Well, the time has come. I’m turning 21 today, and I couldn’t think of anything more on-brand to celebrate the big day than to combine alcohol with history and count you guys down to my […]
REVIEW: “Elizabeth Warren: Her Fight. Her Work. Her Life.” by Antonia Felix
It’s hard to know whether or not the fact Antonia Felix’s “Elizabeth Warren: Her Fight. Her Work. Her Life,” reads like a young adult version of a more complex and mature text is a good […]
Frequent Fascinations: August 2018
Wow. It’s not only the end of another month, but it’s also practically the end of summer! I’ve even seen that Pumpkin Spice is starting to make its annual invasion. The rest of my summer […]
REVIEW: “Playing to the Gods” by Peter Rader
It doesn’t come as a surprise that Peter Rader’s “Playing to the Gods: Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the Rivalry That Changed Acting Forever” began as a screenplay. The simultaneously opulent and tragic world of […]
Brazilian biologist Bertha Lutz was one of the only four women to sign the UN charter
For a while, like most people, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve always loved to write but I also always loved history. When I chose to go to […]
Her name’s Warne, Kate Warne, and she was America’s first private eye
Everyone loves a good spy story. The highest-grossing movies and T.V. shows seem to be filled with dangerous missions and clever aliases. All I’ve been hearing the past several weeks is how good the new […]
REVIEW: “A Girl’s Guide to Missiles” by Karen Piper
At its core, Karen Piper’s memoir “A Girl’s Guide to Missiles: Growing up in America’s Secret Desert” is about war. However, it’s not just about military warfare and the weapons used to wage it, developed […]
Judith Leyster’s radical artistic afterlife and the lasting importance of art
I had the opportunity a year ago to attend the Southeast premiere of “Loving Vincent,” the movie about Vincent van Gogh’s death animated entirely in painted frames inspired by his classic style. What struck me […]
How Mary Kenner and her inventions took on two social taboos: black women in business and periods
Every time I sit down to write my Frequent Fascinations at the end of each month, I always start off by saying “Well, it’s that time of the month.” Then I realize that that could […]
REVIEW: “Fly Girls” by Keith O’Brien
“Two capital T’s stand in the way of [women’s] progress,” Amelia Earhart said once to a group of young ladies. “One is Training—or lack of it. The other, Tradition.” In “Fly Girls: How Five Daring […]
Virginia Irwin, the WWII correspondent who broke news, broke rules and broke barriers
When I was in fifth grade, we had a career unit in our social studies class called “J.A. Biztown.” We learned about interview techniques, job applications, financial literacy and business skills and the whole course […]
Rose Bertin, the first fashion designer who really knew how to network
One of the biggest majors at my art school is fashion and the kids studying it intimidate the hell out of me. In fact, when I first found out that my first two roommates were […]
REVIEW: “JELL-O Girls” by Allie Rowbottom
Perhaps the most resonant line in Allie Rowbottom’s “JELL-O Girls” is the following: “We are all connected, we women, we JELL-O girls, bound by a web of common experience.” It could be true that all […]
Fe del Mundo, a pediatrician of many firsts, including the first woman admitted to Harvard
As a child, I had this particular knack at getting what seemed like annual cases of both pink eye and strep throat and so I spent many a time at the doctor’s office. I would […]
Frequent Fascinations: July 2018
Is it just me or did it seem like July lasted WAY longer than most months seem to? Most of the time when I sit down to write my Frequent Fascinations for the month, it […]
Unburying the story of first female U.S. solider Margaret Cochran Corbin from legend
I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it is to find a truly wonderful story for this site, dig into the research a little more and then find out that most of it is […]
Annette Kellerman saved women from drowning by inventing the one-piece
I love nearly everything about summer except for my allergies. As someone who was told to “build a bubble because, honey, you are allergic to the world” by the PA at the allergist’s office, the […]
If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here next to Alice Roosevelt
This past Saturday marked the one hundred year anniversary of Quentin Roosevelt’s death in aerial combat over France. Now, this struck me for two reasons. The first is that Quentin was born nearly one hundred […]
Christine de Pizan, the first person to write while female (as told by my ninth-grade self)
I promised months ago in my post on Caterina Sforza that I would talk about Christine de Pizan, the medieval figure I chose to be for Medieval Day in the ninth grade. In looking back at […]
Frequent Fascinations: May and June 2018
So I realize it isn’t the end of the month but I’ve been gone for two months during which I’ve found a lot of new obsessions too delightful not to share. If you don’t know […]
Wang Zhenyi: the creative genius who made science rule
From an early age, it was clear that science just wasn’t my thing. I really tried but my style of thinking couldn’t break down huge concepts to smaller levels. I loved watching “Bill Nye the […]
Let’s Catch Up, Shall We?
Yes, she lives and she is profoundly sorry for her two-month absence. But, she is back and for some reason talking in the third person. First things first, thank you so much for your patience […]
Half a century before she could even vote, Victoria Woodhull ran for U.S. President
Recently, I’ve started to feel older. Not old, necessarily, just older and more aware of the history I’ve seen in my life. I’ve started to realize that I’ve lived through events that people will ask […]
Margaret Getchell: the first female business exec who revolutionized retail
Because this blog site has yet to live through Christmas, you have yet to experience the pure euphoria the holiday season brings me. Every year, around this time, I start to go through withdrawal and […]
Frequent Fascinations: April 2018
Well, yet another month has whizzed on by…I can’t believe tomorrow is May. It seems like I barely had time to be obsessed by anything other than sleep. Nonetheless, I have five wonderful picks that […]
Why I’ll never watch Dancing with the Stars without thinking about Beryl de Zoete
One of my many weird and wacky obsessions is “Dancing with the Stars.” I can’t get enough of it. I love watching the way that celebrities are taken out of their element and transformed by […]
The anything if bland Lilian Bland: photographer, aviator, car dealer, gambler, you name it…
Since I was a little girl, I always moved around rapidly from one hobby to the next. I would be obsessed with making a script out of a book I was reading and then I […]
Ida B. Wells: The Foul-Mouthed “Princess of the Press” who spoke out against the South’s horrific lynchings
Something I’ve noticed reading story after story about women throughout history is that so many accounts base the women they feature off of the actions of another woman. For instance, I’ve read about nearly ten […]
But Here’s The Thing About: Hedy Lamarr
In my Writing for New Media class, we had a reading the other day that recounted the history of communication, tracing in tedious detail the evolution of telegraph to cell phone. I kept waiting to […]
Jackie Mitchell, the girl who took on Ruth, Gehrig and the world of baseball
It’s National Library Week and I’m feeling the nostalgia of my elementary school days when we had a whole week of reading celebrations. We would keep track of all the books we read throughout year […]
