Medieval Friendships: No Girls Allowed
Medieval European elites inherited the classical concept of friendship as something possible only for men. Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe beg to differ.
Marriage and the Maiden Name
While many women trade surnames they had at birth for their husbands’, some hold on tightly to the former, a tradition famously established by Lucy Stone.
The Hidden History of Women Game Designers
Nineteenth-century women turned music lessons into interactive entertainment, complete with spinning wheels and ivory counters.
Green Sickness, the Disease of Virgins
In the mid-seventeenth century, John Graunt, the “father of English statistics,” claimed dozens of young women in London died of green sickness every year.
“Declaration of Sentiments”: Annotated
The document that came out of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention extended the long-lived and hard-fought movement for women’s rights in the United States.
The Bowling Alley: It’s a Woman’s World
Even when it was considered socially unacceptable, American women were knocking down pins on the local lanes.
Christine de Pizan: Europe’s First Professional Female Writer
Christine used her pen to make a living at the French court, but even more pointedly, she used it to argue the value of educated women.
Send in the Clowns
Lulu Adams came from a long, illustrious line of circus performers and was credited—even if wrongly—with being the world’s first female clown.
(Re)discovering Minerva Parker Nichols, Architect
The first American woman to establish an independent architectural practice, Minerva Parker Nichols built an unprecedented career in Philadelphia.
William Merritt Chase, the Accidental Ally
Painter William Merritt Chase opened an art school for a new generation of women, teaching them how to draw as well as how to advocate for themselves.