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Black and white headshot of author Erin Blakemore

Erin Blakemore

Erin Blakemore is a Boulder, Colorado-based journalist Her debut book, The Heroine’s Bookshelf (Harper), won a Colorado Book Award for Nonfiction and has been translated into Italian, Korean and Portuguese. Erin has written about history and culture and other topics for Smithsonian.com, The Washington Post, TIME, mental_floss, NPR’s This I Believe, The Onion, Popular Science, Modern Farmer and other journals. You can find more of her work at erinblakemore.com.

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Official program - Woman suffrage procession, Washington, D.C. March 3, 1913. Cover of program for the National American Women's Suffrage Association procession, showing woman, in elaborate attire, with cape, blowing long horn, from which is draped a "votes for women" banner, on decorated horse, with U.S. Capitol in background.
Politics & History

How World’s Fairs Helped Train Southern Suffragists

There’s no cultural touchstone quite like an exhibition or fair—think the Great Exhibition of 1851, which introduced the ...
Portrait of Caroline of Ansbach (1683-1737) wikidata:Q28045249
Politics & History

How to Bathe Like a 18th-Century Queen

18th-century bathing was controversial. Some argued bathing was healthy, while others argued it could damage one's health.
Lincoln, Nebraska state capitol building
Politics & Government

The Bitter Controversy Over Nebraska’s State Capital

Lincoln or Omaha or... Neapolis? The fight over where to put the capital of Nebraska was much more heated than you may have imagined.
blue and teal linoleum floor
Art & Art History

Why People Once Loved Linoleum

Linoleum, which was created by pressing cotton scrim with oxidized linseed oil and adding cork dust and coloring, became instantly popular.
Buffalo Bill Cody
Politics & History

The Truth Behind Buffalo Bill’s Scalping Act

“Buffalo Bill” Cody was among history’s most intriguing showmen, fascinating a nation with a show that helped weave the modern myth of the Wild West.
Girl Scout camp
Politics & History

What the Girl Scouts’ Founder Wanted Girls to Know

Girl Scouts and Girl Guides around the world celebrate World Thinking Day, a holiday aimed at helping global scouts connect and reflect on their past.
Siege of Leningrad
Politics & History

The Nazis’ Nightmarish Plan to Starve the Soviet Union

Before the infamous Wannsee conference, Nazis had another meeting during which they planned the mass starvation of millions of Eastern Europeans.
Saturday Evening Girls Club
Politics & History

The Saturday Evening Girls’ Guide to Helping Immigrants Succeed

The “Saturday Evening Girls" was a Progressive-Era club that afforded urban, Jewish and Italian girls and women a chance at coveted social mobility.
Edgar Allen Poe
Arts & Culture

Edgar Allan Poe and the Power of a Portrait

Edgar Allan Poe knew that readers would add their visual image of the author to his work to create a personality that informed their reading.
Women's March
Politics & History

How Women’s Studies Erased Black Women

The founders of Women’s Studies were overwhelmingly white, and focused on the experiences of white, heterosexual women.
Stockton, California in 1886
Politics & History

The Important Civil Rights Activist You’ve Never Heard Of

Like other African-Americans, Jeremiah B. Sanderson was intrigued by the new state of California—a free state that promised economic and social opportunity.
Tiger Beat Magazine
Arts & Culture

The Sexual Lessons of 1980s Teen Magazines

Teen magazines put girls in charge by inverting the male gaze
Business

How Mr. Coffee Made Coffee Manly

Mr. Coffee, the first electric-drip coffee machine for home use, debuted in 1972, forever changing the way Americans made coffee.
Twilight book
Arts & Culture

Fanfic As Academic Discipline

Fanfic is thought to have been in existence since at least the 1920s.
Showgirl
Arts & Culture

The Man Who Invented the Showgirl

Showgirl. Just the word calls to mind fabulous plumes, spangled sequins, and a distinctive strut. But where does ...
Berkeley mural
Politics & History

The Fight for People’s Park

Fifty years ago, tens of thousands of people converged on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for the “Human ...
Thames Frost Fair
Politics & History

Magic and Meaning on the Frozen Thames

London's winters used to colder—and a bit more magical, thanks to chilly conditions on the Thames River. "Frost fairs" were popular public celebrations.
Jack London
Arts & Culture

Jack London’s Double

Catfishing, imposters, and mistaken identity are par for the course in the internet age. But it turns out ...
Anne Frank house bookcase
Politics & History

How the Netherlands Used Literature to Defy the Nazis

A new theory sheds light not only on the fate of the Franks, but on the extent of Dutch resistance to the Nazis.
Ballerinas
Arts & Culture

Can Ballet Be Feminist?

Ballerinas have long made feminists both uneasy and excited, embodying fulfillment and the shackles of feminine performance.
Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose
Politics & History

The Turn-of-the-Century Lesbians Who Founded The Field of Home Ec

Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer lived in an open and acknowledged lesbian relationship. They also helped found the field of home economics.
Andrew Johnson
Politics & Government

A Brief History of Vice Presidential Inaugurations

Vice presidential inaugurations haven’t always shared the pomp and circumstance reserved for the highest office in the land.
Harvard Observatory, 1899
Natural Science

How Women Finally Broke Into the Sciences

Women finally broke into the sciences in sex-segregated jobs in the years between 1880 and 1910.
Madame Bovary illustration
Arts & Culture

What Madame Bovary Revealed About the Freedom of the Press

Gustave Flaubert was put on trial for obscenity. Why didn't he fight government censorship harder?
Jane Austen sketch
Arts & Culture

Jane Austen and the Value of Flaws

Jane Austen is known for self-assured heroines and love stories. But she also wrote a lot about the importance of being wrong.

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