As Kamala Harris becomes the first female Vice-President elect of the United States it's a good time to remember some of the other trailblazing women in American politics.

Victoria Woodhull was an American leader of the women's suffrage movement who ran for President of the United States in the 1872 election.

Woodhull was under 35 and so denied access to the ballot in all States - but her campaign received considerable press coverage.

In 1884 Belva Lockwood, one of America's first qualified female lawyers and the first to practise before the US Supreme Court, made the Presidential ballot in six States. As the candidate of the National Equal Rights Party she received 4,100 votes.

In 1909 Carolyn Shelton became the first woman to act as Governor of a U.S. state, Wyoming.

Shelton was the secretary and later the wife of Oregon Governor Chamberlain and deputised for him in the last weekend of his term, after his election to the Senate.

In 1916 Republican women's rights activist Jeanette Rankin was the first woman to be elected to Congress, as one of two at-large Representatives from Montana.

She was re-elected again in 1940. She voted against US entry into both first and second world wars,

In 1922 Rebecca Felton became the first woman to sit in the Senate, as a Senator from Georgia. She served only a single day, appointed by Governor Hardwick after Thomas Watson died in office. Hardwick sought the seat for himself in the coming special election. He didn't win it.

Social reformer and educator Cora Wilson Stewart from Kentucky received a single vote in the Democratic Party Presidential nomination primaries in 1924, the first vote cast for a woman to be the candidate of a major party.

Marie Brehm was the Prohibition Party candidate for Vice-President in the 1924 election. As running mate to Herman Faris she received 56,289 votes.

Soledad Chávez de Chacón served as acting Governor in New Mexico for two weeks in 1924, exercising - unlike Carolyn Shelton - all the functions of the Chief Executive, having already been the first woman elected as Secretary of State.

In 1925 Florence Kahn from California was the fifth woman to be elected to the House of Representatives. Being Jewish, she was the first non-Christian woman to be elected.

Nellie Taylor Ross, the widow of Governor William Ross, was the first woman to to be sworn in as a State Governor, serving as the 14th governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927 after a special by-election following his death.

Miriam Ferguson was sworn in as Governor of Texas just a week after Ross had been sworn in as Wyoming Governor.

Ferguson had also followed her husband into office, after he'd been impeached. He remained her first counsel while she served two terms, from 1925-927 and 1933-1935.

In 1932 Hattie Caraway became the first woman elected to serve a full term as a Senator, representing Arkansas. Appointed to the seat in 1931, she won re-election to a full term in 1932.

In 1940 comedian Gracie Allen ran a Presidential Election campaign as candidate for The Surprise Party, a publicity stunt for a nationwide tour with her husband, George Burns. She received 42,000 votes, at that time the most ever cast for a woman candidate.

Charlotta Bass is believed to be the first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the United States. In 1952, she became the first African-American woman nominated for Vice President, as a candidate of the Progressive Party, receiving a record 140,023 votes.

Margaret Chase Smith, Senator from Maine, received 227,007 votes in the 1964 Republican Presidential Primaries, carrying 27 delegates to the 1964 Republican Convention. First elected to Congress in 1940 and to the Senate in 1949, she was the first woman to serve in both houses.

In 1964 Patsy Mink, a third generation Japanese American, was elected to the House of Representatives, the first woman of colour, the first Asian-American and the first from Hawaii.

She served 12 terms, from 1965-77 and from 1990-2002. An Oceans Secretary in Carter Government.

Lurleen Wallace was the 46th Governor of Alabama for fifteen months from January 1967 until her death in May 1968. She was the first wife of Alabama Governor George Wallace, whom she succeeded as Governor (the Alabama constitution forbade consecutive terms).

In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American woman elected to Congress, representing New York's 12th district from 1969 to 1983. She became the first African-American to seek the Democratic Presidential nomination, taking 152 delegates to the 1972 Convention.

In 1972, Linda Jeness of the Socialist Workers Party made the Presidential ballot in 25 states, receiving a record total of 83,380 votes.

In the same 1972 election, Libertarian candidate for Vice President, Tonie Nathan, despite receiving only 3,674 votes nationwide, became the first woman to receive an electoral college vote, cast by a Republican 'faithless elector'.

In 1974 Ella Grasso was the first woman to be elected as a State Governor in her own right, when she was elected in Connecticut. She was re-elected in 1978 but resigned after six years in office, shortly before her death from ovarian cancer in 1981.

In 1978, representing Kansas, Nancy Kassebaum became the first woman ever elected to a full term in the Senate without her husband having previously served in Congress. Her father, however, was Governor of Kansas.

In 1980, Comanche activist from Oklahoma, La Donna Harris received a record 233,052 as candidate of the Citizens Party for Vice-President.

In 1984, New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro became first woman to be chosen as the candidate for Vice-President by a major party, running with Democratic Party's former Vice-President Walter Mondale. She received 37,577,352 votes and 13 electoral college votes.

Florida Republican Paula Hawkins was the first woman to be elected to the Senate without any prior family connection to senior office, in 1986.

In 1988 Lenora Fulani ran as the Presidential candidate for the New Alliance Party. She was both the first woman and the first African American to secure ballot access in all 50 states and set a new record for a woman of receiving 217,219 votes.

In 1991 Ann Richards became the second female Governor of Texas, the first to govern in her own right in one of the six big States. California, New York, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania are yet to elect a female Governor.

In 1992 African American Carol Moseley Braun became the first woman of colour in the Senate when she became the first woman to defeat an incumbent Senator, winning the 1992 Illinois primary election over Alan Dixon.

In 1992 Dianne Feinstein of California became the first woman to defeat an incumbent Senator from a different party, when she defeated John Seymour in a special election.

The first time two female senators from the same state served concurrently was in 1993 when Dianne Feinstein was joined by Barbara Boxer in California.

In 1999, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin was the first lesbian elected to either house of the US Congress, when she was elected to the House of Representatives. She served seven consecutive terms before her election as a Senator.

In 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to become Speaker of the House. 325 women have served in the House of Representatives but only one, Nancy Pelosi, has served as Party Whip, Minority Leader and Speaker.

In 2008, New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton took second place in the Democratic Party Presidential primaries, winning 1,726 delegate votes and more primary contests than any other woman in history.

Also in 2008, former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin became the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential candidate. She won a record 173 electoral college votes and 59,948,323 popular votes.

In 2012 Jill Stein was the Presidential candidate of the US Green Party, receiving a record 468,907 votes across 36 States. Four years later, in 2016, she received 1,457,044 votes across 43 States, an achievement somewhat eclipsed by Hillary Clinton that year.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton - by then also a former Secretary of State - secured 65,853,516 votes, an amount only ever surpassed by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Joe Biden in 2020, both of whom won the Presidency. Clinton won only 232 of the 270 required electoral college votes.

In 2017 Barbara Mikushki from Maryland retired from the Senate after serving a total of 40 years in Congress, the longest period of service by any woman.

In 2018 Sharice Davids from Kansas and Deb Haaland from New Mexico became the first female Native Americans elected to the House of Representatives.