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Women's History

Paratroopers from the 1st Allied Airborne land in Holland during Operations Market Garden, September 1944.

Meet the Daredevil Parachutist Who Tested the First Nylon Parachute 75 Years Ago

Adeline Gray was just 24, but she was already an experienced parachutist and a trained pilot

Marie Curie and President Warren Harding walk down the White House steps arm in arm in 1921.

When Women Crowdfunded Radium For Marie Curie

The element was hard to get and extremely expensive but essential for Curie’s cancer research

A posthumous engraving of Maria Agnesi from 1836.

The Witch of Agnesi

A mistranslation led to the unusual name of this mathematical concept

The statue carved by Adelaide Johnson portrays Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony (left to right), all women who fought for suffrage.

The Suffragist Statue Trapped in a Broom Closet for 75 Years

The Portrait Monument was a testament to women’s struggle for the vote that remained hidden till 1997

The practical advice in the handbook was intended to help married couples from having too many children.

This Infamous 19th-Century Birth Control Pamphlet Got Its Writer Imprisoned

Charles Knowlton did three months hard labor and was fined $50

Belle Boyd in an image taken between 1855 and 1865.

Belle Boyd, Civil War Spy

The so-called “Siren of Shenandoah” stole weapons and carried letters in service to the Confederacy

Frances Oldham Kelsey, a pharmacologist with the Food & Drug Administration, helped prevent a generation of children born with congenital deformities in the United States.

Women Who Shaped History

The Woman Who Stood Between America and a Generation of ‘Thalidomide Babies’

How the United States escaped a national tragedy in the 1960s

Many women who choose midwife-assisted birth do so because it's associated with fewer medical interventions like caesarean sections.

U.S. Home Births Aren’t As Safe As Many Abroad

Home birth doesn’t have to be a dangerous and deadly proposition–but in the United States, it often is

Measuring 32 feet in size, the massive "yarn bomb" of Harriet Tubman now hangs outside the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York.

Giant Harriet Tubman “Yarn Bomb” Portrait Debuts in Upstate New York

Artist Olek’s creation is one in a series of 50 planned installations across America celebrating important women throughout U.S. history

Maria Bochkareva

The Women Warriors of the Russian Revolution

Soldier Maria Bochkareva proposed all-female battalions, in part to shame men into continuing the fight

Ernestine Rose championed abolition and women's rights in her adopted land.

The Immigrant Activist Who Loved America’s Ideals, If Not Its Actions

By the 1850s, Ernestine Rose was a well-known public figure, far more famous than her allies Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

The Sybil Ludington commemorative stamp was issued by USPS in 1975.

Was There Really a Teenage, Female Paul Revere?

Sybil Ludington has been honored for her contributions to the American Revolution, but there’s little to indicate they were real

A souvenir program from the 1925 Woman's World's Fair in Chicago.

A Look Back at the 1925 Woman’s World Fair

After the success of the Chicago World’s Fair, women made their own event

This 1898 photograph shows a young black boy holding hands with a young white girl during the Easter egg roll. The contraption on her head is an Easter bonnet.

The Curious History of the White House Easter Egg Roll

Thousands of families enter the lottery each year to take part in this White House tradition

Anne Bonny and Mary Read are just two of the famous female pirates who pillaged their way to fame.

Women Who Shaped History

The Swashbuckling History of Women Pirates

When women roamed the high seas in search of fortune, freedom, and sometimes revenge

Women of the Salvation Army relied on ingenuity to serve up thousands of donuts to WWI soldiers.

World War I: 100 Years Later

The Women Who Fried Donuts and Dodged Bombs on the Front Lines of WWI

Even if they had to use shell casings as rolling pins, the donuts still got made

Naomi Weisstein was a feminist activist, a neuropsychologist and, for a brief time, a rock 'n roll musician.

This Feminist Psychologist-Turned-Rock-Star Led a Full Life of Resistance

Naomi Weisstein fought against the idea of women as objects in both the fields of psychology and rock ‘n roll

Susannah Madora Salter was hanging up laundry when she heard her name was on the mayoral ballot.

130 Years Ago, Men Against Women’s Suffrage Put Susanna Salter’s Name on the Ballot

Boy, were they sorry.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett gives a speech in Hyde Park in 1913.

London’s Parliament Square Will Get Its First Statue of a Woman

Suffragist leader Millicent Garrett Fawcett will join the ranks of 11 statesmen who have been honored with monuments there

Women of the Signal Corps run General Pershing's switchboard at the First Army headquarters.

World War I: 100 Years Later

Women On the Frontlines of WWI Came to Operate Telephones

The “Hello Girls” risked their lives to run military communications—and were denied recognition when they returned home

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