List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
The United States Cabinet has had 32 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.[1]
Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in the Cabinet; she was appointed Secretary of Labor in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[2][3] Oveta Culp Hobby became the second woman to serve in the Cabinet,[4] when she was named head of the then newly formed Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953.[5] This department was subdivided into the departments of Education and Health and Human Services in 1979.[5] 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.[6]
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.[7] Czechoslovakia-born Madeleine Albright became the first foreign-born woman to serve in the Cabinet when she was appointed Secretary of State in 1997.[a][8] Her appointment also made her the highest-ranking female Cabinet member at that time.[b][8] 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.[9] In 2006, Nancy Pelosi replaced Rice as the highest-ranking woman in line when she was elected Speaker of the House.[10][11]
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.[12][13][14][15] Clinton became the only First Lady to serve in the Cabinet and the third female Secretary of State.[13] Napolitano became the first female Secretary of Homeland Security.[12] President Barack Obama has appointed nine women to Cabinet-level positions, the most of any Presidency.
The Department of Labor has had the most female Secretaries with seven.[16] The Department of Health and Human Services has had five, the departments of State and Commerce have had three, and the departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, and Transportation have each had two.[16] The defunct Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has also had two female Secretaries.[16] The three departments of Defense, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs are the only existing Cabinet departments that have not had women Secretaries.[17][18][19]
Contents
Female Secretaries
Current departments
Numerical order represents the seniority of the Secretaries in the United States presidential line of succession.
- * denotes the first female secretary of that particular department
Defunct departments
The departments are listed in order of their establishment (earliest first).
- * denotes the first female secretary of that particular department
| # | Secretary | Position | Year appointed |
Party | Administration | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | —[f] | Postmaster General | —[f] | —[f] | —[f] | — |
| 2 | —[g] | Secretary of the Navy | —[g] | —[g] | —[g] | — |
| 3 | —[h] | Secretary of War | —[h] | —[h] | —[h] | — |
| 4 | —[i] | Secretary of Commerce and Labor | —[i] | —[i] | —[i] | — |
| 5 | Oveta Culp Hobby* | Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare | 1953 | Republican | Dwight D. Eisenhower | [4] |
| 5 | Patricia Roberts Harris | Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare | 1979 | Democratic | Jimmy Carter | [6] |
See also
- List of African-American United States Cabinet Secretaries
- List of foreign-born United States Cabinet Secretaries
Notes
- a Elaine Chao became the second foreign-born woman to serve in the Cabinet when she was appointed Secretary of Labor in 2001.[35]
- b The Secretary of State, as the most senior Cabinet position, is the first Cabinet member in the line of succession and the fourth overall.[11] Albright was ineligible to serve in the line of succession due to her foreign birth.[11][44]
- c The Department of the Treasury was established in 1789; no woman has served yet.[17]
- d The Department of Defense was established in 1947; no woman has served yet.[18]
- e The Department of Veterans Affairs was established in 1989; no woman has served yet.[19]
- f The Postmaster General ceased to be a member of the Cabinet when the Post Office Department was re-organized into the United States Postal Service, a special agency independent of the executive branch, by the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act. No woman had ever served while it was a Cabinet post. Following the creation of the independent United States Postal Service, Megan Brennan became the first woman to serve as Postmaster General in 2015.[45][46]
- g The Secretary of the Navy ceased to be a member of the Cabinet when the Department of the Navy was absorbed into the Department of Defense in 1947. No woman had ever served while it was a Cabinet post. Susan Livingstone was the first woman to serve in that post from 2001 to 2003 after it became a position beneath the Secretary of Defense.[47][48]
- h The position of Secretary of War became defunct when the Department of War became the Department of Defense in 1947. No woman had ever served while it was a Cabinet post.[47]
- i The position of Secretary of Commerce and Labor became defunct when the Department of Commerce and Labor was subdivided into two separate entities in 1913. No woman had ever served while it was a Cabinet post.[49]
References
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External links
- The Cabinet - Provided by the White House. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- Women Appointed to Presidential Cabinets - Produced by the Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics from Rutgers University. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- Women Members Who Became Cabinet Members and United States Diplomats - Provided by the U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Historian. Part of the History, Art & Archives, Women in Congress, 1917–2006 website. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
