Women in the Boardroom and Courtroom
Snickers and head pats have often greeted women looking to run businesses. Through family ties, widowhood and pure pluck, women gradually began moving into leadership positions in business. Over time, they've proven to be just as great and inept as men in starting and running businesses or arguing cases in the courtroom. Below are some women who broke the barriers in various areas, becoming the first woman in their role.
This lens is part of a series saluting women who broke the gender barrier in fields as diverse as science, politics, sports and literature.
"I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can."
- Lucille Ball
Business Owners: All about Marjorie Merriweather Post
Marjorie Merriweather Post a.k.a. Marjorie Merriweather Post Close Hutton Davies May (March 15 1887 ? September 12 1973) was a leading American socialite and the founder of General Foods, Inc. She was 27 when her father died, and she became the owner of the rapidly growing Postum Cereal Company later becoming the wealthiest woman in America when her fortune reached approximately USD$250 million, more than 1 billion of today's dollars.
Marjorie Post was born in Springfield, Illinois, the daughter of C. W. Post and Ella Letitia Merriweather.
Owners
- 1766 - Mary Katherine Goddard and her widowed mother become publishers of the Providence Gazette newspaper and the annual West's Almanack, making Goddard the first woman publisher in America. In 1775, Goddard became the first woman postmaster in the country (in Baltimore), and in 1777 she became the first printer to offer copies of the Declaration of Independence that included the signers' names. In 1789 Goddard opened a Baltimore bookstore, probably the first woman in America to do so.
- 1914 - The death of Marjorie Merriweather Post's father left her the owner of a rapidly growing cereal company, Postum. An only child, she was brought up in the business, taught by her father everything from factory production to high finance. At a time when women were seldom more than secretaries in the business world, she became President of the company. Between 1925 and 1929, she led the company in acquiring over a dozen companies and expanding is product line to more than 60 products.
- 1920s - Martha Matilda Harper started a beauty products system called the Harper Method, eventually realizing over 500 franchises world-wide in the 1920s. Harper is credited with creating the modern retail franchising method.
- 1963 - Lucille Ball is best known for her television shows, but she also appeared in dozens of films, was a Ziegfeld Girl, and was a successful businesswoman -- the first woman to own a film studio. She bought out her then ex-husband Desi Arnaz to become the first woman to run a studio.
- 1967- Muriel "Mickey" Siebert becomes the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of its member firms.
Inspiration and Advice from Women in Business
Law
- 1869 - Arabella Mansfield is granted admission to practice law in Iowa, making her the first woman lawyer in the U.S. A year later, Ada H. Kepley, of Illinois, graduates from the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is the first woman lawyer to graduate from a law school.
- 1873 - Belva Lockwood was the first woman admitted to appear before the Supreme Court. She had fought for that right for seven years. Her first case was a divorce, which she won and, for the first time in history, included a judgment forcing the husband to pay alimony.
"I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near."
- Margaret Thatcher
Business Leaders: All about Katharine Graham
Katharine Meyer Graham (June 16, 1917 - July 17, 2001) was an American publisher. She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period, the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Her memoir, Personal History, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998.
Leaders
- 1875 - Lydia Moss Bradley became the first female member of an American national bank board in the United States when she joined the Board of Directors of Peoria's First National Bank in 1875.
- 1934 - Lettie Pate Whitehead becomes the first American woman to serve as a director of a major corporation, The Coca-Cola Company. Lettie Pate Whitehead served as chairwoman of the board of the Whitehead Holding Co., as well as other business interests. She became a savvy business woman in the soft drink industry and was the first woman to serve as a director of a major American corporation when she was appointed in 1934 to the board of directors of the Coca-Cola Co. She remained on the board for nearly 20 years.
- 1910 - Nellie Bly became a pioneer in journalism and investigative reporting during the 1880s and 1890s. Bly retired from journalism after her marriage to Robert Seaman in 1895, but embarked on a new career after her husband's death 10 years later in 1910. Taking over his failing industries, she introduced the steel barrel to the distilling process in America and made his companies a huge success. For almost 10 years, she managed two multimillion-dollar companies. Bly took charge of the companies, American Steel Barrel Company and Ironclad Manufacturing Company, on Mr. Seaman's death in 1910.
- 1963 - Katharine Graham takes the reins at The Washington Post after the suicide of her husband, making her the first woman to head a Fortune 500 company.
- 1997 - Marjorie Scardino is named CEO of Pearson, a $3.5 billion international media conglomerate based in London, which owns 50% of The Economist, making her the first woman to head a top 100 company on the London Stock Exchange. Scardino decided to focus Pearson as a media company, selling such unrelated properties as Madame Tussaud's Waxworks, and purchasing various educational and publishing properties (including Information Please and Fact Monster).
First Woman To ... The Series
Let's Hear From You!
Share your business acumen here!
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SusanVillasLewis
Thanks for the suggestions, Lisa. But I really want this to be the first woman, not the first of a certain type of woman. It's totally random choice of where to draw the line, but I had to stop somewhere to maintain my sanity!! There are so many great women out there. Posted October 06, 2008 |
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lisadh
Love the series, Susan! Oprah has a number of firsts you could use here - first African-American woman to make the Forbes list of billionaires, first African American woman to get listed on BusinessWeek's list of Americas Top Philanthropists, or first African-American woman talk show host to get national syndication. There are probably others, too, but those are three I found. :-) Posted October 06, 2008 |
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SusanVillasLewis
I would love to include both of them as they are amazing business women, but this is not about great business women, but about the first time a woman did something in business. Neither of them hold that distinction that I can find. Posted April 26, 2008 |
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spirituality
It would be nice to have some of the more recent prominent women on here. Oprah Winfrey and Madonna come to mind. Otherwise: great lens :) Posted April 26, 2008 |
Women Leaders
