Time magazine marks its 95th anniversary this month, on March 3. Choosing five articles to highlight the occasion initially felt daunting, until I considered that March is Women's History Month. I immediately wondered how often Time's annual Person of the Year issue has featured a woman.
It didn't take long to discover that individual women have been named only four times since the magazine first bestowed the designation. One woman was named along with her husband as "Man and Wife of the Year," and women have been collectively named Persons of the Year an additional three times.
While we usually pick five articles, you can read all eight articles featuring a woman or women as the Person of the Year using CPL's Online Resources. On the Web, Time's content is accessible to subscribers only.
Individual Honorees
1936: Wallis Simpson
"Woman of the Year"
Time, January 4, 1937
England's King Edward VIII famously gave up his throne for "the woman I love"—a twice-divorced American. The scandal rocked the globe.
1952: Queen Elizabeth II
"Defender of the Faith"
Time, January 5, 1953
The glamorous young Queen Elizabeth II represented a future bright with possibilities for the British people, looking for new hope after years of war and privation.
1986: Corazon Aquino
"Woman of the Year Cory Aquino Leads a Fairy-Tale Revolution, Then Surprises the World With Her Strength" by Pico Iyer, et al.
Time, January 5, 1987
Aquino, the widow of Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos' chief rival, won a shocking electoral victory that ended Marcos' brutal regime and signaled a fresh identity for her people and her country.
2015: Angela Merkel
"Chancellor of the Free World" by Karl Vick, et al.
Time, December 21, 2015
Merkel marked the 10th anniversary of her remarkable tenure as the first female chancellor of Germany in 2015.
Collective Honorees
1937: Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek)
"Man and Wife of the Year"
Time, January 3, 1938
Already half of an unprecedented personal and political partnership, Madame Chiang lived into the 21st century, leaving an indelible mark on the history of her country.
1975: American Women
"Great Changes, New Chances, Tough Choices"
Time, January 5, 1976
Heralding the strides that American women had made across a variety of fields, and anticipating the future, the article stirs many emotions more than 40 years later.
2002: The Whistle-Blowers
"The Year of the Whistle-Blowers" by James Kelly
Time, December 30, 2002
Three women—Enron's Sherron Watkins, WorldCom's Cynthia Cooper and the FBI's Coleen Rowley—received Time's recognition for their courage in exposing corruption in their respective workplaces.
2017: The Silence-Breakers
"The Silence-Breakers" by Stephanie Zacharek, et al.
Time, December 18, 2017
Time's latest group of honorees represent the #MeToo movement, which continues to reverberate across the United States and the world.
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