Female Trailblazers Get Their Due at Own Hall of Fame

We’ve all heard of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame, but what about the National Women’s Hall of Fame? Thirteen years at an all-girls school in New York City, and I didn’t even know about the 31-year-old facility north of me in historic Seneca Falls. And I’m not alone; a poll of family, friends and co-workers produced uneasy pauses and blank stares.

Fittingly, the nonprofit organization is located at the birthplace of the women’s movement where, in 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and 300 other women and men held the first Women’s Rights Convention. They passed the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, with resolutions that included the demand that women have the right to vote.

The Hall of Fame was created in 1969 to honor these trailblazers and others in the arts, athletics, business, education, government, humanities, philanthropy, science and other fields. The 157 members each have mini-biographical displays, some of which include taped speeches and memorabilia.

Anyone may submit a nomination, but final selections are made by a national panel of judges. This year’s group to be inducted in October includes the well-known (Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Eudora Welty) and the not-so-well-known (muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell, who wrote the 1904 book “The History of the Standard Oil Company” and Annie Dodge Wauneka, the first woman elected to the Navajo Tribal Council and the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.)

Mary Ann Oppenheimer, executive director of the Women’s Hall of Fame, said it can be depressing that so many of the greats are unknown. “To some extent it’s because women haven’t been telling the stories and writing the history books,” she said. “But as women are out working in different fields, there has been a renewed interest in the women’s movement. Women want to learn about those who came before them.”

Can’t swing a visit to Seneca Falls? The organization’s Web site, https://www.greatwomen.org, includes information about each woman in the Hall of Fame.

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Forget the semiannual Barneys New York airport hangar sales. Shoppers are getting a bargain fix monthly at Planet LuLu, a retail space in a loft in downtown L.A. that sells duds from West Coast designers Trina Turk, Cynthia Vincent, Tarina Tarantino and others at prices 50% to 75% off retail. “If you know about the sales, you’re on the inside,” said fashion designer Sarah Shaw. “At LuLu you can buy the same blouse for $90 that you’d spend $225 for at Fred Segal.” September’s event begins next week. Info: https://www.planetlulu.com.

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E-mail Booth Moore at booth.moore@latimes.com.