All around Indy, there are signs of the women who shaped our history. Literal signs.
For Women’s History Month, we found seven historical markers in Indianapolis that tell the stories of how women changed our city and state. Feeling inspired? Check out our map of the markers and take your own tour.
You can find more historical markers across the state on the Indiana Historical Bureau website.
Phyllis Wheatley YWCA
📍 Near St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, 720 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St.
The Indianapolis Phyllis Wheatley YWCA opened in 1921 after a group of five women leaders, including Madam C.J. Walker, created a group to start a center for Black women and girls. Indy’s first YWCA opened in 1895, but it was segregated.
The group named the “Wheatley Y” after Phyllis Wheatley, the first published African American poet in the U.S. So many women were enrolled at the YWCA that it moved into a new, three-story building at 653 N. West St. in 1928. The organization closed 35 years later, in 1959, after YWCAs were desegregated.
Related
See photos from the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA historical marker celebration
The marker honors the legacy of the YWCA created with help from Madam C.J. Walker for the Black women and girls in Indianapolis.
Dr. Amelia Keller
📍 Near the IUPUI Medical Library, 988 W. Walnut St.
Dr. Amelia Keller worked as the first female faculty member at the Indiana University School of Medicine, was a physician for the Indiana governor and fought for women’s suffrage alongside Black women’s suffrage clubs.
She’s featured in a photo in the Indianapolis Star as the first person to cast a vote in a “women’s primary” the newspaper held in 1912, where women cast mock ballots eight years before they could actually vote. She specialized in gynecology and pediatrics.
Harriette Bailey Conn
Harriette Bailey Conn graduated from Crispus Attucks High School as a 14-year-old in 1937. She got a bachelor’s degree, got married and had six children before heading to law school nine years later. She graduated from Indiana University’s law program in Indianapolis near the top of her class in 1955, after a one-year delay to give birth to her seventh child.
She served as the state’s deputy attorney general, the Indianapolis assistant city attorney and as a state representative in the Indiana House, advocating for personal freedom and housing reform. She was the first Black person and first woman to be appointed as the public defender of Indiana.
Janet Flanner
Janet Flanner grew up in Indianapolis and became a prolific arts and culture writer. She got her start with a column for the Indianapolis Star before moving to Paris.
For 50 years, she wrote the column “Letter from Paris” under the pen name “Genêt,” reviewing Josephine Baker’s performances and documenting French politics and parliament that a 1965 article from The New York Times says “crackle with the vividness of the professional journalist.” She lived among a community of expatriates in Paris, including other lesbian writers, artists and intellectuals. The District Theatre is presenting a play about Flanner, “They Call Me Genêt,” this July.
Grace Julian Clarke
Grace Julian Clarke took the fight for women’s right to vote on the road. She started automobile tours from her home in Indianapolis to other parts of the state, to share her message directly with people, not just with legislators.
She lived in Irvington and graduated with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Butler University. She founded the Legislative Council of Indiana Women at the statehouse, wrote for the Indianapolis Star and was an integral part of Indiana’s ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920.
First Lady Caroline Scott Harrison
📍 Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, 1230 N. Delaware St.
Caroline Scott Harrison grew up in Oxford, Ohio, where she met Benjamin Harrison, who would become the 23rd president of the United States. After their marriage, they moved to Indianapolis, where Benjamin Harrison set up a law practice and she had two children, served in her church and a local orphanage and pursued her interests in piano and painting.
As first lady, she advocated for women to be admitted to Johns Hopkins University medical school. She founded the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1890 and led it as the first president general until her death in 1892.
Sarah T. Bolton
📍 Sarah Bolton Park, 1300 Churchman Ave.
The earliest state historical marker related to women’s history commemorates Sarah T. Bolton, a pioneer and poet. She was born in Kentucky and moved to Indiana as a child in the early 1800s, before many cities were built. She wrote more than 150 poems, including her most famous, “Paddle your own canoe.” It includes this line: “Voyager upon life’s sea, to yourself be true.”
She married the co-owner of the Indianapolis Gazette and ran a tavern with him. Eventually, they sold some of their property and it became the Central State Hospital. She spent the last years of her life in Beech Grove, and she’s buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.
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