Rose Schneiderman, labour union pioneer
She turned factory experience into a powerful voice for working women, organizing unions and demanding the safer conditions, fair treatment, and recognition their labor deserved.
Women worth knowing
All Stories
Extraordinary women, overlooked stories, and a more complete history. Explore the lives, ideas, and achievements that changed the world.
editor’s pick
Dixy Lee Ray: A Scientist in the Governor’s Chair
Her move from science into politics brought convictions about technology into conflict with environmental campaigners, exposing tensions between expertise and public decision-making.
The Rational Dress Reform Movement
Heavy skirts and restrictive corsets limited women’s movement. Campaigns for practical clothing linked everyday comfort with greater freedom to participate in public life.
The Matilda Effect: Invisible Women in Science
Women’s discoveries have too often been credited to men, obscuring the work behind scientific advances and shaping whose achievements later generations are taught to remember.
The Role of Women In the 1963 March on Washington
Women helped organize a defining civil rights demonstration while facing exclusion from its public platform, exposing the gap between their essential work and the recognition they received.
Bibha Chowdhuri, Forgotten Physicist and Researcher
Her work investigating cosmic rays advanced particle research, overcoming limited opportunities for women in physics and contributing knowledge that deserved far greater recognition.
Women Who Sued For Freedom From Slavery
Enslaved women fought in court for their own freedom and their children’s, using legal claims to challenge a system that treated their families as property.
Anna May Wong, Internationally Acclaimed Actress
She won international acclaim while confronting racist casting and stereotypes, using a screen career to challenge the narrow roles available to performers of color.
The Life and Artistry of Patti Smith
She fused poetry with raw musical energy, helping shape a new rock movement and creating an artistic voice that influenced performers across generations.
Fannie Farmer, the mother of level measurements
She helped make recipes reliable by championing precise measurements, bringing a scientific approach to everyday cooking and making successful results easier for home cooks to reproduce.
“Pleading the Belly”: Pregnancy & Execution
Pregnancy could postpone a woman’s execution under common law, creating a route to survival that exposed the complicated relationship between reproductive status and criminal justice.
Lady Mary Montagu, Brilliant Autodidact Aristocrat
She championed knowledge of smallpox inoculation learned abroad, using her influence to challenge medical resistance and bring a different approach to preventing disease into public view.
Harriet Powers: A Sermon in Patchwork
She stitched religious stories into quilts of extraordinary imagination, preserving her voice through fabric and creating artworks that expanded the possibilities of visual storytelling.
Gertrude B. Elion: Groundbreaking Chemist Who Helped Create the AIDS Drug
She helped change how medicines were developed, bringing a more targeted approach to drug research that produced treatments for serious diseases and earned major scientific recognition.
Nettie Stevens: A Discoverer of Sex Chromosomes
Her chromosome research helped explain how biological sex develops, advancing genetics while showing how easily a woman’s contribution could be overshadowed by male colleagues.
The Surprising History Of The Birth Control Pill That Almost Wasn’t Invented
Determined activists and private funding helped turn the birth control pill from an uncertain research project into a development that transformed women’s reproductive choices.
Fay Kellogg, ambitious architect
She built an ambitious architectural career and pushed for women’s place in the profession, combining design talent with a determination to see buildings completed.
Suzanne Valadon, self-taught artist of Bohemian Paris
She learned to paint while modeling for other artists, then built a celebrated career of her own with bold work that challenged artistic conventions.