33 Famous Women From New Jersey in Honor of Women’s History Month
New Jersey is, and has been, home to a multitude of women who have shattered glass ceilings, led innovation, fought for human rights, and given us entertainment from music to the big screen. From women’s rights leaders to athletes and inventors, these women have left their marks on the world and the Garden State. Whether born here, a lifelong resident, or someone who has called New Jersey home for a few years, these are Jersey Girls. This Women’s History Month, The Montclair Girl is highlighting 33 Jersey Girls including Olympians, actresses, inventors, writers, activists, and photographers. Read on to learn about these 33 women from New Jersey.
Althea Gibson (1927-2003)
Althea Gibson was one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line in international tennis. She was the first Black athlete to receive an invitation to the US Nationals, now the US Open. In 1956 she became the first African American person to win the Grand Slam. The following year she won Wimbledon and the US Open. In total Althea won 11 Grand Slams. Althea was born in South Carolina to Daniel and Annie Bell Gibson, sharecroppers on a cotton farm. At 12, she became the New York City women’s paddle tennis champion. During the 1940s, she continued to excel at tennis and won a variety of competitions. In 1949, she entered Florida A+M, an HBCU, on a full athletic scholarship. Althea died in 2003 in East Orange, New Jersey, and is buried in Rosedale Cemetery.
Annie Oakley (1860-1926)
Annie Oakley was an American sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. From 1892 to 1904, Annie and her husband Frank lived at 300 Grand Avenue in Nutley, New Jersey; the home has since been demolished. In 1894, she performed in town at an event to raise funds for the Red Cross. That same year her stage acts were filmed for one of Thomas Edison’s early Kinetoscopes. An Annie Oakley mural hangs in the Nutley Post Office and the Nutley Historical Society has several items related to her in its collection such as photographs and a coin she shot. Annie was born Phoebe Ann Mosey in Darke County, Ohio. She began trapping, hunting, and shooting before age eight and sold her hunted game to locals, restaurants, shopkeepers, and hotels. In her teens, she won a shooting contest against Frank E. Butler, her future husband. The pair joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1885 and performed for numerous high-profile audiences including Queen Victoria, a French President, and an Italian king. Annie passed away in 1926 and was buried in Darke County, Ohio, near where she was born.
Alice Paul (1885-1977)
Alice Paul was a suffragette, suffragist, and women’s rights activist and among the leaders who campaigned for the 19th amendment which prohibited the ability to vote based on sex. Alice was born in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Her mother, Tacie, taught her about women’s suffrage. She attended Moorestown Friends School and later graduated from Swarthmore College with a BA in biology. Alice died in Moorestown and was buried in Cinnaminson. Montclair State University named a dormitory, the Alice Paul Hall, in her honor. Alice is also featured on a U.S. postal stamp. Her birthplace, Paulsdale, is a National Historic Landmark and is on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places. In 2016, President Barack Obama designated the Sewall-Belmont House in Washington, D.C., as the Belmont–Paul Women's Equality National Monument, named for Alice Paul and Alva Belmont.
Read More: 38 Women Community Leaders Making a Difference in Montclair, New Jersey
Beatrice Hicks (1919-1979)
Beatrice Hicks was the first woman engineer to be hired by Western Electric. She spent three years at the company’s location in Kearny, New Jersey. She was also a co-founder and elected as the first president of the Society of Women Engineers. Beatrice was born in Orange, New Jersey, and graduated from Orange High School in 1935. She went on to attend New College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institute of Technology) earning a BS in chemical engineering. She was one of only two women in her class. Beatrice later earned an MS in physics from Stevens Institute of Technology and took courses at Columbia University.
Christina Ricci (1980-present)
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Christina Ricci is known for her numerous on-screen roles like the iconic Wednesday Adams in The Addams Family. Currently, she plays a Jersey Girl named Misty Quigley in Showtime's Yellowjackets. This should come easy to Christina since she grew up in Montclair. Although born in Santa Monica, California, Christina and her family moved to the East Coast. She attended Montclair’s Edgemont Elementary School and Glenfield Middle School, Montclair High School, Morristown-Beard School, and Professional Children's School in New York City.
