Women's History Month 2026

The strongest communities are built by people who show up consistently, courageously, and for each other. This March, we are honored to highlight some of the extraordinary women who embody exactly that. From the Indigenous leaders who never stopped fighting for the land Seattle was built on, to the athletes who transformed what the world believed a woman's body could do, to the writers, scientists, politicians, and educators who demanded a seat at every table, these are some of the women whose stories especially deserve to be told, and retold, and passed on.

Their profiles are displayed along our main entry wall this month. Below, you will find the extended story of each woman. We hope you read them, share them, and carry them with you.

LOCAL LEGEND

Kikisoblu (Princess Angeline)

c. 1820 - 1896 | Duwamish Elder & Symbol of Steadfast Resistance

She stayed and earned her own living, a quiet, daily act of sovereignty that no treaty could erase.

Kikisoblu was the eldest daughter of Chief Seattle, born around 1820 in what is now Rainier Beach. She lived through the full arc of Seattle's founding, from the early days of Duwamish sovereignty to the wave of Euro-American settlement that transformed the land in a matter of decades. When the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott required all Duwamish people to leave for reservations, Kikisoblu quietly, defiantly refused. She remained in a small waterfront cabin on Western Avenue between Pike and Pine Streets, near what is now Pike Place Market, and earned her own living selling handwoven baskets and taking in laundry, never accepting charity and never abandoning her home. In 1856, during the Puget Sound War, she is credited with conveying a warning from her father to Seattle settlers about an imminent attack by a coalition force, an act of loyalty to the community that had displaced her people. Pioneer neighbor Catherine Maynard renamed her "Princess Angeline," a name that would carry through history. She was photographed extensively by artists including Edward S. Curtis, and her image appeared on souvenirs and postcards for over a century. Upon her death in 1896, the city of Seattle paid for her funeral. Today, Angeline's Day Center for Women, a YWCA shelter, bears her name, and Southern resident orca J17 was nicknamed Princess Angeline. Her story is one of extraordinary dignity in the face of dispossession.

LEARN MORE

• Oficial Duwamish Tribe page on Princess Angeline (Kikisoblu)

• YWCA Seattle's remembrance page on Princess Angeline

  • YWCA - Angeline’s Day Center

• PBS' Mossback's Northwest Episode - Angeline, Portrait of Seattle’s “Princess”

LOCAL LEGEND

Janet McCloud (Yet-Si-Blue)

1934 - 2003 | Indigenous Rights Activist & Defender of Treaty Sovereignty

"The most revolutionary thing you can do is take care of each other."

Janet McCloud, known in her Tulalip and Nisqually communities as Yet-Si-Blue, meaning "the woman who talks", was a force of nature who spent her entire life fighting for the rights of Native people in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Born in 1934 as a descendant of Chief Seattle, she came of age at a time when the federal government was actively attempting to terminate tribal sovereignty and assimilate Native people into mainstream American life. McCloud refused every part of that agenda. In the 1960s, she and her husband Don co-founded the Survival of American Indians Association alongside Ramona Bennett, and she organized high-profile "fish-ins" on the Nisqually and Puyallup rivers, acts of civil disobedience modeled on the lunch counter sit-ins of the civil rights movement. Activists were arrested, equipment was seized, and news cameras were rolling. The fish-ins drew national attention to the violation of treaty rights and directly contributed to the 1974 Boldt Decision, a federal ruling that guaranteed Northwest tribes half of the region's harvestable salmon. McCloud went on to found the Indigenous Women's Network and the Sapa Dawn Center, an organization dedicated to teaching Native youth their languages, cultural practices, and history. Many called her the Rosa Parks of the American Indian Movement. A mother of nine, she organized from her kitchen table, hosted meetings, printed newsletters, and never stopped showing up. She passed in 2003, leaving behind a movement she had helped build from the ground up.

REFERENCES & LEARN MORE

• Cascade PBS - Short video introduction toJanet McCloud and the Washington Fish Wars

• Science Direct - Contested boundaries: native sovereignty and state power at Wounded Knee, 1973

• ArcGIS Comprehensive StoryMap on Janet McCloud created by Val Battle Haddock

LOCAL LEGEND

Ramona Bennett

b. 1938 | Puyallup Tribal Leader & Champion of Indigenous Sovereignty

"Virtually everything constructive I've done has been because children might need it."

Ramona Bennett was born in Seattle in 1938 to a Native mother who fiercely instilled in her children knowledge of and pride in their Indigenous heritage, and a white father whose racism made that lesson all the more urgent. From her earliest years working at Seattle's American Indian Women's Service League, Bennett was building the relational foundation that would make her one of the most effective tribal leaders in the country. She co-founded the Survival of American Indians Association in 1964 alongside Janet McCloud, and her organizing work during the 1960s fish-ins brought national media attention to Washington's treaty rights crisis. Elected to the Puyallup Tribal Council in 1968 and chosen as Tribal Chairwoman in 1971, one of the first women in Washington to hold that role, Bennett governed with both urgency and vision. In 1970, she set up a visible fish camp on the Puyallup River, was arrested, and kept organizing from jail. In 1976, she led the occupation of the Cascadia Center, a former tribal hospital that had been sold to the state and converted into a youth detention facility. The seven-day occupation ended with immediate concessions and laid the groundwork for a historic 1990 land claims settlement. As a principal author of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, she helped pass landmark federal legislation protecting Native children from forced removal. Her memoir, Fighting for the Puyallup Tribe, remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Indigenous resistance in the American West.

REFERENCES & LEARN MORE

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WIP, Please keep an eye out for the rest of the stories as we update our links!

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