The Tomb of the Red Queen
I was reading yesterday about the Tomb of the Red Queen in Mexico's Palenque National Park (formerly the ancient city of Palenque). This is a tomb discovered...
Kanno Sugako and her anarcha-feminist life
I’m just popping into your inbox today to tell you about KANNO SUGAKO. Kanno Sugako was a “Japanese anarcha-feminist journalist.” Yes! She lived from...
Some Suez Canal business
I don't know if you saw this nonsense, but people were blaming Egypt's first woman ship captain for the Suez Canal blockage. Where was she? Yes, that's...
Marie Curie and women's history links
Did you notice we just skipped all of Women’s History Month? That’s because unlike those POSEUR women’s history newsletters. we talk about women’s history...
Kamala Harris, Shirley Chisholm, and the Color Purple
Yesterday, Vice President Harris wore purple. Michelle Obama wore purple. Hillary Clinton wore purple. And on the eve of the Inauguration, First Lady Dr....
Well now here's someone
Ok so I was reading about playwright Hart Crane because I was reading up on whether Tennessee Williams did, indeed, die choking on a bottle cap (he did), and...
The woman who loved algae
I was trying to find BIPOC zoology authors for the biweekly nonfiction newsletter I run for Book Riot (subscribe here!) and I stumbled across Roger Arliner...
The Meat Boycott of 1902
I was reading White Feminism by Koa Beck (out in January! preorder now, because it is great) and she mentions the 1902 kosher meat boycott. That book has...
Anna Ella Carroll did what now?
I was reading a book recently that casually referenced "Anne [sic] Carroll, who helped devise military strategies for U.S. Grant." As someone who spends a...
Florence Howe changed the landscape (and so can you)
Florence Howe passed away this past week. Had I heard of her before? No. But I follow a LOT of women's history and women's rights accounts, and this was all...
The Astrophysicist We Should Remember
The other day, I was trying to find non-white astronomers for a reading list I was making, and it is HARD. Especially when you’re looking for authors of...
How Margaret Brent saved Maryland
The time! 1600s. The place! Maryland. The woman! Margaret Brent. Brent and three of her twelve siblings (it’s just too many) came to America from England...
Mother Shipton and her weirdly accurate prophecies
It's Harry Potter's birthday, but because of certain people's actions, let's focus on a famous witch from history! Well. Witch may be wrong. But she's...
Suitcase Mary and Her Band of Misfits
Ok, so Mary Bartelme aka Suitcase Mary didn't really have a band of misfits, but I would definitely at least pick up a book with that title. In broad...
Nigar Ahmad and Pakistan
Let’s look at Nigar Ahmad (1945-2017), whose Wikipedia entry is seriously LACKING. Ahmad worked for women’s rights in Pakistan, co-founding an organization...
The 1904 Fort Shaw Indian Girls' Basketball Team
Did you know! That in 1904, a group of seven girls in Montana were the champions of basketball? Probably not, because THE PATRIARCHY, but these young women,...
Mary Guinan is eradicating all your diseases
I looked up “woman epidemiologist,” because that seems relevant for our times, and I found Mary Guinan! Guinan is now 81 and is known for her work with...
Women's History Month's Greatest Hits
It’s Women’s History Month! Again! What a delightful time every year to focus on the history of half the population. I’m gonna be focusing on some fast facts...
Diane Nash is organizing all your protests
Diane Nash. What’d she do. If you’ve watched a documentary on the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, you’ve probably heard of SNCC: the...
Patsy Mink is gathering a coalition to enforce Title IX
PATSY MINK. Had you heard of her? I had not. Yet another reason we must seek out women in history, as they are pushed to the side by archivists, authors, and...
Peggy Barber is creating all your library nostalgia
Librarian and marketer Peggy Barber died last August at age 75. Few outside the library world know her name, but almost EVERYONE in America knows the...
We keep the history of women alive
Happy New Year! A few words from suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902): The greatest block to advancing civilization all along the line has been the...
Irene Morales is fighting for her country
I was reading about New Year’s Eve traditions around the world, and then I got to Chile: New Year’s Eve is celebrated in Chile by the observation of...
Lucía Sánchez Saornil is writing poems and taking names
The place! Spain. The time! 1931. Telephone operator Lucía Sánchez Saornil (pronounced according to here like “sour-NEIL”) goes on strike against the...
Eliza McCardle is marrying all your impeached presidents
Well. She married one of them. Eliza McCardle was married to impeached-due-to-being-a-major-tool Andrew Johnson, the 17th President of the United States....