Clara Barton (1821-1912)
Clara Barton was a nurse who founded the American Red Cross as well as New Jersey’s first free school. She was also a nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Clara was born Clarissa Harlowe Barton in North Oxford, Massachusetts. She studied at the Clinton Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York, and achieved a teacher's certificate. In 1852, she opened a free school in Bordentown, New Jersey. Located in Burlington County, this was the first ever free school in New Jersey. Clara died in 1912 at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland. Today, one can visit that home, known as the Clara Barton National Historic Site.
Connie Chung (1946-present)
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Longtime Middletown resident Connie Chung has had a career of firsts. In 1993, she became the first woman to co-anchor CBS Evening News, as well as one of the first Asian Americans to anchor one of America’s major newscasts. Connie was born in Washington, D.C. Her father, a Chinese diplomat, moved the family to the United States a year before she was born. She attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, and later earned a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. Fun Fact: there is even a Connie Chung Service Area located on the Garden State Parkway in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
Cristin Militoti (1985-present)
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Cristin Militoti is an actress known for playing Tracy McConnell in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother amongst others. She recently played Sofia Falcone, a fellow Jersey girl (Gotham is indeed a fictional city in New Jersey), in the HBO crime drama series The Penguin (2024). Milioti was born and raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and graduated from Cherry Hill High School East in 2003.
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965)
Dorothea Lange was a documentary photographer and photojournalist. She is most notable for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). These historic photographs influenced the development of documentary photography and humanized those impacted by the Great Depression. She was born in Hoboken, New Jersey to Johanna Lange and Heinrich Nutzhorn. Her childhood home was located at 1041 Bloomfield Avenue. She later grew up in Manhattan. In 2018, Hoboken unveiled a mural depicting Dorothea and other prominent women from Hoboken's history.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an activist, a leader of American women's rights, and the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. This was the first convention for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights. She was also the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments, and the table where this historic document was drafted can be viewed at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Elizabeth was born in New York in 1815 to Margaret Livingston and Daniel Cady who was a member of the House of Representatives. Fellow women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony was a frequent visitor to Elizabeth’s New Jersey residence which she purchased in 1868. Located at 135 Highwood Avenue in Tenafly, this house is now a National Historic Landmark. Elizabeth lived here when she attempted to vote in 1880, but was turned away at the polls.
Elizabeth Gillies (1993-present)
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Elizabeth Gilles is known for her role as Jade West in Victorious and Fallon Carrington on The CW’s Dynasty. Elizabeth was born in Haworth, New Jersey in 1993. In 2020, she married her husband Michael Corcoran in Chesterfield Township, New Jersey.
Erna Schneider Hoover (1926-present)
Erna Schneider Hoover made key contributions to the system architecture of the first electronic telephone central office developed by Bell Labs. She was awarded one of the first patents issued for software. She later worked on the development of the Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile System and was the first woman to head a technical department. Erna was born in Irvington in 1926 and was raised in neighboring South Orange on West End Road. Her father Ernest was a dentist and her mother Florence was a teacher. She graduated from Columbia High School and later received a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. from Yale University. In 2008, she was inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame.
Gertrude Ederle (1905-2003)
Gertrude Ederle was a competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events, and in 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. The goggles that she wore for this historic accomplishment are on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C, just feet away from Althea Gibson’s tennis uniform. Gertrude’s parents were born in Germany and immigrated to New York. She was born in Manhattan in 1905 and learned how to swim in Highlands, New Jersey. Gertrude lived the final years of her life in New Jersey, passing away in Wyckoff in 2003.
Ginny Duenkel (1947-present)
Ginny Duenkel is a former competitive swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder. She swam at the 1964 Summer Olympics and medaled in two individual events. In 1985 she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Ginny was born in Orange, raised in West Orange, and attended West Orange High School. The "Ginny Duenkel Municipal Pool" in West Orange is named after her.
Ibtihaj Muhammad (1985-present)
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At the 2016 Summer Olympics, Ibtihaj Muhammad became the first American woman to compete in the Olympics in hijab, the first Muslim-American woman to win an Olympic medal, and the first Black woman to win an Olympic medal in the sabre event (a fencing discipline). Ibtihaj was born in 1985 and raised in Maplewood. She began fencing at 13 at Columbia High School and later got involved with the Peter Westbrook Foundation. She attended Duke University and studied International Relations, African + African-American Studies, and Arabic.
