Here is an alphabetical list of some of the great women associated with the Miami Valley who have made their mark.
Lucinda W. Adams
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Adams is perhaps best known for winning a gold medal in the 4x100-meter relay in the 1960 Rome Olympics for the U.S. Olympic Team. After moving to Dayton in 1960, she began her career in education at Roosevelt High School in special education and physical education and became an iconic Dayton educator.
Marie S. Aull
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Aull has been called the godmother of the environmental movement in the Miami Valley. Along with her husband, John, nurtured their woodland bordering the Stillwater River into a beautiful landscape of flowers, streams and natural growth. The land they named Aullwood became Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm and was later given to the public.
Jeraldyne Blunden
Blunden was the founder of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and devoted her life to dance education and performance.
DCDC is Ohio’s oldest modern dance company. It has mesmerized audiences both local and worldwide, and developed countless dance stars since 1968.
Erma Bombeck
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Bombeck was a native Daytonian who made millions of people laugh with her down-to-earth humor. She was a graduate of the University of Dayton, and she began her writing career as a columnist for the Kettering-Oakwood Times and then The Journal Herald. Her columns became nationally syndicated and at one time entertained readers of more than 900 newspapers with her wry observations on family life.
Edith Longstreth Boyer
Boyer was Dayton’s first official meteorologist and set up a weather observatory in her Huffman Hill home in 1882. She took daily recordings of temperatures, rainfall and barometric pressures for the next 57 years.
These records later proved invaluable when the Great Flood of 1913 destroyed all records from the U.S. government weather stations in the area.
Eleanor Gertrude Brown
Brown received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1934 and became the nation’s first blind person to earn a doctorate. She went on to teach in Dayton schools for 40 years.
Hallie Quinn Brown
Brown attended Wilberforce University and earned her bachelor of science degree in 1890. Her career included a stint as a teacher in Dayton.
An elocutionist, author and activist, Brown was a revolutionary figure for her time. She lectured about temperance and advocated African-American civil rights and women’s suffrage, stressing equal access to education and political access for all in her speeches.
Nancy Cartwright
Cartwright is best known as the voice of Bart Simpson on “The Simpsons.” Cartwright was born in Dayton and graduated from Fairmont West High School in 1976. She began her career doing voice-overs for commercials on WING radio in Dayton.
Julia Shaw Patterson Carnell
She promised Dayton she would construct a new art museum if the community would pay for its operation. The challenge was met, and she gave $2 million for the construction. The Dayton Art Institute was completed in 1930, reflecting the Italian Renaissance style of architecture.
Bertha Comstock
Comstock traveled by bicycle in 1883 throughout Dayton for stories she wrote as the city’s first woman reporter at the Dayton Journal. Wilbur and Orville Wright installed an acetylene lamp on her bike for night reporting.
Charlotte Reeve Conover
Conover was a distinguished author, lecturer and historian, known for her pioneering studies of Dayton history and her generous support of others. She wrote articles for Atlantic Monthly, Ladies Home Journal and Harper’s and was the woman’s page editor for the Dayton Daily News, writing a weekly column called Mrs. Conover’s Corner. She penned seven Dayton history books and encouraged poet Paul Laurence Dunbar in his writing career.
Electra C. Doren
Doren trained in library studies under Melville Dewey, the inventor of the Dewy Decimal System of cataloging books. She was the director of the Western Reserve University Library but returned to rebuild the Dayton Public Library after the 1913 flood destroyed the books and building. Her forward thinking brought about innovations such as the card catalogue and some of the first bookmobile services in Ohio.
Christine Dull
Credit: Staff photo by Lisa Powell
Credit: Staff photo by Lisa Powell
Dull, along with her husband, Ralph, has dedicated her life to helping the cause of peace around the world. She and her husband founded the International Peace Museum in Dayton. She has been recognized for her work by the National Conference for Community and Justice and received the Atticus Finch Quiet Hero Award.
Lt. Col. Charity Edna Earley
Earley was the first Black officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and the commanding officer of the only organization of Black women to serve overseas during World War II. She commanded the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in Europe during the war. The all-Black battalion of 855 women was tasked with delivering mail to Americans stationed in Europe.
Gertrude Felker and Eleanora S. Everhard
Felker and Everhard opened their joint medical practice in 1903. Dayton’s first women physicians worked together for more than 40 years.
