(CNN) After a long, bruising primary season, Hillary Clinton made history Tuesday night, becoming the first woman to lead the presidential ticket of a major political party in the United States.
"Thanks to you, we've reached a milestone," Clinton said to a large crowd of supporters in Brooklyn's Navy Yard. "Tonight's victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible."
Early Pioneers
Clinton joins a long list of women who have sought the presidency. Here are some of them:
- Victoria Claflin Woodhull, of the Equal Rights Party, was the first woman to run for the highest office in 1872. While Woodhull did not make it to the White House, she did become the first woman to own a Wall Street investment Firm.
- Belva Ann Lockwood would follow in Woodhull's footsteps, running for president on the Equal Right's party ticket in 1884 and 1888. She eventually became the first woman to practice before the Supreme Court.
- Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican, in 1964 became the first woman to seek the nomination of a major political party. She lost every primary contest, but won votes in the New Hampshire, Texas, Oregon, Massachusetts and Illinois. She lost the GOP nomination to Barry Goldwater. She also served in the House and Senate during her political career.
The women who have run for president
American feminist reformer Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for U.S. president from a nationally recognized ticket as the candidate of the Equal Rights Party in 1872. Woodhull was also one of the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street.
Belva Lockwood was the first woman to practice law in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. She ran for president in 1884 and 1888 on the Equal Rights Party ticket.
Gracie Allen made a farcical run for president in 1940. Campaigning under the Surprise Party platform, Allen -- with husband George Burns -- went on a whistle-stop tour of the country.
Sen. Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to serve in the House of Representatives and Senate. She was also the first woman to be placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party's convention (the Republican National Convention in 1964).
Charlene Mitchell was the Communist Party USA nominee for president in 1968 and also challenged Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-New York, for the Senate in 1988.
U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm announces her entry for Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. Chisholm was the first African-American female candidate from a major party.
Linda Jenness was the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president in 1972.
Margaret Wright was the Peace and Freedom Party presidential candidate in 1976. Her running mate was Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Maureen Smith was the Peace and Freedom Party presidential candidate in 1980.
Feminist activist and writer Sonia Johnson ran in 1984 as the presidential candidate of the U.S. Citizens Party, Pennsylvania's Consumer Party and California's Peace and Freedom Party.
Lenora Fulani ran for president in 1988 and 1992 as a candidate of the New Alliance Party. Here, she holds a news conference at Atlanta City Hall in July 1988.
Elvena Lloyd-Duffie ran as a Democratic candidate against incumbent Bill Clinton in 1996.
Elizabeth Dole unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for president in 2000. She is a former U.S. senator from North Carolina and served as U.S. secretary of transportation under Ronald Reagan and secretary of labor under George H.W. Bush. She is the wife of former Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican nominee for president.
Former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois sought the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for 2016, noted in 2008 that the glass ceiling had "18 million cracks in it" -- a reference to the number of votes she received in the 2008 Democratic primary before conceding the race to Barack Obama.
Cynthia McKinney was the Green Party presidential candidate in 2008. McKinney was a six-term Democratic congresswoman from Georgia before running for president.
Roseanne Barr announces she is a candidate for president on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in 2011. She won the 2012 nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party.
Dr. Jill Stein is the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate. She was also the party's presidential candidate in 2012.
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina marches with her family in the Labor Day parade in 2015 in Milford, New Hampshire. Fiorina unsuccessfully sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2016 and then briefly joined Sen. Ted Cruz as his running mate before he suspended his campaign.
Gender Barriers and Obstacles
While Clinton and her predecessors faced similar gender barriers in the politics, the nation's earliest female politicians had an additional obstacle to overcome.
"You know they were running before women had the right to vote," said Debbie Walsh, the director of the Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics. "Susan B. Anthony in the late 1800s would try to go to vote and she was jailed. So these women faced scorn and ridicule for running ... If you look at cartoons from that period, they were mocked."
RELATED: The long journey from Seneca Falls to Hillary 2016
The 2016 presidential primary has also seen its fair share of mean-spirited mockery toward women candidates as well. Donald Trump Ridiculed former GOP hopeful Carly Fiorina, saying, "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?"
"It's interesting because there are still times when women run and they're mocked and not taken seriously," Walsh said. "But I think it's been an evolutionary process. I don't think there was one year when suddenly it all stopped including now."
Pushing an agenda
Clinton and other female candidates ran with the goal of becoming president, while others have run to draw attention to issues.
While she received only 0.36 percent of the popular vote in 2012, likely 2016 Green Party presidential nominee, Jill Stein, is hoping to continue to stress some of the progressive issues Bernie Sanders has raised, such as eliminating student debt, cracking down on Wall Street and putting an end to U.S. military interventions overseas.
Clinton begins vice presidential search
Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to seek a major party's presidential nomination, also ran to promote her own issues.
"I don't think she believed at the time that she thought she was going to become the Democratic nominee, or certainly not get elected president," Walsh said. "But she ran because she had a set of issues that she wanted to make sure were part of the debate and the discussion in the presidential election in 1972. And that's why a lot of times why women are running."
The Path Forward
Clinton's achievement is historic in the United States, but women around the world, including Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Angela Merkel in Germany, have been elected as their nation's leaders.
A potential reason as to why a female hasn't yet made it to the Oval Office in the United States could be a lack of female representation in American politics, Walsh suggested.
"If you look at the rankings that have been done of national parliaments and national legislatures, the U.S. currently ranks 91st in the world for the percentage of women in our national legislature," Walsh said. "So if you think about who becomes president of the United States in this country, it is largely senators and or governors, with an occasional general thrown in. Basically, we draw our presidents from state capitals, and also the United States Senate, and women are really underrepresented in those institutions."
Americans today are more open to voting for a female president than ever before. A CNN/ORC poll conducted in February found that 80% of Americans thought the country was ready for a female president, while only 19% said the nation was not ready.
"That's not to say that the women who run even today aren't still facing double standards," Walsh said. "These are still the realities. Is it better? Absolutely. Is it different? Absolutely. Are there still challenges that women who run for office face? Yes."