American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell, born in England, was the first woman to earn a medical degree in America. 1850s 1850 Harriet Tubman was the first American woman to run an underground railroad to help slaves escape. Some scholars label her the "Queen of the Underground Railroad". 1853 Antoinette Brown Blackwell was the first woman ordained as a minister in America; she was ordained by the Congregational Church. 1855 Anne McDowell was the first American woman to publish a newspaper completely run by women; it was circulated weekly and titled, "Women's Advocate". Emeline Roberts Jones was the first woman to practice dentistry in the United States. She married the dentist Daniel Jones when she was a teenager, and became his assistant in 1855. 1860s 1865 Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the federal government of the United States; she was hanged for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 1866 Mary Walker was the first woman in America to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. 1866 Lucy Hobbs Taylor was the first woman in America to graduate from a dental school (Ohio College of Dental Surgery). 1869 Arabella Mansfield was the first American woman to become a professional lawyer; she was admitted to the Iowa bar. 1870s 1870 Louisa Swain was the first woman in the United States to vote in a general election, after the women of New Jersey lost the right to vote in 1807; she cast her ballot on September 6th, 1870, in Laramie, Wyoming. 1870 Esther Hobart Morris was the first woman in America to serve as Justice of the peace. 1870 Ada Kepley was the first woman to graduate from law school in America (Northwestern University School of Law). 1871 Frances Willard was the first American woman college president. She also presided over the Women's Christian Temperance Union 1872 Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for President of the United States. 1873 Ellen Swallow Richards was one of first American women to become a professional chemist and first to earn a degree in Chemistry; she was the first woman to graduate from school of science or technology in America (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). 1876 Louise Blanchard Bethune was the first American woman to become a professional architect. 1877 Helen Magill White was the first woman in America to earn the Ph.D. degree (in