Women

One of the wealthiest women of the antebellum South, Adelicia Acklen was born March 15, 1817, the daughter of Oliver Bliss Hayes, a prominent Nashville lawyer, judge, Presbyterian minister, land speculator, and cousin to President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Marilou Awiakta, Cherokee and Appalachian poet, storyteller, and essayist, was born in Knoxville in 1936 and reared in Oak Ridge. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Tennessee in 1958. Awiakta's unique fusion of her Cherokee and Appalachian…

Fannie Battle, Confederate spy and social reformer, was born in the Cane Ridge community of Davidson County on her family's plantation. Educated at the Nashville Female Academy, Battle was living at home when the Civil War began. Her father and…

Mary Frances Berry, a leading historian, civil rights advocate, legal scholar, and human rights advocate, was born in Nashville. After enduring an impoverished childhood, Berry received a Ph.D. and J.D. from the University of Michigan. During the 1960s and 1970s…

Virginia Frazer Boyle, "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy," was born in Chattanooga on February 14, 1863, to Charles Wesley and Letitia Austin Frazer. After the Civil War, the family moved to Memphis, where her father practiced law. Boyle challenged tradition…

Dorothy Lavinia Brown, surgeon, legislator, and teacher, rose from humble beginnings in Troy, New York, to become the first female African American surgeon in the Southeast and the first African American woman to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly. She…

Lizinka Campbell Brown, a founder of a prominent late nineteenth-century stock farm, was the daughter of former U.S. Senator George W. Campbell of Tennessee, who also served as secretary of the treasury in the administration of James Madison and Minister…

Author Frances Boyd Calhoun was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, in 1867, one of five children of a newspaper editor and publisher. In 1880 the family moved to Covington, Tennessee, where Frances Boyd attended Tipton Female Academy. She displayed her…

Lucie Campbell-Williams, composer, educator, and activist, was born on April 3, 1885, in Duck Hill (Carroll County), Mississippi, the youngest of Burrell and Isabella (Wilkerson) Campbell’s nine children. Her father worked for the Mississippi Central Railroad and her mother worked…

Artist Kate Augusta Carl is best known for her portrait of Tzu Hsi, the last Empress Dowager of China, painted for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Carl was born in New Orleans in 1854 and came to…

Country music star Patsy Cline was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8, 1932, in Gore, Virginia. She was an entertainer from an early age but nearly lost her voice and her life when complications from a serious throat infection…

Ann Robertson Cockrill was the only woman among the early Cumberland settlers to receive a land grant in her own name. In 1784 the North Carolina legislature awarded this honor for her contribution to the "advance guard of civilization." Born…

Sara Ward Conley, noted Nashville artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was born on December 21, 1859, to Dr. William and Eliza Ward. Following an education at Nashville's Ward Seminary (a school for young women founded by…

Annie Cook, prostitute and nurse whose real name is unknown, was reportedly an attractive woman of German descent who grew up in Ohio. She worked for a family in Kentucky, where she was remembered for aiding impoverished smallpox victims. After…

Elizabeth Cox, poet, short story writer, essayist, and novelist, was born in 1942 in Chattanooga into a family of teachers and writers. She attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the University of Chattanooga (now the University of Tennessee at…

Nancy Cox McCormack Cushman, internationally recognized sculptor, was born in Nashville August 15, 1885, to Nannie Morgan Cox and Herschel McCullough Cox. After the deaths of her parents, she attended an Arkansas boarding school but soon returned to Nashville, entered…

Martha Craig Daughtrey, attorney, law professor, and judge, was born on July 21, 1942, in Covington, Kentucky. She received a B.A. (cum laude) from Vanderbilt University in 1964 and graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1968. Her academic…