The United States Cabinet has had 25 female officers. No woman held a Cabinet position before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, which prohibits states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex. Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in the Cabinet; she was appointed Secretary of Labor in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Oveta Culp Hobby became the second woman to serve in the Cabinet, when she was named head of the then newly formed Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953. This department was subdivided into the departments of Education and Health and Human Services in 1979. Patricia Roberts Harris, who was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare before the department split and had earlier served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1977, became the first female Secretary of Health and Human Services in 1979. Harris was also the first African American woman to serve in the Cabinet.
Former North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole is the first woman to have served in two different Cabinet positions in two different administrations. She was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as Secretary of Transportation in 1983, and was the Secretary of Labor during the tenure of George H. W. Bush—Reagan's successor. Czechoslovakia-born Madeleine Albright became the first foreign-born woman to serve in the Cabinet when she was appointed Secretary of State in 1997. Her appointment also made her the highest-ranking female Cabinet member at that time. Condoleezza Rice was appointed Secretary of State in 2005, and thus became the highest-ranking woman in the United States presidential line of succession in history. In 2006, Nancy Pelosi replaced Rice as the highest-ranking woman in line when she was elected Speaker of the House. President George W. Bush appointed six women to Cabinet-level positions, the most of any Presidency.
In 2009, President Barack Obama named four women to the Cabinet—former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security, former First Lady and New York Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, former California Representative Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, and former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Clinton became the first First Lady to serve in the Cabinet and the third female Secretary of State. Napolitano became the first female Secretary of Homeland Security.
The Department of Labor has had the most female Secretaries with seven. The departments of Health and Human Services and State follow with three, and the departments of Commerce, Education, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation have each had two. The defunct Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has also had two female Secretaries. The three existing departments of Defense, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs have not had women Secretaries.
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“Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“To be sure he’s a “Man,” the male must see to it that the female be clearly a “Woman,” the opposite of a “Man,” that is, the female must act like a faggot.”
—Valerie Solanas (b. 1940)
“There was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praisworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband’s dinners.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“I suppose an entire cabinet of shells would be an expression of the whole human mind; a Flora of the whole globe would be so likewise, or a history of beasts; or a painting of all the aspects of the clouds. Everything is significant.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)