The Woman Who Heard the Sun and Other True Stories Overlooked by History

Wedlock

Wendy Moore · 386 pages

With the death of her fabulously wealthy coal magnate father when she was just eleven, Mary Eleanor Bowes became the richest heiress in Britain. An ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II, Mary grew to be a highly educated young woman, winning acclaim as a playwright and botanist. Courted by a bevy of eager suitors, at eighteen she married the handsome but aloof ninth Earl of Strathmore in a celebrated, if

Abigail Adams

Woody Holton

IN THIS VIVID NEW BIOGRAPHY OF ABIGAIL ADAMS, the most illustrious woman of Americas founding era, prize-winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams’s life story and of women’s roles in the creation of the republic. Using previously overlooked documents from a host of archives, Abigail Adams shows that the wife of the second president of the United States was far

The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR'S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience

Kirstin Downey · 477 pages

Frances Perkins is no longer a household name, yet she was one of the most influential women of the twentieth century. Frances Perkins was named Secretary of Labor by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. As the first female cabinet secretary, at the height of the Great Depression, she spearheaded the fight to improve the lives of America's working people while juggling her own family responsibilities. Perk

Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision

Barbara Ransby · 501 pages

Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon · 304 pages

Ida: A Sword Among Lions

Paula J. Giddings · 824 pages

Traces the life and legacy of the nineteenth-century activist and pioneer, documenting her birth into slavery, her career as a journalist and a pioneer for civil rights and suffrage, and her determination to counter lynching.

Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West

Dorothy Wickenden · 286 pages

In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, close friends from childhood and graduates of Smith College, left home in Auburn, New York for the wilds of northwestern Colorado. Bored by their society luncheons, charity work, and the effete young men who courted them, they learned that two teaching jobs were available in a remote mountaintop schoolhouse and applied -- shocking the

Elizabeth I: A Feminist Perspective (Berg Women's Series)

Susan Bassnett · 152 pages

Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia

Janet Wallach · 419 pages

Reared in the comfortable and privileged world of the "eminent Victorians," Gertrude Bell turned her back on convention and sought adventure in Arab lands. Traveling numerous times through the Syrian Desert and, at risk to her life, through the great Arabian desert of the Nejd - the last European to do so before the eruption of World War I - she wrote of her travels in widely acclaimed books. T

The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici

Elizabeth Lev · 352 pages

A strategist to match Machiavelli; a warrior who stood toe to toe with the Borgias; a wife whose three marriages would end in bloodshed and heartbreak; and a mother determined to maintain her family’s honor, Caterina Riario Sforza de’ Medici was a true Renaissance celebrity, beloved and vilified in equal measure. In this dazzling biography, Elizabeth Lev illuminates her extraordinary life and acco

Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe

Nancy Goldstone · 352 pages

Four accomplished sisters who rose from near obscurity to become the most powerful women in EuropeSet against the backdrop of the turbulent thirteenth century, a time of chivalry and crusades, poetry, knights, and monarchs comes the story of the four beautiful daughters of the count of Provence whose brilliant marriages made them the queens of France, England, Germany, and Sicily.From a cultured c

Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909

Michelle Markel

An illustrated account of immigrant Clara Lemlich's pivotal role in the influential 1909 women laborer's strike describes how she worked grueling hours to acquire an education and support her family before organizing a massive walkout to protest the unfair working conditions in New York's garment district.

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century

Paula Uruburu · 400 pages

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves and Other Female Villains

Jane Yolen, Heidi E.Y. Stemple · 172 pages

A Soldier's Secret: The Incredible True Story of Sarah Edmonds, Civil War Hero

Marissa Moss · 400 pages

Nineteen-year-old Sarah masquerades as a man during the Civil War, serving as a nurse on the battlefield and a spy for the Union Army, escaping from the Confederates, and falling in love with one of her fellow soldiers. Based on the life of Sarah Emma Edmonds.

First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

Kate Andersen Brower · 398 pages

Brower draws on a wide array of untapped, candid sources to tell the stories of the ten remarkable women who have defined the role of First Lady of the United States since 1960. From Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama, she offers new insights into this privileged group, and shares stories exploring everything from the first ladies political crusades to their rivalries with Washington figures; from t

Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case

Debbie Nathan · 297 pages

The true story of the three women behind Sybil, the famous multiple-personality case.

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

Brad Ricca · 436 pages

Presents the true story of the first female U.S. District Attorney and traveling detective who found missing eighteen-year-old Ruth Cruger when the entire NYPD had given up. "In 1917, on the day before Valentine's Day, eighteen-year-old Ruth Cruger disappeared. When the police gave up, a mysterious woman in black vowed to find her. Mrs. Sherlock Holmes tells the true story of Grace Humiston, the

Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol 2, The Defining Years, 1933-38

Blanche Wiesen Cook · 704 pages

The captivating second volume of this Eleanor Roosevelt biography covers tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II, the years of the Roosevelts' greatest challenges and finest achievements. In her remarkably engaging narrative, Cook gives us the complete Eleanor Roosevelt—an adventurous, romantic woman, a devoted wife and mother, and a visionary

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin

Jill Lepore · 464 pages

A revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister and a wholly different account of the founding of the United States.

Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon · 314 pages

Presents the story of First Lieutenant Ashley White and a groundbreaking team of female American warriors who served alongside Special Operations soldiers on the battle field in Afghanistan.

Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties

Marion Meade · 340 pages

In her exuberant new work, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN, Marion Meade presents a portrait of four extraordinary writers--Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Edna Ferber--whose loves, lives, and literary endeavors embodied the spirit of the 1920s. Capturing the jazz rhythms and desperate gaiety that defined the era, Meade gives us Parker, Fitzgerald, Millay, and Ferber, tr

The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism

Megan Marshall · 602 pages

Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History

Sam Maggs · 238 pages

The best-selling author of The Fangirls Guide to the Galaxy presents a fun and feminist look at the brilliant, brainy and totally rad women in history who broke barriers as scientists, engineers, mathematicians, adventurers and inventors, along with interviews with real-life women in STEM careers.