Hoelun is saving all your families in the Mongolian wilderness
I'm reading a book called Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, and despite never having had a real interest in Genghis Khan...
Bloody Mary is not who you think she is (probably)
If you were ever a 12-year-old girl, you probably spent some time at a sleepover standing in front of a bathroom mirror, either saying "Bloody Mary" three...
Mary Blair is animating all your children's classics
I've been reading The Queens of Animation for the nonfiction books podcast I co-host and I have been consistently ASTOUNDED throughout it, particularly by...
Viola Desmond is not getting up
Let's talk about Viola Desmond. Looking up "most famous woman in Canada" yields few and scattered results. Looking up "famous woman in Canada," however,...
Anacaona is here for Indigenous People's Day
My excellent friend Kathleen asked if I was going to talk about anyone for Not Columbus Day, and I went "!!! that is an excellent idea." I looked up women...
National Coming Out Day
The history of LGBTQ+ people in America focuses on white gay men. For this women's history newsletter, let's look at some queer women's history. The...
Hypatia of Alexandria is building all your astrolabes
Hypatia of Alexandria! “Oh no” you say to yourself. “Not the story of Hypatia.” AND I GET IT. So sad. Such a very very very sad story (I hope those of you...
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer is rediscovering all your prehistoric fish
You know what everyone thought was extinct! The coelacanth! You know what isn't! That! The coelacanth (see-luh-kanth) is a big fish everyone thought died out...
Lillian Bullshows Hogan has stories to tell
For Friday's women's history newsletter, I want to quote from this University of Nebraska interview with Barbara Loeb, who co-wrote The Woman Who Loved...
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee is impressing the hell out of everyone
THE YEAR IS 1912. You are a Chinese American woman astride a horse in the New York women's suffrage parade. Later everyone talks about Inez Milholland on her...
Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin is taking the photo she wants
Last month, I went to the National Archives. So neat! But also NO PHOTOS ALLOWED. This was an especial bummer as they had a women’s suffrage exhibit with a...
Jane Austen was POISONED (...maybe)
Today, July 18th, is the anniversary of famed British author Jane Austen's death at the age of 41. If you search "jane austen death" then you'll get a bunch...
When the women before us got the vote
June 4, 2019 marks the 100 year anniversary of Congress passing the 19th Amendment, spelling out in our Constitution that “[t]he right of citizens of the...
The six wives of Henry VIII want you to know some things
In honor of seeing the musical SIX and because my piece for Vulture about Catherine of Aragon came out today, here are some quick facts about the...
Lek Chailert is saving elephants
I'm in France this week, so last week I of course googled "woman elephant" and immediately found an amazing woman from Thailand who is saving elephants. Lek...
Bonus: Margaret Sanger and her unusual last name
Who doesn’t love last name origin stories! According to HowManyofMe.com, “Sanger” is the 8,497th most popular last name in the United States. In total, there...
Catherine of Aragon will win all your battles
I know the question that has kept you up in a torment of unknowing is “DID famed 16th century English queen Catherine of Aragon protect England against...
Mary Ann Shadd Cary has had enough of this nonsense
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a bunch of bullshit. You know who else thought that? Mary Ann Shadd Cary. Shadd Cary (1823-1893) grew up in Delaware, but...
Emma Goldman wants you to dance in the revolution
It’s International Workers’ Day! Let’s look at Emma Goldman! Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a radical anarchist who is MOST famous for some variant of “If I...
Khutulun of Mongolia could probably spare some horses for a fellow horse gal
Khutulun of Mongolia, a 13th century warrior, SEEMS like fairytales were based off her. This is mainly because she said any man that wanted to marry her had...
Dorothea Dix will fix all your systems
Did you know! Dorothea Dix, in the mid-1800s, not ONLY visited every public and private mental facility she could, but she did so to catalog their issues and...
The Uprising of the 20,000!
This week is the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. That tragedy is well-talked about, so I’d instead like to focus on the amazing...
Fun facts about women warriors
Triệu Thị Trinh led over 1,000 Vietnamese people in rebellion against the Chinese in the 3rd century when she was TWENTY years old. Also she rode a war...
Doug tells us about Susanna M. Salter
My friend Doug has a long history of writing guest posts for me, and I can't have a themed series without him. A few weeks ago, he texted me saying "I just...
Clara Barton and Einstein
DID YOU KNOW Clara Barton was working in the U.S. Patent Office at the beginning of the Civil War? Then she was like “inventions be damned!” and went to...