Maude Elsa Gardner
Gardner became the first female member of the Engineers Club of Dayton in 1939. She was an aeronautical engineer and worked at Wright Field from 1936-41.
Lillian and Dorothy Gish
The Gish sisters, who rose to fame in the early age of the silver screen, came from roots in the Miami Valley. The sisters made scores of movies during their early careers, playing innocent wide-eyed beauties. Black-and-white photographs capture the sisters in costume together and in individual promotional portraits.
Annae Belle Barney Gorman
Gorman established one of the nation’s first occupational therapy schools in Dayton in 1918. It trained women to serve in military hospitals nationwide. The Barney Community House later expanded into welfare and medical services and eventually became Dayton Children’s Hospital.
Cathy Guisewite
Guisewite, a pioneer in cartooning, was born in Dayton in 1950. Her most popular comic strip, “Cathy,” appealed to many women of her generation with both humor and social significance. The popularity of her comic strip increased rapidly and by the mid-1990s, it appeared in approximately 1,400 newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News.
Virginia Hamilton
A lifelong resident of Yellow Springs, Hamilton wrote more than 35 books and was known for a poetic use of language, which she wove through her works of contemporary fiction.
Hamilton is credited with introducing ordinary yet memorable Black characters into children’s literature, becoming one of the nation’s most honored writers of contemporary children’s books. Her books include “M.C. Higgins the Great,” a story of a young boy whose Appalachian mountain home is threatened, which won a Newbery Medal and the National Book Award.
Jessie Hathcock
Hathcock was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Dayton. She became a teacher at Dunbar High School.
Allison Janney
Janney, an Oakwood native, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2018 for her role in “I, Tonya.” In 2014, Janney won Emmy awards for her roles on both “Mom” and “Masters of Sex.”
Janney is perhaps best known for her role as C.J. Cregg on the NBC series “The West Wing,” for which she received four Emmy awards and four Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards.
Virginia W. Kettering
Credit: Dayton Daily News Archive
Credit: Dayton Daily News Archive
Kettering changed the face of our region with her philanthropy. Through her vision and generosity, she benefited health care, the arts, museums and the larger community as she touched thousands of lives for the betterment of the region. Her conception and organization of the Holiday Festival still brings joy to families and lives today.
Edythe Lewis
Lewis was Dayton’s first Black female radio disc jockey, broadcasting on WING-AM as Delilah in the 1950s. Before Lewis began a career in radio, she operated her own ballroom, modern and tap-dance studio in Dayton.
She served seven years as a Dayton public health nurse and later became manager of administration for the Miami Conservancy District. At the age of 77 Lewis, who had never before sought office, won a special election to fill the Dayton commission seat vacated when her husband died in 2001.
Evangeline Lindsley
Credit: JIM WITMER
Credit: JIM WITMER
A teacher and author, Lindsley taught history at Roosevelt High School for 46 years. When she was 100, she published her autobiography entitled, “My Century: An Outspoken Memoir.” She co-founded Daybreak, a facility in Dayton for runaway children.
Alyce Downing Lucas
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Lucas is known for being one of the organizers of the United Golfers Association, which in the 1950s helped integrate Blacks into the Professional Golf Association.
She was the first Black woman on radio at station WDAO in Dayton. She was a longtime Dayton civil rights activist and YWCA of Dayton Lifetime Achievement award winner.
Anne O’Hare McCormick
McCormick, who lived in Oakwood for 16 years, was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence in 1937. Married to a Dayton manufacturer, she wrote for the New York Times while traveling with him on business trips. She later became the first woman editorial writer for that paper.
Rhine McLin
Credit: Lisa Powell
Credit: Lisa Powell
McLin had several political accomplishments, including being the first Black woman elected to Ohio State Senate and the first female Dayton mayor.
When her father, C.J. McLin died, she was appointed to fill his seat in the Ohio House of Representatives. She ended up serving for six years, from 1988-94.
She became the first Black woman elected to the Ohio State Senate in 1994, then was appointed the Minority Whip in 1998 and the Minority Leader two years later. In 2002 she was sworn in as the first female Mayor of Dayton and served until 2010.
Bessie D. Moore
Moore became the first woman lawyer in the Dayton Bar Association in 1917.
Bette Rogge Morse
Credit: Contributed Photo
Credit: Contributed Photo
Morse was one of the first women in the area to host a local TV variety show, “The Bette Rogge Show.” which aired from 1967 to 1972 on WHIO-TV. Some of her guests included entertainer Liberace, actress Loretta Swit and actor William Shatner.
