Florida’s Leading Women Honored

From pioneers exploring Florida’s hidden interior to astronauts departing Florida to explore space, women have played some key roles in the state’s history. In 1982 the legislature created the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame, now under the Florida Commission on the Status of Women, a nonpartisan body charged with studying the roles of women in society. Over one hundred women has been named to the hall so far, with several more added each year.

Florida Frontiers takes a break from our usual segment talking about holdings of the Library of Florida History to point out a sampling of the women who have been honored.

The latest inductees and the rest can be found at: https://flwomenshalloffame.org/inductees/#winners

You might recognize most, but not all. Some you might not recall at all. We point out:

Ruth Bryan Owen, 1992. She got involved in Florida politics after her father, frequent presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan died in 1925. She was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida, representing the 4th District, which then ran from Jacksonville to Key West.  During her terms, from 1928 to 1933, she established a reputation for listening intently to her constituents and responding to their needs and positions.  For example, she personally opposed to repealing the 18th Amendment, or Prohibition, but her constituents wanted it gone, so that is the way she voted. 

She was the first women to service on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and was the U.S Ambassador to Denmark for many years after her stint in the House.

M. Athalie Range, 1997. On a more local level, she was well known in south Florida education, civil rights and education circles. Born to Bahamian immigrants in Key West in 1915 she was active in the Miami African-American community when she saw the inequality of the school system. She ran for the Miami Board of Commissioners in 1965, lost, was appointed in 1966 and elected twice after that. She is credited with introducing some key ordinances, including a stringent handgun law, updated fire codes and the creation of parks and play areas.

Named by Governor Reuben Askew to serve as Secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, she was the first African-American to be head of a Florida state agency.

Eartha Mary Magdalene White, 1986. The 13th child of a former slave, she was born in 1876 in Jacksonville.  She was adopted by a Clara White, a fighter who had been born into slavery herself, was widowed and left to raise Eartha alone. Clara instilled a strong sense of caring for human dignity in Eartha, who went on to be an educator, publisher and humanitarian. She established the Clara White Mission serving the homeless and needy around Jacksonville, ran a prison mission, donated property for community projects and began the Eartha M.M White Nursing Home, which became the area’s largest employer of African-Americans. 

All her adult life, living to nearly 100, she funneled the money she earned from her successful business into humanitarian causes.

Roxcy O’ Neal Bolton, 1984. Born into a pioneer settler family in Mississippi, she is considered “Florida’s Pioneer Feminist.”   She was the founder of the Florida Chapter of NOW, the charter president of the Dade County chapter and, in 1969, elected a national vice president of NOW. She worked for the Equal Rights Amendment, which passed congress but was never ratified.

She did not limit her work to the political side, she founded the first Rape Treatment Center in the country at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami and, in 1972, founded Women in Distress, the first women’s rescue shelter in Florida, and continued efforts to support proper representation of rape victims in the criminal justice system.