] | |
| Georgia Davis Powers | .jpg) | (1923–2016) | Georgia Davis Powers served for 21 years as a member of theKentucky Senate. When elected in 1967, she became the first person of color and the first woman elected to that body.[50] | |
| Lillian Henken Press | (1924–2020) | 2010 | Lillian Press is a former public relations executive and newspaper reporter. She worked atWVLK before organizing the Kentucky Regional Mental Health Board and the Commonwealth's first Comprehensive Care Centers. She directed theKentucky Governor's Scholars Program and chaired theNational Conference of Governor's Schools. In 2002, she organized The Women's Network.[39][51] | |
| Sara Frances Price | .jpg) | (1849–1903) | 1996 | Sara F. Price was a naturalist and artist. She published botanical papers and documented the woody plants, ferns and flora of Kentucky.Price's potato-bean andAster priceae are named for her.[7][52] |
| Lyda Ramey | (1909–1991) | 2008 | Lyda "Gertrude" Ramey was orphaned when her family died of influenza during the1918 flu pandemic. She spoke out for the welfare of orphans and in 1943 founded the Ramey Home inCatlettsburg, Kentucky.[53] | |
| Sarah Felt Richardson | (1871–1941) | 1996 | Sarah Felt Richardson was a Kentucky physician who practiced inHart County for over four decades. She performed the first recorded surgery to treat breast cancer.[7] | |
| Joan Riehm | (1945–2008) | 2012 | Mary Joan Riehm was the Deputy Mayor of Louisville and an expert in local government reorganization. She was an advocate for sustainability. The Joan Riehm Environmental Leadership Award and the Joan Riehm Memorial Garden are named for her.[54][55] | |
| Jean Ritchie |  | (1922–2015) | 2003 | Jean Ritchie was anAmerican folk music singer, songwriter, andAppalachian dulcimer player. She was known as "The Mother of Folk" and was awarded aFulbright scholarship to trace the links between American ballads and the songs of theBritish Isles.[56] |
| Verna Mae Slone | (1914–2009) | 2010 | Verna Mae Slone was anAppalachian author fromKnott County. She wroteWhat My Heart Wants to Tell and made dolls and quilts.[39][57] | |
| Lucy Harth Smith | (1888–1955) | 1996 | Lucy Harth Smith was a Kentucky educator and a champion ofAfrican-American history. She was the only woman to serve as president of the Kentucky Negro Education Association and was principal of the Booker T. Washington Grade School from 1935 to 1955.[7][58] | |
| Catherine Spalding | (1793–1858) | 1997 | Catherine Spalding was elected leader of six women forming a new religious community, theSisters of Charity of Nazareth, at a time when no education for girls, private health care, or organized social services existed on the Kentucky frontier, On January 6, 2003,The Courier-Journal named her the one woman among the sixteen "most influential people in Louisville/Jefferson County history."[40] | |
| Louise Southgate | (1857–1941) | Louise Southgate was awomen's rights activist and physician. She practiced inCovington. Southgate assisted young women in the juvenile court system and was an advocate forbirth control in Northern Kentucky.[59] | ||
| Ann Stokes | (1907–1997) | 1999 | Ann Stokes helped to form the Kentucky Nursing Home Association and was a champion for the elderly. She openednursing home facilities inCorbin,Frankfort,Greensburg,Louisville, andStanford and lobbied on behalf of strict laws for nursing homes that would supportresidents' rights.[1] | |
| Thelma Stovall |  | (1919–1994) | 2013 | Thelma Stovall was a member of theKentucky House of Representatives,Secretary of State of Kentucky,Kentucky State Treasurer, and the 47thLieutenant Governor of Kentucky. In 1978, when GovernorJulian Carroll was out of the Commonwealth, she invoked her powers as acting governor and vetoed the Kentucky Legislature's attempt to repeal of its ratification of theEqual Rights Amendment.[60] |
| Carol Sutton | (1934–1985) | 1997 | Carol Sutton was a journalist and the first woman to be managing editor ofThe Courier-Journal. She was cited as an example of female achievement in journalism whenTime named American Women as the 1975People of the Year.[61] During her tenure at theC-J, it was awarded the 1976Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for its coverage ofschool desegregation in Louisville.[40] | |
| Caroline Burnam Taylor | (1855–1917) | 1996 | Caroline Burnam Taylor was a Kentuckydressmaker. In 1903, she purchased land for her business, the Mrs. A.H. Taylor Company. The company was Kentucky's largest employer of women.[7][62] | |
| Julia A. Tevis | (1799–1880) | 1996 | Julie Ann Tevis founded the Science Hill Female Academy inShelbyville in 1825. She ran the academy from her home, favoring woman teachers. Over 3000 students matriculated at the academy.[63] | |
| Jeannette Bell Thomas | (1881–1982) | 2005 | Jean Thomas was anAppalachian musician and folklorist fromAshland. She organized the first American Folk Song Festival and founded the American Folk Song Society. Her field recordings became a part of theAnthology of American Folk Music.[5][64] | |
| Harriet Drury Van Meter | (1910–1997) | 1999 | Harriet Drury Van Meter founded theInternational Book Project in 1966 in herLexington basement. The organization has distributed over five million books. She was a finalist for the 1986Nobel Peace Prize.[65] | |
| Delia Webster | (1817–1904) | 1996 | Delia Webster was anabolitionist imprisoned and tried withCalvin Fairbank for assisting black slaves in their escape tofree states. She founded the Lexington Female Missionary Society girls school and ran a safe house that was part of theUnderground Railroad.[7][66] | |
| Myrtle Weldon | (1890–1971) | 1996 | Myrtle Weldon was the leader of the University of Kentucky's home demonstration program for 31 years.[67] She toured Kentucky organizing home demonstration clubs and promoting educational home economics programs that taughtfood preservation. She also promoted theWoman's Land Army of America during World War II.[7][68][69] | |
| Judy Moberly West | (1941–1991) | 2002 | Judge Judy Moberly West was the first woman to be appointed to theKentucky Court of Appeals. She founded the Hope Cottage Guild and also served as a member of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. In 1987 she was named one of the Outstanding Women of Northern Kentucky.[70] | |
| Mary Wharton | (1912–1991) | 2013 | Mary E. Wharton was a botanist and conservationist. She chairedGeorgetown College's Department of Biological Sciences from 1947 to 1974. She co-founded the Land and Nature Trust of the Bluegrass and worked to preserveParis Pike andRed River Gorge.[71] | |
| Esther Whitley | (1755–1833) | Esther Whitley was an American pioneer and the spouse ofWilliam Whitley. She was a talented markswoman[72] and owned one of the first brick houses in Kentucky, which is now a part of theWilliam Whitley House State Historic Site.[73] | ||
| Doris Y. Wilkinson | (1936–2024) | 2009 | Doris Wilkinson is a professor of sociology at theUniversity of Kentucky who has done pioneering work oncritical race theory. She was one of the first African American students to enroll at the University of Kentucky and was the first African American woman to become a full-time faculty member there. She founded the university's African American Studies and Research Program and directs the Project on the African American Heritage.[74][75][76] | |
| Enid Yandell |  | (1869–1934) | 1996 | Enid Yandell was a sculptor. She studied withRodin and her work was part of the 1892–3World's Columbian Exposition. She was part of a group of woman sculptors at the exposition called theWhite Rabbits and wrote the bookThree Girls in a Flat based on her experiences there. A large collection of her work is held by theSpeed Art Museum.[7][77] |
esther whitley kentucky.