Idotha Bootsie Neal
Credit: unknown
Credit: unknown
Dayton’s first Black female city commissioner, elected in 1991.
Annie Oakley (Phoebe Anne Moses)
Celebrated in books, on stage and on screen as “Little Miss Sure Shot,” Oakley, born in Darke County in 1860, got her start after being recruited by Buffalo Bill Cody to join his Wild West Show. Oakley had such great aim she took to shooting an apple off her dog Dave’s head during performances.
Zoe Dell Nutter
Nutter earned a pilot’s license and worked in marketing for Piper Aviation to improve pilot safety, increase the number of private pilots and encourage women in the profession. She moved to Dayton when she married Ervin Nutter, owner of Elano Corporation, where she headed up the Small Aircraft Division and became one of the company’s pilots.
Nutter was the first woman to chair the National Aviation Hall of Fame Board of Trustees.
Esther Price
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
In 1926, Price started selling fudge from her Fauver Avenue home. She later started Esther Price Candies, becoming one of Dayton’s most beloved success stories.
Jane Reece
Reece is known as Dayton’s most important artist and photographer of any generation. She combined dramatic poses with striking lighting to create images that garnered international recognition.
She was the first woman portraitist to be admitted to the Photographers Association of America.
Julia Reichert
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Credit: CONTRIBUTED
Reichert was a Wright State University film professor for 28 years who won an Academy Award and two Emmys as a trailblazing documentary filmmaker.
A longtime resident of Yellow Springs, Reichert received her first Academy Award nomination in 1977. For 50 years, Reichert, along with longtime collaborators Steven Bognar and Jim Klein, illuminated humanity, particularly America’s working class, across compelling themes of feminism, family, politics and economics.
Dora Burton Rice
Rice became Dayton’s first Black woman police officer in 1922.
Marian Schuster
Credit: JIM WITMER
Credit: JIM WITMER
Schuster and her husband, Dr. Benjamin Schuster, were known for their philanthropic work and building a home for Dayton’s performing arts, the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Center for the Performing Arts, in downtown Dayton.
She was involved in many community programs, among them the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Victoria Theatre Association and Medici Society of the Dayton Art Institute.
Josephine and Hermene Schwarz
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Sisters Josephine and Hermene Schwarz founded the Schwarz School of Dance in Dayton in 1927.
The Schwarz School was one of the first to combine modern dance and ballet training for all students.
The sisters later expanded the school and established the Experimental Group for Young Dancers which expanded and evolved into the Dayton Civic Ballet, a nationally known regional dance company.
In 1984 the Schwarz School of Dance became the Dayton Ballet Dance Center under the Dayton Ballet Association. This merged with the Jon Rodriguez School of Ballet in 1988 and became known as the Dayton Ballet School.
Louise Troy
Troy began teaching in the Dayton school system in 1878. She helped found the Women’s Christian Association, which later became the YWCA. She bought a house in 1909 on Fifth Street, and it was used for YWCA activities. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
She also was co-founder and treasurer of the Dayton unit of the NAACP.
Yvonne Walker-Taylor
Credit: Lisa Powell
Credit: Lisa Powell
Walker-Taylor became the first female president of Wilberforce University in 1984.
Faye Wattleton
In 1971, Wattleton began a seven-year tenure at the helm of Dayton’s Planned Parenthood chapter. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America recognized her success by naming her its president in 1978. She was the first Black woman to hold the position.
Clara E. Weisenborn
Weisenborn was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1952 and served until 1967. She was then elected to the Ohio Senate and served there until 1975. While in the Ohio General Assembly, Weisenborn focused on health, education, agricultural and environmental issues. During this time she played a leading role in establishing the Wright State University School of Medicine.
Gen. Janet C. Wolfenbarger
Wolfenbarger is the first four-star female general in the Air Force and a 1976 Beavercreek High School graduate. Wolfenbarger spent most of her career at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, culminating with becoming AFMC commander in June 2012.
She also was in the first class of female cadets to graduate from the Air Force Academy in 1980.
Alice G. Woodward
As one of Dayton’s most enthusiastic and successful historic preservationist, Woodward saved more than 40 buildings and advised and aided other preservationists. She received many awards for her successes and helped revitalize and revive many of Dayton’s historic neighborhoods.
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