Jemima Condit (1754-1779)
Jemima Condit kept a diary of her teenage years, much of which detailed the Revolutionary War and included passages about battles both near and far. Jemima was born in 1754 to Ruth Condit and Daniel Williams Condit. She grew up in what is the Pleasantdale section of present-day West Orange. Her grandfather Samuel Condit purchased land between the First and Second Watchung Mountains from the Lenape in about 1720. This land was a valley and came to be known as Pleasant Valley. Samuel provided each of his sons, including Jemima’s father Daniel, with 50 acres of land in this valley to farm and live on. The farm she grew up on was located on the eastern slope of the Second Watchung Mountain. It was most likely south of Eagle Rock Avenue and north of I-280. In 1779 Jemima was buried in the Old Burying Ground at the First Presbyterian Church of Orange.
Jill Biden (1951-present)
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Jill Biden served as First Lady of the United States from 2021 to 2025 alongside her husband Joe Biden. From 2009 to 2017 she served as the Second Lady of the United States when her husband was Barack Obama’s Vice President. Born in Hammonton, New Jersey, Jill spent her youth in Pennsylvania and Mahwah, New Jersey. Dr. Biden is an advocate for military families and a community college professor.
Judy Blume (1938-present)
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Writer Judy Blume is known for many books, especially Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970). Judy was one of the first young adult authors to cover topics like menstruation, teen sex, birth control, and death, and has sold over 82 million copies of her work. In 2023, she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. Judy was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Her mother Esther was a homemaker, and her father David was a dentist. She attended Battin High School, an all-girls school that closed in 1977. She graduated from New York University in 1961.
Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972)
Lillian Moller Gilbreth was a psychologist, engineer, and educator. She was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time-and-motion studies. She was also one of the first female engineers to earn a Ph.D. She lived with her husband and children in Montclair, New Jersey. Two of her children, Ernestine and Frank Jr. wrote the popular book Cheaper by the Dozen which was based on their real life-family.
Lisa Lindahl (1948-present)
Lisa Lindahl, alongside Hinda Miller and Polly Smith, invented the Jogbra, the first sports bra. In 2022, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1948, Lisa was born in Burlington, Vermont, and later grew up in Montclair. She attended Montclair Kimberley Academy with Polly.
Lucy Stone (1818-1893)
Lucy Stone was an abolitionist, suffragist, abolitionist, and vocal advocate for rights for women. In 1847, she became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. Lucy was also known for using her maiden name after marriage, something extremely uncommon and taboo during her lifetime. In 1857, Lucy and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell purchased a home in Orange, New Jersey. The following year, when the first tax bill arrived she staged a highly publicized protest on the issue of taxation without representation across the nation. Lucy returned the tax bill, unpaid, explaining that taxing women while denying them the right to vote was a violation of America's founding principles. Lucy’s protest came with a cost, but she stood strong in her beliefs. Orange auctioned some of Lucy and her husband's household goods to pay the tax and attendant court costs. However, her neighbors bought the items and returned them to Lucy. Lucy and Henry purchased another home in Essex County. In 1858, Lucy and her husband purchased 118 North Mountain Avenue under her name. This home, which they lived in for three years, is still standing.
Martha Stewart (1941 - present)
The home and lifestyle icon herself, Martha Stewart was born in Jersey City, New Jersey back in 1941. Martha grew up in Nutley, New Jersey until she attended Bernard College in New York City. From there, the rest is history.
Mary G. Roebling (1905-1994)
Mary was the first woman to serve as president of a major American commercial bank. She was also the first female governor of the American Stock Exchange. Born in 1905 in West Collingswood, New Jersey, Mary attended public school in Moorestown and Haddonfield. Her father Issac was the president of the Keystone + Eastern Telephone Company, and her mother Mary was a singer and pianist. Her third husband, John A. Roebling Jr, died in 1936 and left her Trenton Trust stock. The following year she was elected president of the board and served as president or chair until 1972 when Trenton Trust merged with National State. Her leadership did not end there. From 1972 until 1984 she also chaired the merged banks.
Marion Lee Johnson (? - present)
Marion Johnson is a mathematician whose work was crucial to the landing of the Apollo 11 mission. She was a mathematician on the NASA team, where she worked in preparing data for the vehicle impact trajectories and helped launch John Glenn and Neil Armstrong to the moon. After completing this historic venture, she worked for Pfizer, where she worked for 26 years. She currently lives in Union County, New Jersey.
