National Women's Hall of FameVOA Special English02 December 2005
The National Womens Hall of Fame is the oldest organization that recognizes and honors important American women. The non-profit educational organization was established in nineteen sixty-nine with headquarters in Seneca Falls, New York. That is the town where the first Womens Rights Convention was held in eighteen forty-eight. The National Womens Hall of Fame recently honored ten more outstanding American women. Pat Bodnar tells us about them. A national committee of judges chose the honorees from the arts, science, government, education and other areas. They join two hundred seven other women honored by the National Womens Hall of Fame since nineteen seventy-three. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is among the newest Hall of Fame members. The wife of former President Bill Clinton is the first female United States senator from New York State. She is also the first former First Lady elected to the Senate. The other living honorees are peace and health activist Betty Bumpers, architect Maya Lin and scientist Rita Rossi Colwell. Betty Bumpers helped establish the first national campaign to give children medicine to prevent disease. Maya Lin designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., at the age of twenty-one. Rita Rossi Colwell was the first woman and the first biologist to head the National Science Foundation. The National Womens Hall of Fame also honored six women who are no longer living. Blanche Stuart Scott was a pilot in the early days of the airplane. Mother Marianne Cope was a Roman Catholic religious worker who cared for patients with Hansens disease, or leprosy. Patricia Locke worked to keep Native American languages from being forgotten. Mary Burnett Talbert was active in the struggle for voting rights for women and civil rights for African-Americans. Ruth Fulton Benedict studied social sciences. She wrote the book Patterns of Culture in nineteen thirty-four. That same year, Hall of Fame honoree Florence Ellinwood Allen became the first female judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. This copy of the VOA Special English text is used only for educational purposes. |