Historical Memoirs Women

In 1956, Caedmon had the great fortune to record Eudora Welty reading some of her finest stories. In her sweetly vibrant Mississippi drawl, Ms. Welty deftly draws the listener in to the uproariously multilayered "Why I Live at the P.O.", the spontaneous "Powerhouse", and the insightful voice of women's truths in "Petrified Man". Ms. Welty's reading brings immediacy and resonance to these wonderful tales.

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928) is the most famous female Classicist in history, the author of books that revolutionized our understanding of Greek culture and religion. A star in the British academic world, she became the quintessential Cambridge woman—as Virginia Woolf suggested when, in A Room of One's Own, she claims to have glimpsed Harrison's ghost in the college gardens. This lively and innovative portrayal of a fascinating woman raises the question of who wins (and how) in the competition for academic fame. Mary Beard captures Harrison's ability to create her own image.

Before the Brontë sisters picked up their pens, or Jane Austen’s heroines Elizabeth and Jane Bennet became household names, the literary world was celebrating a different pair of sisters: Jane and Anna Maria Porter. The Porters were brilliant, attractive, self-made single women of polite reputation who between them published 26 books and achieved global fame. But history hasn’t been kind to the Porters. Credit for their literary invention was given to their childhood friend, Sir Walter Scott, who never publicly acknowledged the sisters’ works as his inspiration.

El 25 de marzo de 1942, cientos de jóvenes mujeres judías y solteras abandonaron sus hogares para subir a un tren. Estaban impecablemente vestidas y peinadas, y arrastraban sus maletas llenas de ropa tejida a mano y comida casera. La mayoría de estas mujeres y niñas nunca habían pasado ni una noche fuera de casa, pero se habían ofrecido voluntariamente para trabajar durante tres meses en época de guerra. Ninguno de sus padres habría adivinado que el gobierno acababa de vender a sus hijas a los nazis para trabajar como esclavas.

Tillie Pierce was 15 years old when the Battle of Gettysburg raged around her. The three-day battle fought in July 1863 proved to be the deadliest of the Civil War and the turning point of the conflict. Go behind the scenes and follow the bloody battle in Tillie’s own words.

Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of Founding Brothers and His Excellency brings America’s preeminent first couple to life in a moving and illuminating narrative that sweeps through the American Revolution and the republic’s tenuous early years. John and Abigail Adams left an indelible and remarkably preserved portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence: Both Adamses were prolific letter writers (although John conceded that Abigail was clearly the more gifted of the two), and over the years they exchanged more than 12,000 letters.

Few personalities from classical antiquity are more famous - yet more poorly understood - than Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt. In this major biography, Duane Roller reveals that Cleopatra was in fact a learned and visionary leader whose overarching goal was always the preservation of her dynasty and kingdom. Roller's authoritative account is the first to be based solely on primary materials from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents (Cleopatra's own writings), and representations in art and coinage produced while she was alive.

A scandalously talented stage performer, a practiced seductress of both men and women, and the flamboyant author of some of the greatest works of 20th-century literature, Colette was our first true superstar. Now, in Judith Thurman's Secrets of the Flesh, Colette at last has a biography worthy of her dazzling reputation.

Drawing on new sources and bringing a fresh, keen eye to the fabled creator of "the first flag", Marla R. Miller thoroughly reconstructs the life behind the legend. This authoritative and thoughtful work provides a close look at the famous seamstress, and along the way delivers an epic depiction of the tensions that animated life in Revolutionary Philadelphia. At the same time, Miller casts new light on the lives of the hardworking artisan families who peopled the young nation and crafted its furniture, clothing, ships, and homes.

Tras la invasión de Holanda, los Frank, comerciantes judíos alemanes emigrados a Amsterdam en 1933, se ocultaron de la Gestapo en una buhardilla anexa al edificio donde el padre de Ana tenía sus oficinas. Eran ocho personas y permanecieron recluidas desde junio de 1942 hasta agosto de 1944, fecha en que fueron detenidos y enviados a campos de concentración. En ese lugar y en las más precarias condiciones, Ana, a sus trece años, escribió su estremecedor Diario.

What could possibly go wrong in a wealthy matriarch's country home when her dilettante son, his restless wife, and his widowed brother live there together? Strong Passions, rooted in the beguiling times of Edith Wharton's "old New York," recounts the true story of a tumultuous marriage.

Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House is the life story of Elizabeth Keckley, a shrewd entrepreneur who, while enslaved, raised enough money to purchase freedom for herself and her son. Working as a seamstress and dressmaker for the wives of influential politicians, Keckley helped organize an auction of dresses that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln, the former first lady. The auction elicited strong criticism from the Washington elite.

This book is the product of The Earhart Project, a thirty-four-year investigation of the Earhart tragedy by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. TIGHAR investigators had no agenda. They were not out to advocate, excuse, honor, or impugn. They saw the Earhart disappearance as an aviation accident and reasoned the answer to its cause and outcome should be discoverable if they could find, assemble, and analyze the relevant data.

Using remarkable new sources, Sarah Bradford has written a timely celebration of a life that was more private than commonly supposed. Revealing new testimony from many of the couple's friends shows the complexities of this apparently very public relationship and of her controversial marriage to Aristotle Onassis. Here is the private Jackie - neglected wife, vigilant mother, and working widow - whose contradictory and fascinating nature is illuminated by all that Bradford has discovered.

At the age of 21, Edith Chaplin married one of the most eligible bachelors of the day, the eldest son of the sixth marquess of Londonderry. Her husband served in the Ulster cabinet and was air minister in the National Government of 1934-5. Edith founded the Women's Legion during the First World War and was also an early campaigner for women's suffrage. She created the renowned Mount Stewart Gardens in County Down that are now owned by the National Trust.

The 12th-century Christian mystic Hildegard of Bingen has been described as "...a visionary, scientist, diplomat, and poet." Created by Dr. Nancy Fierro, CSJ, Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of the Feminine transports us through space and time to the medieval cloisters where Hildegard struggled to express her spirituality. How she succeeded in a world open only to men holds lessons for every woman in every age.

From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians, a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin' s youngest sister and a history of history itself. Like her brother, Jane Franklin was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator.

The remarkable double life of an American-turned-British spy, Virginia Hall, a 'bolshie' woman from Maryland who, determined to overcome a physical disability that threatened to define her life, successfully infiltrated Vichy France for England's SOE before America's entry into WWII and then, three years later, for the SOS, providing crucial intelligence and logistics for the mounting French Resistance and, later, Allied troops.

At the height of the Great Depression, Sam Babb, the charismatic basketball coach of tiny Oklahoma Presbyterian College, began dreaming. Like so many others, he wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm, he recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education if they would come play for his basketball team, the Cardinals. Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices faced by their families, the women followed Babb and his dream.