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Women’s History Articles – Free Online Collection

Women's History Articles - Free Online Collection

Women’s History Articles from Newspapers and Magazines. Also podcasts and online videos on the history of women.

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Suffragettes

In 1903 the suffragettes of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) split from the suffragists of the National Union of Womn’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) to follow the militant agend ‘deeds not words’. In the years that followed, these women took radical steps to force a change in the laws in Britain for women. But how much do we really know about the Suffragettes?

Dr Jacqui Turner, History Extra 2015

100 Must-Read Classics By Women

This list is just a sampling of great books written by women of the past. For the purposes of this list, ‘ve defined classics as books that are more than 50 years old. The list of classics by women focuses on novels, but there are some plays, poems, and works of nonfiction as well.

Teresa Preston, BookRiot 2017

10 amazing women in science history you really should know about

We’ve all heard of the likes of Ada Lovelace, Rosalind Franklin and Marie Curie, but there are many more famous women in STEM that deserve your attention.

Alexander McNamara Science Focus 2019

Forgotten Feminisms: An Appeal Against ‘Domestic Despotism’

Judith Shulevitz, New York Review of Books 2018

Forgotten Feminisms: Ernestine Rose, Free Radical

Rose began agitating for women’s rights a decade before Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and she mentored them both. As a public speaker, Rose was more famous—and notorious—than they were, at least in her heyday.

Judith Shulevitz, New York Review of Books 2018

11 Essential Feminist Books: A New Reading List by The New York Public Library

“Know Your Feminisms”–a book list “essential for understanding the history of feminism and the women’s rights movement”–could easily be used in a Feminism 101 course. It runs chronologically, beginning with these ten volumes (the quoted descriptions come from Lynn Lobash)

Open Culture 2016

6 Feminist Icons Who Don’t Get The Credit They Deserve

We are where we are today only because of the women who were brave enough to speak out when they had no right to do so. We all know the famous ones like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but there are so many more. Here are five feminist icons who were strong voices in the fight for women’s rights.

Mackenzie Lowry, ATI 2017

A Birth-Control Crusader: “The Sex Side of Life”–Mary Ware Dennett’s Pioneering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education

Review of “The Sex Side of Life”–Mary Ware Dennett’s Pioneering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education, by Constance Chen.

Marjorie Heins, Atlantic 1996

How the 19th-century bicycle craze empowered women and changed fashion

At the end of the 19th century, for just a few years, bicycles were all the rage. The cycling craze got millions of Americans moving in a new way—and women moving away from restrictive domestic spaces and restrictive clothing. But the bicycle changed first.

Hannah S. Ostroff, Smithsonian Insider 2018

How the Bicycle Paved the Way for Women’s Rights

The technology craze of the 1890s meant fashion freedom and transportation independence.

Adrienne LaFrance 2014

A History of Women’s Prisons

This article on women’s prisoners contains links to a number of other scholarly articles on the same topic.

Jessica Pishko, JSTOR 2015

Books about women workers

Address in favor of universal suffrage by Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1867

This 1867 publication also contains the Constitution of the American Equal Rights Association.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1867

Sanitising the Suffragettes

Why is it so easy to forget an unsavoury aspect of Britain’s recent past?

Fern Riddell, History Today 2018

Writing in the Public Eye, These Women Brought the 20th Century Into Focus

Michelle Dean’s new book, ‘Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion’, looks at the intellects who cut through the male-dominated public conversation.

Anna Diamond, Smithsonian 2018

Where have all the Suffragists gone? Deconstructing Children’s History Books

As a scholar interested in teaching and learning Canadian history, I am embarking on a series of blog posts for Active History about the representation of the post-confederation period (1867-1920) in picture books for children ages 4 to 10.

Samantha Cutrara, Active History 2017

Beyond the Veil: Women in the Mideast and North Africa

Highlighting the region’s great range of historical experiences, the guests question the idea that women’s rights marks a divide between Islamic societies and the “West,” explore the history of women’s movements, and address the ways in which the flourishing of new media is transforming political and artistic expression throughout the Islamic world.

Johanna Sellman, Gulsah Toronoglu, and Sabra Webber, Origins 2016

California Once Targeted Latinas for Forced Sterilization

In the 20th century, U.S. eugenics programs rendered tens of thousands of people infertile.

