Katherine Dexter McCormick made a significant impact on women's equality in several major areas. As vice president and treasurer of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association, McCormick helped achieve the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. In 1919, immediately after ratification, she was one of many who helped Carrie Chapman Catt found the League of Women Voters. Serving as its first vice president, she helped educate women in the political process and worked to promote their political power.

McCormick used the wealth she inherited from her husband to fund the essential research that led to the discovery and development of an oral hormone contraceptive. After the Pill was developed in 1956, she continued her involvement to help finance research on its long-term effects. The Pill has contributed to population control, helped legitimize the study of human sexuality, and significantly advanced women's health and independence.

One of the few female graduates of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McCormick received her bachelorís degree in biology in 1904. When she attended MIT, women constituted only 3 percent of the student body, and their numbers remained at about that level through the 1950s. Realizing that one of the main barriers to women entering MIT was the lack of campus housing for them, McCormick in 1959 fully funded MITs first on-campus residence for women. This helped open the science and engineering professions to women. Today, women make up about 40 percent of MIT's undergraduate population.

Additional Resources:
Asbell, Bernard. The Pill: A Biography of the Drug that Changed the World. New York: Random House, 1995.

Papers 1811-1964, 2 cu ft. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections. Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Correspondence in the papers of Carrie Chapman Catt 1848-1950 (bulk 1890-1920). Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. Washington, D.C.