American Womens History

This immersive and empowering book blends history, reporting, and personal stories to weave a gorgeous tapestry from the resilience of Black women. As White writes, “Black women are not victims. Black women are alchemists, spinning gold from a life of hardship. . . . This book is dedicated solely to Black women surviving, thriving, and glowing.” White’s book features revolutionary women from across time and space, liberating them from reductive stereotypes like “the strong Black woman,” and allowing space for emotional nuance, individual motivation, and richness of expression.

Born the eighth of 17 children in Philadelphia, Betsy Ross lived in a time when the American colonies were yearning for independence from British rule. Ross worked as a seamstress and was eager to contribute to the cause, making tents and repairing uniforms when the colonies declared war. By 1779 she was filling cartridges for the Continental Army. Did she sew the first flag? That's up for debate, but Who Was Betsy Ross? tells the story of a fierce patriot who certainly helped create the flag of a new nation.

For a long time, the main role of First Ladies was to act as hostesses of the White House...until Eleanor Roosevelt. Born in 1884, Eleanor was not satisfied to just be a glorified hostess for her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Eleanor had a voice, and she used it to speak up against poverty and racism. She had experience and knowledge of many issues, and fought for laws to help the less fortunate. She had passion, energy, and a way of speaking that made people listen, and she used these gifts to campaign for her husband and get him elected president - four times!

Chelsea Clinton introduces tiny feminists, mini activists, and little kids who are ready to take on the world to 13 inspirational women who never took no for an answer, and who always, inevitably and without fail, persisted. Throughout United States history, there have always been women who have spoken out for what's right, even when they have to fight to be heard. In this audiobook, Chelsea Clinton celebrates 13 American women who helped shape our country through their tenacity, sometimes through speaking out, sometimes by staying seated, sometimes by captivating an audience.

Louisa on the Frontlines is the first narrative nonfiction book focusing on Louisa May Alcott's career as a nurse during the Civil War. Though her service was brief, the dramatic experience was one that she considered pivotal in helping her write the classic Little Women....

In tracing the rise of the modern idea of the American "new woman", Lynn Dumenil examines World War I's surprising impact on women and, in turn, women's impact on the war. Telling the stories of a diverse group of women, including African Americans, dissidents, pacifists, reformers, and industrial workers, Dumenil analyzes both the roadblocks and opportunities they faced. She richly explores the ways in which women helped the United States mobilize for the largest military endeavor in the nation's history.

Social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism by building digital communities and using social media as powerful platforms. As Jones reveals, some of the best-loved devices of our shared social media language are a result of Black women’s innovations, from well-known, movement-building hashtags (#BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and #BlackGirlMagic) to the now ubiquitous use of threaded tweets as a marketing and storytelling tool.

Shortly after a dismembered torso was discovered by a pond outside Philadelphia in 1887, investigators homed in on two suspects: Hannah Mary Tabbs, a married, working-class Black woman, and George Wilson, a former neighbor whom Tabbs implicated after her arrest. As details surrounding the shocking case emerged, both the crime and ensuing trial - which spanned several months - were featured in the national press. The trial brought otherwise taboo subjects such as illicit sex, adultery, and domestic violence in the Black community to public attention.

In America, lipstick is the foundation of empires; it’s a signature of identity; it’s propaganda, self-expression, oppression, freedom, and rebellion. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry and one of our most iconic accessories of gender. This engaging and entertaining history of lipstick from the colonies to the present day will give listeners a new view of the little tube’s big place in modern America, from defining the middle class to building Fortune 500 businesses to being present at Stonewall and being engineered for space travel.

The Seneca Falls Convention is typically seen as the beginning of the first women's rights movement in the United States. Revolutionary Backlash argues otherwise. Integrating the approaches of women's historians and political historians, this book explores changes in women's status that occurred from the time of the American Revolution until the election of Andrew Jackson.

In this fascinating work, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota and Red Lake Ojibwe Nation member Brenda J. Child spotlights the remarkable women of the Ojibwe Nation. A stunning look at a seldom explored subject in history, Holding Our World Together shows how American Indian women have profoundly influenced Native American life - from the days of the European fur trade to the present - in activism, community, and beyond.

In the first biography of Billie Holiday in more than two decades, Paul Alexander—author of heralded lives of Sylvia Plath and J. D. Salinger—gives us an unconventional portrait of arguably America’s most eminent jazz singer. He shrewdly focuses on the last year of her life—with relevant flashbacks to provide context—to evoke and examine the persistent magnificence of Holiday’s artistry when it was supposed to have declined, in the wake of her drug abuse, relationships with violent men, and run-ins with the law.

In 1975, a group of amazing women rowed their way to international success and glory, battling sexual prejudice, bureaucracy, and male domination. Among the members of the first international women's crew team - and one of the first women's teams anywhere - were Gail Pearson, the soft-spoken MIT professor who fought to win the political battles necessary for her team to succeed; lead rower Carie Graves, a statuesque bohemian from rural Wisconsin who dropped out of college and later became the most intense rower of the crew; and Lynn Stillman, a tiny 16-year-old, Californian coxswain.

Eyewitness accounts from over 50 diaries of southern women facing the hardships of the Civil War. Includes voices of slave women. As Yankee soldiers plundered, and starvation stalked the land, they hid food and heirlooms in wells and swamps. They watched Atlanta and Georgia burn and fed hungry children. Vivid accounts of women who witnessed the battles. Turned into food scavengers at the brink of starvation, southern women devised ways to feed their children.

While the stories of the major players like JFK, Joe Biden and others such as Tip O’Neil are well known, others who were just as influential deserve their stories told. Irish American men and women whose lives impacted not only on the history of America but also the world. The Irish in power is the story of some of America’s most flamboyant and influential Irish American politicians. It tells the tales of the men and women whose ancestors left Ireland in poverty and hunger who then climbed the greasy pole of political power and helped forge a superpower. Irish people have been ...

Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA's African American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America's space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as 'human computers', calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African American women.

The Block Manager is the gripping memoir of Janet, an American-born child of Japanese immigrants. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Janet's life in California was uprooted when thousands of Japanese Americans on the West Coast - including Janet's family - were forced into internment camps. Because of her brilliant command of English and Japanese, she was assigned the job of block manager. Janet was shuffled between three camps, got married, and had a child while the war raged on.

The life of Queen Elizabeth I was dramatic and dangerous: cast out of her father's court at the age of three and imprisoned at 19, Elizabeth was crowned queen in 1558, when she was only 25. A tough, intelligent woman who spoke five languages, Elizabeth ruled for over 40 years and led England through one of its most prosperous periods in history.

Molly McClain tells the remarkable story of Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932), an American newspaperwoman, feminist, suffragist, abolitionist, and social reformer who used her fortune to support women’s education, the labor movement, and public access to science, the arts, and education.

Abigail Adams was a strong woman far ahead of her time. She urged her husband, President John Adams, to "remember the ladies" and despite having no formal education herself, she later advocated for equal education in public schools for both boys and girls. She was also the first First Lady to live in the White House! This biography tells the story of Abigail Adams and her role in America's Revolutionary War period.