Nicole L. Novak and Natalie Lira, Smithsonian.com 2018

Cathay Williams; female Buffalo Soldier

Posing as a man, she gave the name Williams Cathay when she enlisted in the army in St Louis, Missouri in November 1866. Her cousin and friend were the only two people who knew her true identity. She served in one of the newly formed all-black units, known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

katacharin, Sheroes of History 2017

Why Former Suffragettes Flocked to British Fascism

Sir Oswald Mosley’s fascist movement appealed to even the most revolutionary of suffragettes.

Martin Pugh, Slate 2017

Why the Pulitzer Prize committee keeps ignoring women’s history

Women’s work hasn’t been hidden. It just hasn’t been seen

Elizabeth Cobbs, Washington Post 2018

Women and Politics in the Era of the American Revolution

Extended encyclopedia entry, with bibliography

Sheila L. Skemp, Oxford Research Encyclopedias 2016

Entering the arena: women, politics and twentieth century Britain – Podcast

Throughout the twentieth century, British women defied the social conventions of their day to seek influence in the political arena. Dr Helen McCarthy tells their story of struggle to stand on the diplomatic stage while Dr Thomas Dixon explores women in politics through the history of emotions.

Dr Helen McCarthy, Dr Thomas Dixon, British Academy 2016

Historian Louise Mirrer Reminds Us to Never Forget

The women who made American history have been neglected’,  declares Louise Mirrer, president of the New-York Historical Society”. ‘There are names that we’ve never heard of, or women we have heard of, but heard of in the most trivial ways’, frets Mirrer, who has worked to remedy such oversights throughout her career.

David Wallis, Observer 2016

How ‘domestic’ was women’s work?

It is a commonly held perception that the majority of women throughout history have spent the majority of their time engaged in ‘domestic duties’ of various sorts. But what exactly do we mean by’domestic’ here? Historians have often [used the term] with different meanings of it in mind.

Mark Hailwood, Women’s Work in Rural England, 1500-1700, 2016

Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard – review

In tracing the roots of misogyny to Athens and Rome, Mary Beard has produced a modern feminist classic

Rachel Cooke, The Guardian 2017

Women Built London’s Waterloo Bridge, But It Took These Photos to Prove It

For more than half a century, it was just a rumor. As London’s river boat pilots passed by Waterloo Bridge (“The Ladies’ Bridge,” as some of them called it) they’d tell a story about the women who had built the bridge during World War II. But the idea that women had been largely involved in building Waterloo Bridge wasn’t included in any official history of the structure, or detailed in any records.

Anika Burgess, Atlas Obscura 2018

How 19th Century Cotton Mills Influenced Workplace Gender Roles

Introduction to the topic and a link to a 1988 academic paper by Marianna Valverde, “”Giving the Female a Domestic Turn”: The Social, Legal and Moral Regulation of Women’s Work in British Cotton Mills, 1820-1850″.

Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily 2016

Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Justice – Podcast

Reproduction: it’s as essential to life as breathing, yet the right to make decisions regarding one’s reproduction is among the most divisive issues of our time. Guests discuss the past, present, and future of reproductive rights and reproductive justice.

Mytheli Sreenivas, Allison Norris, and Molly Farrell, Origins 2016

Surplus Women – Podcast

Dr Rosemary Wall, University of Hull, explores how the deaths of 700 000 British men affected the lives of the country’s women following the First World War. With over 1/2 million more unmarried women in 25-34 age group, many women applied to the Overseas Nursing Association to increase their chances of marriage.

Dr Rosemary Wall, University of Oxford

The Entitlements of Freedom: A Mother’s Pursuit of Mastery in the Antebellum South

A United States provost marshal, a wealthy shoemaker, and one of the largest slave traders for the St. Louis market, these are the powerful white men Margaret Davis, a free black woman, engaged in a legal battle over the ownership of her daughter Patsey.

Alisha J. Hines, Process: A blog for American History 2018

Women in American Politics – Podcast

Guests discuss the impact of women’s suffrage in the twentieth century, the emergence of female political candidates, and the cultural and institutional hurdles faced by women seeking public office.

Kimberly Hamlin, Susan Hartmann, and David Steigerwald, Origins

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