Showing titles in Women

The indisputable “queen of crosswords,” Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.

More than a century ago, a woman ran in the very first modern Olympic marathon. She just did it without permission. Award-winning journalist Maggie Mertens uncovers the story of how women broke into competitive running and how they are getting faster and fiercer every day—and changing our understanding of what is possible as they go.

In Women Money Power, business journalist Josie Cox tells the story of women’s fight for freedom and economic equality. This is an inspirational account of brave pioneers who took on social mores and the law, including the “Rosies,” who filled industrial jobs and helped win World War II, the heiress whose fortune helped create the birth control pill, the brassy banker who broke into the boys’ club of the New York Stock Exchange, and the namesake of landmark equal-pay legislation who refused to accept discrimination.

From 1897 to 1917 the red-light district of Storyville commercialized and even thrived on New Orleans' longstanding reputation for sin and sexual excess. This notorious neighborhood, located just outside of the French Quarter, hosted a diverse cast of characters who reflected the cultural milieu and complex social structure of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, a city infamous for both prostitution and interracial intimacy.

What does it mean to be someone's "muse"? Historically, to be called a “muse” among artistic circles has been marketed as a flattering title. But the very concept of a muse underestimates these women and their abilities. At its root, muse is a support role, the title a consolation prize that claims to recognize a woman’s greatness—but only in her support of another. I'm Not Your Muse reclaims the narrative of 31 of these extraordinary women.

Betty Boyd Caroli's engrossing and informative First Ladies is an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America's First Ladies. Caroli observes the role as it has shifted and evolved from ceremonial backdrop to substantive world figure. This expanded and updated fifth edition presents Caroli's keen political analysis and astute observations of recent developments, including Melania Trump's reluctance to take on the mantle and former First Lady Hilary Clinton's recent run for president. Caroli here contributes a new preface and updated chapters.

In this fascinating and insightful book, feminist curator Rachael Lennon provides an intimate and intersectional examination of the history of marriage around the world.

Recoding History: The Audacious Women Who Shaped Our Digital World is an immersive look into the lives of some of computer history's most ingenious and audacious women. Pulling from the Computer History Museum’s archives and hosted by Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, listeners will learn and laugh along with these great minds as they recount their stories in their own words.

The day Jessica Hamel-Akré discovered the ideas of George Cheyne—an 18th century polymath and London society figure known as 'Dr Diet'—it sparked an intellectual obsession, a ten-year study of women's appetite and a personal unraveling. As Hamel-Akré follows Cheyne through the pages of medical studies, novels and historical scandals, she meets ash-eating mystics, wasting society girls, impoverished female fasters and early feminist philosophers. In doing so she uncovers a twisted three-hundred year history of harmful ideals and male domination that still influences today's diet culture.

Delve into the remarkable and inspiring life of one of history's unsung heroes, Irena Sendler. This compelling biography chronicles the extraordinary journey of a Polish social worker who, during the darkest days of World War II, risked her life to save over 2,500 Jewish children from the clutches of the Nazi regime.

Discover the stories of 12 women who heard the call to settle the West and who came from all points of the globe to begin their journeys. As a slave Clara watched helplessly as her husband and children were sold, only to be reunited with her youngest daughter as a free woman six decades later. As a young girl, Charlotte hid her gender to escape a life of poverty and became the greatest stagecoach driver who ever lived. As a Native American, Gertrude fought to give her people a voice and to educate leaders about the ways and importance of America's native people.

This work of history puts girls of all races—and the landscapes they loved—at center stage and reveals the impact of the outdoors on women's independence, resourcefulness, and vision.

From the beautiful apsaras of Hindu myth to the swan maidens of European fairy tales, stories of flying women - some carried by wings, others by clouds, rainbows, floating scarves, and flying horses - reveal the perennial fascination with and ambivalence about female power and sexuality. In Women Who Fly, Serinity Young examines the motif of the flying woman as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions.

A Flower Traveled in My Blood is the rarest of nonfiction that reads like a novel and puts your heart in your throat. It is the product of years of extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting. It marks the arrival of a blazing new talent in narrative journalism. In this audiobook, a regime tries to terrorize a country, but love prevails. The grandmothers’ stunning stories reveal new truths about memory, identity, and family.

Kitty Marion was sent across the country by the Pankhurst family to carry out a nationwide campaign of bombings and arson attacks, as women fought for the vote using any means necessary. But in the aftermath of World War One, the dangerous and revolutionary actions of Kitty and other militant suffragettes were quickly hushed up and disowned by the previously proud movement, and the women who carried out these attacks were erased from our history. Now, for the first time, their untold story will be brought back to life.

From the 1910 disappearance of New York heiress Dorothy Arnold to the 1977 vanishing of teenager Simone Ridinger, author Brunelle details both famous and lesser-known cases that remain unsolved.

Hollywood was born just over a century ago, at a time of huge forward motion for women's rights. With no rules in place to stop them, there were women who forged ahead in many areas of filmmaking. Yet, despite the work of early pioneers like Dorothy Arzner, Mabel Normand, Mary Pickford and Alice Guy-Blaché, it soon came to embody the same old sexist standards. Women found themselves fighting a system that fed on their talent, creativity and beauty but refused to pay them the same respect as their male contemporaries - until now....

"If you're not strong enough to swim fast, you're probably not strong enough to swim 'pretty," said a young Esther Williams to theater impresario Billy Rose. Since the nineteenth century, tensions between beauty and strength, aesthetics and athleticism have both impeded and propelled the careers of female swimmers—none more so than synchronized swimmers, for whom Williams is often considered godmother. In this riveting history—the first of its kind—Vicki Valosik traces a century of aquatic performance, from vaudeville and dime museums to the Olympic arena.

The names of few medieval monarchs and their queens are better known than Eleanor of Aquitaine, uniquely queen of France and queen of England, and her second husband Henry II. Although academically labeled "medieval," their era was the violent transition from the Dark Ages, when countries' borders were defined with fire and sword. If princes fought for their succession to crowns, the princesses were traded—usually by their mothers—to strangers for political power without the bloodshed.

The Nineteenth Amendment was an incomplete victory. Black and white women fought for voting rights and doubled the number of eligible voters, but the amendment did not enfranchise all women or even protect the rights of those women who could vote. A century later, women are still grappling with how to use the vote and their political power to expand civil rights, confront racial violence, improve maternal health, advance educational and employment opportunities, and secure reproductive rights. Formidable chronicles the efforts of white and Black women to advance sometimes competing causes.