---
title: "The Women Leaders WPLN Celebrates This Month: October Birthdays — Women's Public Leadership Network"
description: "This month, we're celebrating the birthdays of the following women trailblazers and leaders:     Martha Brookes Hutcheson , landscape architect (October 2)       Ruth Cheney Streeter , the first director of the U.S. Marine Corps Women's Reserve and first woman to attain the rank of major in the U.S."
---

[Blog – Women's Public Leadership Network ](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog)

# [The Women Leaders WPLN Celebrates This Month: October Birthdays — Women's Public Leadership Network](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog/2021/10/24/the-women-leaders-wpln-celebrates-this-month-october-birthdays)

 Written by [Sarah Quinlan](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog/author/sarah-quinlan) | Oct 31, 2021 4:00:00 AM

This month, we're celebrating the birthdays of the following women trailblazers and leaders:

- **Martha Brookes Hutcheson**, landscape architect (October 2)

- **Ruth Cheney Streeter**, the first director of the U.S. Marine Corps Women's Reserve and first woman to attain the rank of major in the U.S. Marine Corps (October 2)
- **Lucy Tayiah Eads**, Native American who was the first woman to serve as principal chief of the Kaw Nation (October 4)
- **Helen Churchill Candee**, feminist and writer (October 5)
- **Fannie Lou Hamer**, civil rights activist (October 6)
- **Florence B. Seibert**, biochemist whose work enabled the creation of a reliable test for tuberculosis (October 6)
- **Harriet Boyd Hawes**, archaeologist (October 11)
- **Eleanor Roosevelt**, First Lady who later served as the United States delegate to the United Nations General Assembly (October 11)
- **Marion Donovan**, inventor who invented the first waterproof diaper (October 15)
- **Lucy Stanton**, abolitionist and the first Black American woman to complete a four-year college course (October 16)
- **Annie Smith Peck**, mountaineer (October 19)
- **Bertha Knight Landes**, politician who served as mayor of Seattle, making her the first woman mayor of a major American city (October 19)
- **Kamala Harris**, politician who represented California in the U.S. Senate and became the first woman vice president of the U.S. (October 20)
- **Enolia McMillan**, first woman president of the NAACP (October 20)
- **Gertrude Ederle**, Olympic swimmer (October 23)
- **Marjorie Joyner**, inventor and businesswoman who was the first Black American woman to patent a permanent hair-wave machine (October 24)
- **Belva Lockwood, **first woman admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court and first eligible woman to run for president (October 24)
- **Katharine Byron**, member of Congress and the first woman elected to Congress from Maryland (October 25)
- **Helen Blanchard**, inventor whose patents included a pencil sharpener and a hat sewing machine (October 25)
- **Henrietta Hill Swope**, astronomer (October 26)
- **Hillary Clinton**, First Lady who later represented New York in the Senate, served as United States Secretary of State, and ran for president (October 26)
- **Dolores Moore**, baseball player who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (October 27)
- **Margaret Rousseau**, chemical engineer who was the first woman member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (October 27)
- **Edith Head**, costume designer who won a record eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design (October 28)
- **Natalie Sleeth**, composer and pianist (October 29)
- **Marie van Brittan Brown**, nurse and inventor who was one of the co-inventors of the home security system (October 30)
- **Juliette Gordon Low**, founder of the Girl Scouts (October 31)

[Click here to read the October newsletter in full](https://go.womenspublicleadership.net/wpln-newsletter-4).

[View full post](https://womenspublicleadership.net/blog/2021/10/24/the-women-leaders-wpln-celebrates-this-month-october-birthdays)

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