Clifton Reginald Wharton Sr. was an American diplomat, and the first African American diplomat to become an ambassador by rising through the ranks of the Foreign Service rather than by political appointment such as Frederick Douglass. He also became the first black Foreign Service Officer to become chief of a diplomatic mission.

Lucile Atcherson Curtis (1894–1986) was the first woman in what became the U.S. Foreign Service. Specifically, she was the first woman appointed as a United States Diplomatic Officer or Consular Officer, in 1923; the U.S. would not establish the unified Foreign Service until 1924, at which time Diplomatic and Consular Officers became Foreign Service Officers.