Bunting Inst. Fellows Select 1,000 Top Women of Millenium

Scholars at Radcliffe College's Bunting Institute are creating a list of the top women of the millennium, Institute Director Rita Nakashima Brock said yesterday.

The list will contain about 1,000 names from the last 10 centuries, Brock said.

"It makes the selection of women in the 20th century difficult because they have to be pretty prominent to get on the list," Brock said.

Brock said that about 200 of the women are from the 20th century.

Currently, 1,036 names are on the list--including such diverse figures as 11th-century heroine Lady Godiva and 20th-century author Alice Walker, a former Bunting fellow.

The women are not ranked, Brock said, though they are sorted chronologically, geographically and alphabetically.

"This is also an international list, which is why for an American woman it's not as easy as say, [a list of] 100 women in America," Brock said.

Brock said former and current Bunting fellows helped to compile the list--which includes a number of former Bunting fellows.

Helen Keller '04 is also on the list, as is former Radcliffe Vice President Patricia Albjerg Graham, who is also former dean of the graduate school of education.

Also on the list are Hildegarde of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, Catherine de Medici, Anne Boleyn, Joan of Arc, Abigail Adams, Emily Bronte, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Hannah Arendt, Sarah Caldwell, Martha Graham and Toni Morrison.