Hall of Fame | Massachusetts Women's History Center

Inaugural Class - 2026 Inductees

The Massachusetts Women’s History Center's (MWHC) Board and it's flagship program, the Massachusetts Women’s Hall of Fame's (MWHOF) Selection Committee are excited to announce the inaugural class of HISTORIC and LIVING women and organizations to be inducted into the MWHOF at our Gala on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, 6pm!

Historic Inductees*

Abigail Adams

First Lady, Advisor, Writer

Daughters of Liberty

Patriotic Female Resistance Association

Portrait of unidentified slave women in Salem

Enslaved Women of Massachusetts, names known and names once known

Robbed of Freedom, Committed to Liberty

Old painted portrait of woman in blue dress and white bonnet.

Elizabeth Freeman

Freedom Suit Petitioner

Sarah Bradlee Fulton

Mother of the Boston Tea Party

Deborah Sampson Gannett

Patriot, Soldier, Lecturer

Jenny Slew

Successful Freedom Seeker

Lydia Taft

First Female Voter

Mercy Otis Warren

Revolutionary Poet, Playwright, Historian

Native American

Research in progress

Drawing of a woman sitting at a desk and writing with a quill

Phillis Wheatley Peters

First African-American Author

*For this Inaugural class in 2026, which is the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution, the HISTORIC Inductees are women/organizations of Massachusetts that made monumental contributions to and during the American Revolution, benefiting Massachusetts, the country and/or the world, and by so-doing are role models and inspiration for women, girls, and all people.

A note on images: These historic women lived before the invention of photography. Some of their images were captured by portrait painters and illustrators. Other women appear only as handwritten names in census and legal records, their likenesses lost to history. We recognize that images and stories of women have been marginalized in the historic record, even as we work to illuminate the important contributions of Massachusetts women to local, national, and global history.

Living Inductees*

Margaret Burnham

Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita

Frieda Garcia

Beloved Community Activist

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian

Margaret Marshall

Precedent-Setting Jurist

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective

Writing the Book on Women, Health, and Sexuality

Nancy Schon

Sculptor of Public Art

Helen Chin Schlichte

Pioneering Public Servant

Grace Sterling Stowell

Trailblazing LGBTQ Activist

Benaree (Bennie) Wiley

Groundbreaking Corporate and Civic Leader

*The LIVING Inductees are women/organizations of Massachusetts that have contributed monumentally and benefited Massachusetts, the country and/or the world, and by so-doing advanced the role of women in society and are role models and inspiration for women, girls, and all people.

...remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

Abigail Adams, from a letter to her husband, John Adams, March 1776