Don’t call Seattle’s Bertha Knight Landes a “mayoress.”
The first female mayor of a major U.S. city detested that term and spoke extensively about women’s “natural sphere” of politics as she encouraged others from atop her perch in Seattle government. Landes swept into the job in 1924, shut down speakeasies and fired the chief of police in her crusade against corruption.
On this International Women’s Day, it would be nearly impossible to list all of the women with Washington roots who changed our region and nation in powerful and surprising ways. But here are some you should know about, in alphabetical order:
Sue Bird, a Seattle sports icon, five-time Olympic gold medalist and one of the greatest WNBA players of all time. As a lesbian, she spoke out and Seattle was never the same, columnist Naomi Ishisaka writes.
Patricia Bostrom, who’s considered the greatest women’s tennis player in University of Washington history. It’s her role as a pioneer for gender equality in college sports in the 1970s that she is most proud of, and for which she is often remembered.
Bertha Pitts Campbell, an early Seattle civil rights activist and founding member of Delta Sigma Theta, one of the largest African American sororities. She helped organize the Seattle Urban League in the early 1930s and was the first woman of color to vote on the YWCA’s board, on which she served for 53 years. At age 92, she led a march of 10,000 Delta Sigma Theta members in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the sorority’s involvement in the suffrage movement.
Brandi Carlile, the transcendent Maple Valley rocker who has helped make the Grammy Awards better representative of the industry and the audience it serves.
Corrine Carter, the first Black woman police officer on the West Coast and the second in the U.S. She was a designated “special policewoman” in 1914 who worked, unpaid, with Black children brought to the Seattle Police Department and helped provide services for Black youths. She was instrumental in establishing Seattle’s Phillis Wheatley Branch of the YWCA, which was then one of only a few public meeting spaces for people of color.
Ruby Chow, who went from high-school dropout to unstoppable force. The first Asian American elected to the King County Council (in 1973), she advocated for immigrants, mentored politicians including former Gov. Gary Locke, and helped open the Wing Luke Museum.
Thelma DeWitty, one of the first Black educators to work for Seattle Public Schools in 1947. She was the NAACP Seattle branch president and taught at several elementaries before retiring in 1972. DeWitty’s principal at Frank B. Cooper School set up a scholarship at the Pride Foundation to recognize and honor her accomplishments.
Bonnie Dunbar, the first woman astronaut from Washington. Her aspirations were reinforced at a young age when she visited the 1962 Seattle World Fair, which included the Spacearium, a virtual ride to outer space. She went on to fly five missions between 1985 and 1998. After her last flight, she worked as an administrator for NASA before becoming the CEO of the Museum of Flight in Seattle and then executive director of Wings Over Washington.
Abigail Echo-Hawk, a leader of the Seattle Indian Health Board who was given body bags instead of PPE for Washington’s Indigenous communities as the pandemic worsened. Her response: using them to make a healing ribbon dress. “We’ve never accepted body bags for our people,” she said. “We’ve only ever accepted a world where we are thriving, and where our next generations are ever continuing.”
Barbara Hedges, UW’s athletic director from 1991 to 2004, who at the time was the longest-serving woman athletic director in NCAA Division I. She began the UW softball team in her first year, and construction of a new softball stadium paid off with the team making the College World Series five times. Her tenure also saw the building of the Husky Ballpark, soccer field, Dempsey Indoor facility, Husky Hall of Fame and football practice fields.
Maxine Mimms, the first Black woman in Washington to start a four-year college, who says her approach to educating students is to “love them” into success. For Mimms, who’s in her 90s now, the joy of the work continues. (Read about more trailblazing Black women in our state.)
Assunta Ng, who started the Seattle Chinese Post, a longtime cornerstone of the region’s Chinese community. It published its last edition in January. Ng also established a sister publication, the English-language Northwest Asian Weekly, which continues as an online news site.
Ijeoma Oluo, Seattle resident and the best-selling author of “So You Want to Talk About Race,” whose writing has garnered her a legion of fans around the world. One of her “many gifts is her ability to call a thing a thing,” Ishisaka writes. Oluo writes for various publications about race, the invisibility of women’s voices and intersectionality.
Estela Ortega, who shivered at night in a thin sleeping bag among activists who took over a derelict school building for months and demanded Seattle relinquish it for a Latino community center. Half a century later, she leads El Centro de la Raza, which works to work to lift up Latinos and others through education, advocacy and economic opportunity.
Megan Rapinoe, OL Reign star and Olympic gold medalist who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom after advocating for gender pay equality, racial justice and LGBTQ rights. She talked with us in 2021 about her fight for equal pay and more.
Dixy Lee Ray, a “tell-it-like-it-is hurricane of a woman” who became Washington’s first woman governor in 1976. She was also a zoology professor and the most powerful woman in President Richard Nixon’s administration, and once named the pigs on her farm for the reporters who displeased her.
Karen Troianello, a runner who changed the course of women’s college athletics with her 1979 lawsuit against Washington State University. The Title IX pioneer described what women today should understand about the way the legislation affects their lives.
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, matriarchs of Seattle rock who kicked the door open for women in the misogynistic ’70s rock scene.
Kris Higginson and Yihyun Jeong contributed to this story, which includes information from Seattle Times archives.