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1849
Elizabeth Blackwell receives her M.D. degree from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y., becoming the first woman in the U.S. with a medical degree.

1853
Antoinette Blackwell becomes the first American woman to be ordained a minister in a recognized denomination (Congregational).

1864

Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College.

1866
Lucy Hobbs becomes the first woman to graduate from dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery.

1869

Arabella Mansfield is granted admission to practice law in Iowa, making her the first woman lawyer. A year later, Ada H. Kepley, of Illinois, graduates from the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is the first woman lawyer to graduate from a law school.

1872

Victoria Claflin Woodhull becomes the first woman presidential candidate in the United States when she is nominated by the National Radical Reformers.

1873
Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to be admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earns her B.S. degree. She becomes the first female professional chemist in the U.S.

1879
Belva Ann Lockwood becomes the first woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mary Baker Eddy establishes the Church of Christ, Scientist, becoming the first woman to found a major religion, Christian Science.

1885
Sarah E. Goode becomes the first African-American woman to receive a patent, for a bed that folded up into a cabinet. Goode, who owned a furniture store in Chicago, intended the bed to be used in apartments.

1887

Susanna Medora Salter becomes the first woman elected mayor of an American town, in Argonia, Kansas.