Inspired by TIME’s annual Person of the Year, which started in 1927 as “Man of the Year” and became “Person of the Year” in 1999, and timed to International Women’s Day and the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the U.S., this historic TIME project recognizes the most influential women of each year from 1920-2019.
TIME executive editor and editorial director of 100 Women of the Year Kelly Conniff writes: “For me, seeing women on the cover of a magazine created by men for ‘busy men,’ as TIME’s founders wrote in their original prospectus, is always powerful. I joined TIME in 2012, when over the course of a year just a handful of women were featured on the cover. In 2019, TIME featured more solo women on its cover than men for the first time in our 97-year history. The world has changed and TIME has too, but there have always been women worthy of TIME’s cover.”
Go behind the scenes of this important issue HERE.
Conceived with award-winning filmmaker Alma Har’el, the 100 Women of the Year were selected by TIME editors, in collaboration with Har’el, and a committee of influential women across different fields, including Katie Couric, Soledad O’Brien, Lena Waithe, MJ Rodriguez, Elaine Welteroth, Amanda Nguyen, Zazie Beetz, and former editor in chief of TIME Nancy Gibbs.
“Each generation inherits a history, focused through the lens of those who came before it—but time tends to reveal a greater depth of field. We need to reclaim our narrative and salute the women who changed our world but were not given the place in history they deserved. I’m honored and thankful to TIME for opening their Person of the Year process for the first time ever and making Women of the Year a reality,” said Har’el.
For the first time in its history, TIME releases 100 TIME covers for a single project. Each of the 100 Women of the Year is recognized with a TIME cover that is visually emblematic of the period its subject represents. In all, TIME commissioned 49 original artists’ portraits, including work by Koyin Ojih Odutola, Mickalene Thomas, Shana Wilson, Bisa Butler, Yulia Brodskaya, Amaya Gurpide, Jennifer Dionisio, Mercedes deBellard, Lavett Ballard and more.
See all of the covers HERE.
