Women's History April 2012 Archive

The 1848 Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention is usually considered the kickoff of the women's suffrage effort and other women's rights activism. Read more about this event: who was ... Read More

On April 30, 1796, George Washington became the first President of the United States, and Martha Washington the first First Lady. The title "First Lady" was not used during ... Read More

A reader's question about some confusing information she found in writings about Mary Church Terrell prompted me to write about how easy it is for mistakes to creep into women's ... Read More

The Brontë sisters -- Charlotte, Anne, and Emily -- published first as poets, under the names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. They used masculine pseudonyms because, as Charlotte Brontë ... Read More

In the 1960s and 1970s, more poets identified themselves explicitly as feminists. Who were some of the prominent feminist poets of that period? Check out this list of ... Read More

Portraits, which often showed the "high fashion" of the era, are useful to see fashion trends of different eras. In this image, from an engraving in the 19th century ... Read More

April is National Poetry Month, and a good time to remember Emily Dickinson, whose poetic style was revolutionary. Yet only ten of her poems were published during her lifetime, ... Read More

Mary, Queen of Scots, is known as a tragic figure in European history. Queen of Scotland from the death of her father when she was a week old, she ... Read More

We know of only a few women writers in the ancient world, when education was limited to only a few people and most of them men. This list includes most ... Read More

Her poems explore the outer landscape of nature and the inner landscape of the mind and heart. Related articles: About This Picture Adrienne Rich Marge Piercy Amy Lowell Around About: Pictures of the Week Image: ... Read More

The poet, Sappho of Lesbos, is known today through a few fragments of her poetry that survive in quotes by others, and through her image in art. Explore some of ... Read More

Discovered in 1996 in a building slated for demolition, Clara Barton's Civil War office was saved, and now is going to be converted to a museum. National Museum of Civil ... Read More

Two death anniversaries today: Rachel Carson died in 1964, just two years after publishing Silent Spring, now an environmentalist classic. "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength ... Read More

Women and men, black and white, participated in early anti-slavery meetings. Such mixing was a matter of principle for the participants -- and a scandal to the wider society. ... Read More

While dozens were accused, twenty-four people actually died as a result of the Salem Witch Trials. These 24 victims included four who died during their imprisonment, one who was pressed ... Read More

Find some choice quotations from Zelda Fitzgerald, an artist, dancer, and writer who was better known in her own time as the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was only ... Read More

Babe Didrikson Zaharias, 1932 Olympics Getty Images Babe Didrikson was an outstanding athlete from her early years. She excelled in basketball, track and field, and golf. In track and field, she won ... Read More

Charged with heresy, witchcraft, and (shock!) wearing men's clothing, Joan of Arc was executed under the direction of a Bishop connected with the English, whose defeat in battles led by ... Read More

Tudor ancestor Katherine Swynford was the daughter of a knight, sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer, and for years the mistress of John of Gaunt, second son of King Edward III of ... Read More