Saturday we told you about the 23rd National Women’s Hall of Fame Induction ceremony held in Seneca Falls. Four of the eleven women inducted this year were nominated by one person. As YNN’s Erin Clarke tells us, Jill Tietjen makes it her mission to highlight the accomplishments of truly great women.
SENECA FALLS, N.Y. — Jill Tietjen said her mission is to tell the stories of great women. Her book titled ‘Her Story: A Timeline of the Women who Changed America’ chronicles the often unrecognized contributions of American women since the 1500s. Some of those women are now inductees in the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls.
“The women that I’ve learned about, I didn’t know about them. If I don’t know about them, no one else knows about them,” said Tietjen.
Tietjen is the Hall of Fame’s most successful nominator. She nominated twenty-one of the 247 inductees. Four of the 11 who entered the Hall of Fame Saturday were her picks.
‘They are St. Katharine Drexel, Dorothy Eustis, Billie Holiday, and Donna Shalala,” said Tietjen.
Tietjen, an electrical engineer by trade, started nominating scientific and technical women for the hall in the early 90s. While researching for her book, she came across women in other fields and branched out. Now Tietjen’s reputation as a successful nominator precedes her and people even bring her women to nominate.
“I got two names tonight, already of women to nominate in the next cycle,” said Tietjen.
Tietjen said she does this because these women inspire. When she was a girl, no one encouraged her to be an engineer and she thinks young women today should know that they can do anything.
“It’s very important for us to know about the accomplishments of these women, to celebrate them and then to have them as role models,” said Tietjen.
She plans to continue making nomination for the Hall of Fame in hopes of writing women back into history.
Seneca Falls is considered the birthplace of the American women’s Rights Movement. In 1848 it was the site of the first Women’s Rights Convention.