Five Pioneering Women from Arkansas

Five Pioneering Women from Arkansas

March is Women’s History Month, and Arkansas has been lucky enough over the years to have more than our share of great female political figures, artists, authors, musicians and more. While it’s hard to pick a short list from the many women who have made their mark on the Natural State, we’ll give it a shot. Seen below, check out our spotlight on five truly great women who helped guide not only Arkansas but America and the world. McLarty Daniel Chevrolet of Springdale is proud of these pioneers, and proud to celebrate their accomplishments.

U.S. Senator Hattie Wyatt Caraway

While it might be hard to believe Arkansas was so forward thinking so early, our state was the first in the nation to elect a woman to the U.S. Senate. Hattie Wyatt Caraway’s husband, Thad Caraway, was the state’s U.S. Senator until 1931, when he tragically died while in office. Hattie Caraway was nominated to fill out the remainder of his term, becoming the first woman to ever serve in the Senate, and when that term ended, she became the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate, where she served until 1945. In addition, she was the first female senior Senator and the first woman to chair a Senate Committee hearing. Long after her death in 1950, Caraway became the first female Arkansan ever to appear on a U.S. postage stamp in 2001. She is buried in Jonesboro.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Born Rosetta Nubin in 1915 near the tiny town of Cotton Plant, Sister Rosetta Tharpe learned about music and singing the way many Arkansans do: through her time spent in the church as a young girl, but also at the knee of her mother Kate Bell “Mother Bell” Nubin, who traveled from church to church in the Delta, singing. Through these early lessons, Tharpe developed both her prowess with several musical instruments, most notably guitar, and her unique singing style. Signed by Decca Records in 1938, Tharpe became an early gospel music superstar, with her passionate playing and singing influencing early Rock and Roll and many of the genre’s most renowned artists, including Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Bob Dylan and scores of others. Thanks to her influence on several genres of music, Tharpe, who died in 1973, was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Maya Angelou

Raised dirt poor in the tiny, south Arkansas town of Stamps, Maya Angelou did it all during her life, including working as a singer, driving a cab, starring in big-budget Hollywood movies and television shows and more. Her greatest fame, however, was as one of our nation’s greatest writers and poets, with her works winning and nominated for literature’s greatest prizes, including the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her most famous work is the autobiographical novel “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” which has gone on to be lauded as both a classic of American Literature and an iconic work of African-American literature in particular. Many will remember her stirring reading of her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. She passed away in 2014.

Helen Gurley Brown

Raised in Little Rock after moving there from the small town of Green Forest, Arkansas, where she was born in 1922, Helen Gurley Brown worked as an advertising copywriter before hitting the big time in 1962 with the publication of her then-scandalous New York Times bestselling book “Sex and the Single Girl.” The book launched Brown to both stardom and a status as a pioneer of a new and more forward-thinking movement about women and their place in the world. Promoted to the editor-in-chief of the famous Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1966, Brown pioneered the idea of “The Cosmo Girl,” a freewheeling, unmarried-and-loving-it woman with her own money and her own ideas. Brown would go on to champion this idea in several other books, including 1982’s “Having It All” and 2000’s “I’m Wild Again.” She passed away in 2012.

Mary Steenburgen

Few Arkansas actors have had a career to match that of Academy Award winner Mary Steenburgen. Born in Newport and raised in North Little Rock, Steenburgen made her first appearance on screen with a starring role in Jack Nicholson’s 1978 film “Goin’ South.” Since then, Steenburgen has starred in a dozens of critically-acclaimed and box office smash films, including “Ragtime,” “Parenthood,” “The Butcher’s Wife,” “Step Brothers,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “Philadelphia,” “Back to the Future III” and many more. In 1981, she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in “Melvin and Howard.” On the small screen, she has also starred in a number of critically-acclaimed shows, including “30 Rock,” “Wilfred,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Joan of Arcadia” and several others. Married to TV icon Ted Danson, her career shows no signs of slowing, and she and Danson occasionally get spotted in Little Rock, where they own a home.