Madeleine Albright
The first woman to become U.S. Secretary of State, Albright was followed in the post by Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. She would later recount how her granddaughter had asked, "So what’s the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State." When she took over the State Department in 1997, though, Albright became the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government.
