1937 |
Agnes Regan |
First Executive Secretary of the National Council of Catholic Women
|
1938 |
Mary Merrick |
Founder & lifetime director of the National Christ Child Society |
1939 |
Agnes Repplier |
Essayist |
1940 |
Jane M. Hoey |
Director of the Public Assistance Bureau of the Social Security Board |
1941 |
Anne O'Hare McCormick |
Editor/reporter for The New York Times; first woman recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism, 1937
|
1942 |
Anne Sarachon Hooley |
President of the National Council of Catholic Women |
1943 |
Rev. Mother M. Katherine Drexel |
Founder and lifetime superior of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians & Colored People |
1944 |
Helen C. White |
American Assoc. of University Women President; American Assoc. of University Professors President |
1945 |
Alleta Sullivan |
Mother of five sons lost off Guadalcanal on the U.S.S. Juneau in World World War II
|
1946 |
Frances Parkinson Keys |
Novelist and biographer |
1947 |
Mary Theresa Norton |
1925-1951 United States Congresswoman from New Jersey; chairman of the House Committee on Labor |
1948 |
Sister M. Madeleva, C.S.C. |
Educator, author, poet; President of St. Mary's College; President of the Catholic Poetry Society of America |
1950 |
Loretta Young |
Actress |
1951 |
Anne Laughlin |
Administrator of National Youth Administration, UN Relief & Rehabilitation Administration, and UNICEF |
1952 |
Elizabeth Salmon |
First woman President of American Catholic Philosophical Association |
1954 |
Sister M. Ignatia, C.S.A. |
First to cooperate with the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous in the hospitalization of alcoholics in 1939 |
1956 |
Phyllis McGinley |
1 of 250 Americans elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters; 1961 Pulitzer Prize recipient |
1958 |
Mary Harden Looram |
Motion Picture Department of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae Chairman |
1960 |
Mary Ellen Kelly |
Immobolized arthritic who founded the League of Shut-In Sodalists |
1962 |
Maria Augusta Trapp |
Leader of the Trapp Family Singers |
1964 |
Irene M. Auberlin |
Founder and President of World Medical Relief, Inc |
1966 |
Dorothy Julia Willman |
Co-founder of the Summer Schools for the Christian Apostolate; Associate Editor of Directions magazine |
1968 |
Rosemary Kilch |
Women in Community Service, Inc President; Religious Heritage of America's Churchwoman of the Year 1967 |
1976 |
Hattie Larlham |
Co-founder and former administrator of the Hattie Larlham Foundation |
1986 |
Candy Lightner |
Founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving |
1988 |
Anne M. Burke |
Court of Claims Judge for the State of Illinois; Founder and Director of the Special Olympics |
1990 |
Helen Thomas |
White House UPI Chief of Staff; White House Correspondents Association 1st woman member/president |
1992 |
Eileen Stevens |
Founder of C.H.U.C.K. (Committee to Halt Useless College Killings) |
1994 |
Linda Caldwell Fuller |
Co-founder of Habitat for Humanity International |
1996 |
Nancy Goodman Brinker |
Founder of The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation |
1998 |
Barbara McKillip |
Founder of The Libri Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing children's books to rural libraries |
2000 |
Kaye Redfield Jamison, Ph.D |
Expert/advocate in the field of manic depressive illness |
2002 |
Dr. Pamela Martin |
Executive Director of Homeward Bound |
2004 |
Susan Davenney Wyner |
Acclaimed soprano soloist who became a top conductor in America after a serious accident |
2006 |
Andrea Cooper |
Mother who shares the story of her daughter's rape and subsequent suicide with college students |
2008 |
Diane Straub, M.D., M.P.H. |
U.S. Paralympic team gold medalist and world record holder (1992, Barcelona; swimming) |
2010 |
Emily Elizabeth Douglas |
Founder of Grandma's Gifts, Inc, in 1993, at the age of eleven, in memory of her grandmother, Norma Ackison |
2012 |
Elizabeth Smart (Gilmour) |
Activist for sexual predator legislation and the AMBER Alert system after her own kidnapping |
2014 |
Rachel Simmons |
Author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls |
2016 |
Terry Grahl |
Founder and CEO of Enchanted Makeovers
|
2018 |
Ginny Carroll |
Founder of Circle of Sisterhood
|
2020 |
Nikole Collins-Puri |
Founder of TechBridge Girls
|
2022 |
Dolly Chugh |
Award-winning professor at the New York University Stern School of Business and author
|
2024 |
Kristin Smedley |
Kristin is an activist & educator about blindness being the mother of two blind children; she is dedicated to her nonprofit, thrivingblindacademy.org
|