March is Women's History Month in the US, and this year we're going to take a moment to look at some of the women who have made American money history. We'll talk about some of the most obvious characters like the first woman to serve as Secretary of the Treasury and the first woman to own an American bank.But money history isn't always about these institutionalized positions - especially when we're talking about women. Whether they faced discrimination because of their gender or other aspects of their identity, some of these women made American financial history not by occupying traditional seats of power - but by subverting oppressive financial systems through methods like mutual aid or unabashed self-advocacy.And we love to see it.First Woman to Appear on American Money: Pocahontas (1596 - 1617)The very first woman to appear on American paper currency was none other than Pocahontas. The imagery was political, depicting the leader kneeling as she is baptized into Christianity. But nonetheless, her appearance on the back of the $20 bill in 1865 was a first.First Woman Investor of Record: Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)Whether or not Abigail Adams was the first actual woman investor in America isn't entirely possible to prove. But she is often cited as the first woman investor of record. In addition to making investments with her family's money, she ran the farm and the family finances while her husband was off diplotmatting both before and after the birth of the country.Subvertor of Economic Systems Built on Slavery: Harriet Tubman (1822 - 1933)America's early economy was built on the unpaid labor of enslaved human beings. In this context, helping enslaved people escape to freedom was so much more than a protest against an immoral economic system - it was an assertion of human rights that had liberating, life-changing impacts on individuals and communities. Perhaps no one helped more people escape from slavers than Harriet Tubman, who led hundreds to freedom on the Underground Railroad.The Witch of Wall Street: Henrietta "Hetty" Green (1834 - 1916)Hetty Green came from whaling money. She didn't just grow up around mad cash - she paid attention. Sometimes feeling forced into the profession of money management, she nonetheless became an expert in fields like real estate, railroads, bookkeeping, and - most notoriously - timing the stock market.Green was also ridiculously frugal, while the man she married was not. At all. She took the initiative of insisting on a prenup to protect her own assets, which was a big deal for the day and age. She also got bad press for some legal dealings in a family estate, with accusations of forgery circling around many of her business agreements.It's hard to tell how much of the negative portions of the story are valid. She may well have been everything the stories belie. But when you label someone as the 'witch' of Wall Street, it's difficult to discern how much is accurate vs. how much was the social admonition of a woman asserting economic power in a time when it was unusual to do so.Hetty Green, image via Wiki CommonsFirst Woman Stockbroker and First Woman to Run For President: Victoria Woodhull (1838 - 1927)Victoria Woodhull did not come from money, but that didn't stop her from impacting American culture - especially in the realm of finance. As a journalist, she was responsible for introducing American audiences to the work of Karl Marx and his economic theories. She was also a suffragist, an advocate for divorce for abused women, and the first woman to run for president of the United States. On top of it all, she and her sister Tennessee Clafin became the first woman stockbrokers in the US when they opened their brokerage firm in 1870.Economic Advocate: Thocmetony/Sarah Winnemucca (1844 - 1891)Thocmetony - which means Shell Flower - was also known as Sarah Winnemucca. She was Pauite, and her people were forcibly removed from their homelands to a reservation. The violence of this removal wasn't just physical - it was also economic. Thocmetony passionately voiced these realities to white audiences, including the president. Her economic arguments, rooted in human rights, advocated for a return of lands in the name of economic prosperity in addition to human dignity.As influential as she was, she was ultimately not heeded by the people in power. She was the first American Indian woman to become a published author, and her works are still cited in modern research around contemporary laws, such as the Violence Against Women Act.TIP: If you want to learn more about these economic themes, check out Stephanie Cote's ongoing work at the National Endowment for Financial Education.First Woman Bank Owner: Maggie Lena Walker (1864 - 1934)Maggie Lena Walker was the first woman to charter a bank in the United States. St. Luke Penny Savings Bank encouraged economic power in the African-American community, particularly in the Jim Crow South. While other banks collapsed during and leading up to the Great Depression, St. Luke Penny