Katharine McCormick (1875-1967), US suffragist and philanthropist. McCormick was a women's rights activist, rising to prominence from 1909. She was active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the League of Women Voters. She was also key to the development of the first birth control pill in the 1950s, funding much of the research from her husband's fortune that she inherited. She also established the Neuroendocrine Research Foundation in 1927, and made large donations to other causes. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1998. Photographed in 1918, in her wartime role as chair of the Department of Food Production, Council of National Defence.