The Norton Book of Women’s Lives, (1993) ed. By Phyllis Rose. The folks at Norton are masters of the anthology, and this 800-page collection of 20th century excerpts is proof of that. The book is arranged alphabetically, beginning with Maya Angelou and ending with Virginia Woolf. The collection includes snippets of the famous females’ writing and a short bio of each. Big names like Billie Holiday, Annie Dillard, Helen Keller, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Anais Nin, Sylvia Plath, and Gertrude Stein are juxtaposed next to lesser-known but no less interesting femmes such as Nien Dieng, who was imprisoned during Mao’s Cultural Revolution; Le Ly Hayslip, a former Vietcong sympathizer who came to realize that war was the real enemy; Emma Mashinini, the black South African whose community organizing landed her in solitary confinement in the Pretoria Central Prison; and Nisa, a member of the Kalahari tribe of southern Africa whose oral autobiography provides historians, layfolk, and anthropologists alike with a peek into a less civilized culture.
Outrageous Women of Ancient Times, Uppity Women of Medieval Times, and Uppity Women of the New World, by Vicki Leon. One glance through the Outrageous-Uppity series of women in history, and you’re ready for a showdown with Cliff Clavin. Entries are usually only a page long and carry a tone straddling playful and sardonic. In Ancient Times Leon gives life to long-forgotten civilizations by highlighting the tales of property owners of ancient Sumeria, martyrs of the Holy Land, pirates of Greece. In Medieval Times, Leon introduces us to Fya upper Bach, a successful blacksmith in the 14th century; the French haberdasher Alison de Jourdain; and the many beer brewers across medieval Europe. In the New World installation, we meet Susanna Haswell, the “intercontinental overachiever” who penned novels, performed in plays, and wrote the textbooks for the girls’ school she opened in Boston at the end of the 18th century. Not all of the women in the New World are from the Western hemisphere: Down Under Elizabeth MacArthur prospered as a wool exporter while her husband served time for white-collar crime. Today her legacy lives on at the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute in New South Wales.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Women in Sports, (2001) by Randi Durzin. Although the book is almost ten years old, it’s a solid history of women from centuries past taking to the field, court, water, and slopes. The history extends all the way back to the ancient Olympics, from which women were excluded. From Durzin’s book we also learn of Anne Boleyn’s archery skills, the mythical Atalanta outrunning her suitors in the golden apple race, and the growing popularity of field hockey, archery, croquet and bicycling in the 19th century. Durzin devotes an entire chapter to the struggles female athletes have contended with for the past hundred years. The remaining chapters highlight notables from skiing, diving, softball, gymnastics, golf, figure skating, and even curling.
The Inmost Heart: 800 Years of Women’s Letters (1992) ed. By Olga Kenyon. The letters contained in this volume extend back almost a millennium and demonstrate that the more things change, the more they stay the same. These first-person accounts are arranged by theme: role as a woman, friendship, work, love and sexual passion, war and alleviating suffering, and political skills. Famous, infamous, and unknown grace these pages. You can read the letter from the religious visionary Hildegard of Bingham asking Bernard of Clairvaux (who preached the Second Crusade) for guidance on what her dreams signified; a letter to Queen Victoria from Caroline Norton, whose letter entreating the monarch for divorce begins with “A married woman in England has no legal existence”; and the pleas from Aphra Behn for a mere per diem as she spied on the Belgians for the English in the 1660s.
Women’s Rights National Historic Park: We always think of Seneca Falls, NY as the birthplace of the American women’s suffrage movement. This is the place where, in 1848, a mere 300 people, led by that rapscallion, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, began the seventy-year journey to earn women the right to vote. The National Park Service has turned the site of this convention, the Wesleyan Chapel and surrounding area, into a commemorative destination. It’s Women’s History, sure, but it’s also a critical piece of American History.
Virtual Woman’s Library: This is truly an international repository of on-line resources, both primary and secondary, of women in history. It’s more scholarly than the other resources listed here, but it’s where the really cool stuff hangs out. The table of contents includes museums, special collections, special topics, archives and libraries, journals, discussion lists, and a few other electronic beauties.
National Women’s History Project: Mark the month! March is Women’s History Month and theme this year, dreamed up by the folks behind the NWHP, is “Writing Women Back into History.” The site also includes electronic resources of great speeches, oral histories, museums (organized by state), a teacher’s lounge, a student center, and a quiz.