Savings survived through mergers with other Black-owned banks, becoming Consolidated Bank and Trust.Consolidated Bank and Trust remained Black-owned until 2005. Today, it has been absorbed into Adams National Bank - a homage to the Adams family legacy, though not directly founded by Abigail Adams herself (another woman on our list). In addition to her position in banking, Walker was also a leader in local NAACP and NACW organizations.Maggie L. Walker, image via Wiki CommonsFirst Woman Self-Made Millionaire: Madam C.J. Walker (1867 - 1919)Madam C.J. Walker, nee Sarah Breedlove, was the daughter of sharecroppers who worked on the same land where they were formerly enslaved before the Civil War. Through her own hard work and smart business moves, she built a haircare line and production facilities that made her America's first woman self-made millionaire.Madam Walker's was an international, socially responsible company that encouraged political activism. Madam C.J. Walker herself was known to be a contributor of both her time and money to efforts such as the NACW and the NAACP.Financial Secretary of the Montgomery Improvement Association: Erna Dungee (1909 - 1984)Social (and, with it, economic) change doesn't just happen. It requires coordination and mutual aid. Mutual aid is different from charity in that it doesn't require its beneficiaries to prove themselves "worthy" and is more focused on empowering community members when other social systems fall short - whether through economic means or the provision of other resources.Such was the case for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was a central part of the Civil Rights Movement. In order for people to stop riding buses and take other social actions that would lead to change, there needed to be a community effort towards financing alternative means of transportation and funding the overall well-being of boycott participants. Sometimes this meant cab drivers reducing their fares. Sometimes this meant community money being pooled to pay for transport into and around Montgomery.The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) handled the coordination of these efforts. The financial secretary of the MIA was a woman: Erna Dungee. Dungee was the only officer of the MIA who was a woman. She was also a member of the Women's Political Council of Montgomery, which had been laying the groundwork for the boycott for years prior to the event's initiation in 1955.Pioneers of Credit Unions: Dora Maxwell (1897 - 1985) and Louise Herring (1909 - 1987)In America, there are banks, and then there are credit unions. Banks serve shareholders, whereas credit unions serve the members who actually hold deposit accounts. Usually, membership eligibility is relegated to people in a set, local community. The first credit union in America opened in 1909, with the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) being founded in 1934 during the Great Depression.CUNA has four great heroes and half of them were women: Dora Maxwell and Louise Herring.Maxwell was in the room where it happened, attending the conference that established CUNA in 1934. She was also a passionate organizer, helping over 120 credit unions get off the ground across the country. Her work involved service and support for lower-income credit union members in particular.Louise Herring was a little younger but no less passionate. Her pet interest was reforming predatory banking and lending practices, and over the course of her life, she helped organize 500 credit unions across the U.S.Founder of the Freedom Farm Cooperative: Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 - 1977)Fannie Lou Hamer was a powerful activist from Mississippi, and one of her most prominent projects was an exercise in mutual aid. She called out the systemic racism that was keeping Black people unemployed and starving in her state in the 1960s. To address it, she bought some land and started the Freedom Farm Cooperative. This co-op provided food - including livestock - to anyone who asked, in addition to providing jobs and housing for the local community.Organizer of the Free Breakfast Program: Ruth Beckford-Smith (1925 - 2019)Ever wonder why America offers a free breakfast program in public schools? The Black Panthers started the robust programming in 1968. The FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover, attempted to shut the free breakfast program down. Congress eventually adopted the Black Panther model in all public schools in 1975.The success of the free breakfast program can be largely attributed to the mutual aid effort's original organizer: Ruth Beckford-Smith. She took the program from an idea to serving 135 low-income children in Oakland within a single week. Beckford-Smith made the program so successful that it was rapidly adopted by chapters all over the country.Again, economic contributions to America don't have to be measured by dollars and cents. Sometimes you can measure them by a healthy breakfast served to children whose parents may or may not h
