Women’s involvement in brewing beer has been documented back to four-thousand years ago in Mesopotamia. If you look at the brewing business today, the majority of micro and macro breweries are owned and run by men. Did you know in the eighteenth century, a good portion of brewers in America were women? Did you also[…]
Three stories that show how women have created throughout history. By Lyra Kilston, Judith Barr, Elizabeth Morrison, and Emily Beeny Introduction “What if Picasso had been born a girl?” asked art historian Linda Nochlin in 1971. Would her talent have been cultivated the same way by her art-teacher father? Would she have been allowed entry[…]
This was the generation of suffragists who challenged society’s expectations of what it meant to be a woman. Introduction “Miles of Fluttering Femininity Present Entrancing Suffrage Appeal” Washington Post, 1913 On March 3, 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration, thousands of women marched along Pennsylvania Avenue–the same route that the inaugural parade would[…]
During the early to mid-20th century, American textile workers of all categories were subjected to abysmal working conditions, Introduction The New York shirtwaist strike of 1909, also known as the Uprising of the 20,000, was a labour strike primarily involving Jewish women working in New York shirtwaist factories. It was the largest strike by female American workers up to that date. Led by Clara Lemlich and[…]
How a 1970s feminist art group showed the value of hidden work. By Sarah WadeSpecial Collections ArchivistGetty Research Institute In 1977, the feminist group Mother Art staged performances in five laundromats across Los Angeles. Over the course of one wash and dry cycle, Mother Art artists hung their artworks on clotheslines and, against the hum[…]
“We have got to have a military formation of the women.” By Edward McClellandAuthor and Historian In downtown Flint, Mich., stands a pantheon of statues dedicated to automotive pioneers. David Buick and Louis Chevrolet, the namesakes of two of General Motors’ classic brands, are both world famous. Some Flintstones would like to add a statue[…]
The five-year program opened the minds of their male peers to the women’s abilities. By Nathaniel PatchArchives SpecialistU.S. National Archives and Records Administration Introduction I’ve been in frigid Greenland and in sunny Tennessee,I’ve been in noisy London and in wicked, gay Paree,I’ve seen the Latin Quarter, with its models, wines, and tights,I’ve hobnobbed oft with[…]
How Gilda Darthy’s bed tells a story about writing women back into history. By Amanda BermanCuratorial Assistant, Department of Sculpture and Decorative ArtsGetty Museum With its grand size and luxurious upholstery, this bed makes a statement. However, it is also special because we know so much about it. It’s unusual for an 18th-century piece of[…]
Much of the iconography we associate with witches, from the pointy hat to the cauldron, originated from women working as master brewers. Introduction What do witches have to do with your favorite beer? When I pose this question to students in my American literature and culture classes, I receive stunned silence or nervous laughs. The[…]
After the development of craft beer in the early 1980s, more women started to once again infiltrate the industry. Birth of the Fermented Beverage The earliest record of beer being produced comes from Mesopotamia around 5300 BCE, by accident, when a woman whom was later known as Ninkasi, the “goddess of beer” stumbled upon the[…]
A glimpse of the everyday challenges and triumphs medieval women faced during the Middle Ages. By Erin Migdol, Elizabeth Morrison, and Larisa Grollemond Introduction While depictions of the Middle Ages often revolve around knights, dragons, and fairy tales, the stories of how real people lived during this tumultuous time are often even more fascinating—particularly the[…]
Women as warriors—or certainly hunters and not simply gatherers—have a long history reaching back thousands of years to pre-history. The American experience with true women warriors—not just our wonderful Hollywood Wonder Woman—has only recently begun. However, with the benefit of recent archaeological discoveries and re-examinations, we can say that women have been warriors—or certainly hunters—for[…]
Throughout the wartime years, the need for workers in agriculture, as well as in manufacturing and the military, was unprecedented. By Dr. Judy Barrett LitoffProfessor of HistoryBryant University By Dr. David C. SmithBird and Bird Professor Emeritus of American HistoryThe University of Maine We’re working for Victory, too; growing food for ourselves and our countrymen.[…]
Honoring the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement. My project, Mug Shot Portraits: Women of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, illuminates the under-acknowledged legacy of Black women’s activism through a series of portraits based on mug shots of women who were arrested during the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and ’56, the pivotal event that[…]
Studying history is like detective work—especially when the rebellion of Black women has been left out of the story. In her new book, A Kick in the Belly, Afrocentric British historian Stella Dadzie describes how her research into slavery-era documents reveals the lives of enslaved Black women in the Caribbean colonies and the American South.[…]
