This athlete became a world class figure skater after overcoming polio. This woman promised her dying sister she would help find a way to eradicate breast cancer. This dance entrepreneur’s pioneering style and drive transformed modern dance. This lawyer’s work has affected virtually every major law of importance to women and girls in the U.S. for more than 40 years. This author’s groundbreaking work on the image of women in advertising as well as critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising changed the way we think of media manipulation.
Those five women and four others form the class that Mary Harriman joins as 2015 inductees to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY, the birthplace of the American Women’s Rights Movement. (See full list with bios here.)
This is a great and timely honor for a remarkable woman whose life in public service started as an 18-year-old debutante in New York City and ended, with her untimely death at 53, as one of the highest ranking women in the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mary Harriman (listed under her married name Mary Harriman Rumsey in the NWHF induction) joins fellow Junior League members Eleanor Roosevelt and Sandra Day O’Connor, who were earlier inductees into the NWHF.
Mary Harriman’s achievements have also been recognized by the National Women’s History Museum.
The National Women’s Hall of Fame is the nation’s oldest membership organization dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the achievements of great American women. It was created in 1969 in Seneca Falls by a group of local women and men who believed that contributions of American women deserved a permanent home in the small village where the fight for women’s rights began.
The 2015 Induction Ceremony will be held October 2-4, 2015 in Seneca Falls.
