Rosa Parks Picked as Most Influential U.S. Women

According to a You Gov poll, across all age groups, genders, and races, Rosa Parks was picked as the most influential American woman in U.S. history. Parks was a civil rights leader, who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus, sparking the 381-day bus boycott headed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When she died in 2005, she was the only woman to lie in honor at the Capital, a posthumous distinction usually awarded to presidents and other high-level public figures.

Harriet Tubman, a formerly enslaved woman who escaped slavery and helped others escape as well, was picked by women as the second most influential woman in U.S. history, capturing 13 percent of respondents vote. The other women on the list span decades of U.S. history from the founding of the country to present day. Other notable picks include Betsy Ross, a seamstress who was the first to sew the American flag; Michelle Obama, the former first lady; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the current Supreme Court judge.