Even without the right to vote, Black women engaged in political organizing and partisan debates. Today, Black women’s influence in political campaigns is visible and dramatic. In recent presidential and midterm elections, over 90% of Black women’s votes went to the Democratic candidates. Preliminary figures for the 2020 presidential election indicate that the Biden/Harris ticket[…]
Queen Bona helps us understand how elite Renaissance women acquired, maintained, and negotiated power. Among the women of the European Renaissance, Bona Sforza is often stereotyped similarly to her aunt – the fabulous Lucrecia Borgia – as a dangerous and meddling femme fatale. Bona Sforza was the daughter of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, the Duke of[…]
Lucy and Suzanne’s story shows that quiet, persistent rewriting of the narrative of oppression can be a powerful means of fighting back. Whenever Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe went into town to do some shopping, they also snuck messages to the Nazi occupation forces. Suzanne pulled a small note typed on a piece of thin[…]
It can be hard to estimate broad social trends in the Middle Ages, but some sources allow us to get pretty good samples. Inheritance vs. Appointment This is a question which people have struggled with for a very long time, as a case of disputed succession from fourteenth-century France shows. In 1341, the duke of[…]
A new book explores the photographer’s dedication to feminism and civil rights in the early 20th century. By Zoe Goldman and Estefana Valencia Introduction Photographer Imogen Cunningham was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1883, when the fight for equal rights for women—legally, politically, economically, and socially—was gaining ground in the U.S. Cunningham’s career and life[…]
Exploring one of the earliest bids by a woman to secure celebrity through curation of “personal brand”. This article, “I Am My Own Heroine”: How Marie Bashkirtseff Rewrote the Route to Fame, was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/legal/ The diary[…]
These women have had massive impacts on our laws and the advancement of human rights. Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddle masses yearning to breathe free Most famous for her poem, “The New Colossus,” now engraved on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus was one[…]
All opportunities for education, prospect, liberation and development were closed to women. By Khelifa Arezki and Katia Mahmoudi Introduction The aim of the present paper is to shed light on women’s condition within the American society during the colonial period and the 19th century. The study will center on the gendered place that women were[…]
The very concept of “woman” changed in a number of ways during the Middle Ages. Introduction Women in the Middle Ages occupied a number of different social roles. During the Middle Ages, a period of European history lasting from around the 5th century to the 15th century, society was patriarchal and this type of patriarchal[…]
Kübler-Ross was one of the central figures in the hospice care movement. Introduction Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (July 8, 1926 – August 24, 2004) was a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, and author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying (1969), where she first discussed her theory of the five stages of grief,[…]
She was the first woman to be elected head of the American Heart Association. Introduction Helen Brooke Taussig (May 24, 1898 – May 20, 1986) was an American cardiologist, working in Baltimore and Boston, who founded the field of pediatric cardiology. She is credited with developing the concept for a procedure that would extend the[…]
The final step toward ratification hinged on the decision of one young man in Tennessee: State Rep. Harry T. Burn. Introduction The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified 100 years ago this week, and it comprises just 39 words: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied[…]
How suffragists first used hunger strikes as a form of resistance and protest. Introduction Asylum seekers held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in California have launched a series of hunger strikes to demand personal protective equipment, medical care and provisional release as COVID-19 cases surge among incarcerated populations. In Kentucky, four activists went[…]
A new paper makes the case that scholars have ignored the role of female ceramicists in Greece going back some 3,000 years. By Dr. Max G. Levy Painted over the enormous midsection of the Dipylon amphora—a nearly 2,800-year-old clay vase from Greece—silhouetted figures surround a corpse in a funeral scene. Intricate geometric patterns zig and[…]
A warrior for every social justice movement of her day, Abzug stood on the front lines protesting injustices that still roil this nation. Introduction Since winning the vote a century ago, only four American women have captured the major parties’ nominations for president and vice president. Blasting open the road leading them to the top[…]