Mary Yamashita Nagao (1920-1985)
During World War II Japanese-American, Mary Yamashita Nagao was interned at the Manzanar Relocation Center in Owens Valley, California under Executive Order 9066. She worked as a social worker and liaised between the interned and camp authorities. This experience inspired Mary to spend her life advocating for minority rights, particularly in Japanese-American affairs. Toward the end of the war, Mary and her family moved across the country to Upper Deerfield Township. Here she worked at Seabrook Farm. She also was a union representative for the Amalgamated Food and Meat Cutters’ Union, Local No. 56. The group represented frozen food and cannery workers in South Jersey, many of whom were immigrants. Mary also worked in the Cumberland County Clerk's office, served on the Atlantic Electric Company Roundtable Committee, served on the volunteer advisory board for the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, and was president of the Japanese American Citizens League.
Michelle Miller (1967-present)
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Michelle Miller is a national correspondent for CBS News and currently is a co-host on CBS Saturday Morning. Born in Los Angeles, California in 1967, Michelle attended the University of New Orleans and Howard University. She and her husband, Marc, call Essex County home.
Polly Smith (1949-present)
Polly Smith, alongside Hinda Miller and Lisa Lindahl invented the Jogbra, the first sports bra. Polly was also a costume designer for The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. In 2022, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Polly was also born in Glen Ridge and later lived in Montclair. She attended Montclair Kimberley Academy with Lisa.
Rachel Zegler (2001-present)
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Actress and singer Rachel Zegler has starred in West Side Story (2021) and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds + Snakes. She made her Broadway debut playing Juliet in a revival of Romeo + Juliet (2024). Born in Hackensack, New Jersey, Rachel was raised in Clifton. In 2019, she graduated from Immaculate Conception High School in Lodi.
Rebecca Soni (1987-present)
Rebecca Soni is a six-time Olympic medalist and a former world record holder. She attended her first U.S. Olympic Team Trials at 17 years old. In 2021, she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and Museum. Born in Freehold, New Jersey, Rebecca swam for Scarlet Aquatics. She graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North where she held several school records.
Sana Amanat (1982-present)
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Sana is a comic book editor and executive of production and development at Marvel Studios. She is known for co-creating Kamala Khan a.k.a Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim-American superhero, who, just like Sana, is a Jersey Girl. Kamala Khan calls the Hudson County community of Jersey City home. Sana was born in New Jersey to Pakistani Muslim parents and was raised in Montville. In 2017, her high school, Morris Township High School inducted her into its Hall of Fame. Sana studied political science at Barnard College, completing her degree in 2004.
See More: 25 Hoboken + Jersey City Women to Watch in 2025
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (1999-present)
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Sydney is a hurdler and sprinter who has won gold at the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics. She is the first track athlete to break four world records in the same event. She is also the first woman to break 52-seconds and 51-seconds in the 400 meter hurdles. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1999, Sydney grew up in nearby Dunellen. In 2021, her hometown named a track a local park after her. She graduated from Union Catholic Regional High School in 2017. Sydney comes from an extremely athletic family. Her father, Willie, was a track + field star at East Orange High School and competed in the 1984 Olympic Trials. Her mother, Mary, also ran track in high school. Her older siblings Morgan and Taylor also ran track while in college. Her younger brother Ryan became the fifth member of their family to win a New Jersey county track title.
Whitney Houston (1962-2012)
Whitney Houston was one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Not only is she the only artist to have seven consecutive number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, but she also acted in and produced numerous movies. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked her on its list of “200 Greatest Singers of All Time”. Her songs include “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”, “I Will Always Love You” and “My Love is Your Love.” Whitney was born in 1962 in Newark and later moved to East Orange after the 1967 Newark riots. She came from a musically rich family: her mother Cissy Houston and cousins Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick were music sensations. In her youth, she sang for her church choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. She also attended Mount Saint Dominic Academy in Caldwell for high school. In 1993, Whitney gave birth to her daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown. Whitney passed away in 2012 and is buried at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield.
Zoe Saldaña (1978-present)
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Actress Zoe Saldaña is known for her work in science fiction film franchises. She has starred in four of the six highest-grossing films of all time, including the top three (Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Avengers: Endgame). As of 2024, she is the second-highest-grossing lead actress and the highest-grossing actress overall. Born in Passaic in 1978 to Dominican and Puerto Rican parents, Zoe was raised in New York City.
