Women's History

How many American first ladies created legacies that overshadow those of their presidential husbands? It’s a case that can be argued for Betty Ford, who courageously took on taboo topics such as breast cancer, abortion and addiction—and in doing so, started national conversations ...read more

No cultural symbol of the 1920s is more recognizable than the flapper. A young woman with a short “bob” hairstyle, cigarette dangling from her painted lips, dancing to a live jazz band. Flappers romped through the Roaring Twenties, enjoying the new freedoms ushered in by the end ...read more

The Mexican Revolution rose out of a struggle for civil liberties and land and would eventually topple the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and begin a new age for Mexico. The war, which started in 1910, was, at its core, one of the first social revolutions and women—as well as ...read more

September 11, 2001 was supposed to be a typical day for Lieutenant Heather Penney of the District of Columbia Air National Guard. As Penney recalled in a 2016 interview with HISTORY, that morning she was attending a briefing at Andrews Air Force Base, planning the month’s ...read more

On September 7, 1968, a group of women led by the New York Radical Women gathered outside Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey to protest the Miss America pageant being broadcast live inside. The unexpectedly large gathering of protesters, their theatrical antics on the ...read more

Women (and men) began surfing in Hawaii and other Polynesian islands at least as far back as the 17th century. And while Christian missionaries tried to suppress surfing in the 1800s, a Hawaiian princess helped bring it back long before Gidget and Moondoggie hit the beach. Prior ...read more

Martha Gadley’s marriage was a nightmare. When her husband drank, he turned increasingly violent. One night, he used an ax to chop a hole in the floor and threatened to push her into the room below. He refused to bring her water when she was sick. When she left the house, he ...read more

“ENGLAND OR DROWN!” proclaimed the New York Daily News on its frontpages. It was August 6, 1926, the day that an American, Gertrude Ederle, was poised to become the first woman to swim the English Channel. Only five men had ever swum the waterway before. The challenges included ...read more

On the surface, it was just another tea party—a well-behaved group of women passing cups of brewed beverages around the genteel table of Jane Hunt, a well-to-do New York woman who had invited four others to dine with her. But this tea party was not for shrinking violets. Hunt’s ...read more

Women have always played vital roles in revolutionary uprisings, contrary to popular patriarchal narratives.  Throughout history, thousands of women have fought against regimes they perceived as oppressive, either with the pen, the podium, or their own fists. In honor of July ...read more

This week the Miss America Organization announced they were dropping the swimsuit competition—the main component of the first Miss America pageant—from future contests. While all eyes are now on the scholarship organization and the authenticity of its stand to prioritize ...read more

This week, the Miss America Organization announced that it’s eliminating the swimsuit competition in an effort to focus less on women’s appearances. It’s not clear what, exactly, the beauty pageant will be about now that it’s trying to deemphasize the “beauty” part. In any case, ...read more

On December 16, 1941, nine days after Pearl Harbor, a mother of three from Maryland named Adelaide Hawkins signed an affidavit with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services [OSS] in Washington saying she would “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, ...read more

It came in a brown bottle, marketed as a safe way for married women to treat menstrual disorders. But the contents of that little brown bottle were as potent as a bomb. Inside was Enovid, the world’s first birth control pill. Soon, Enovid would usher in a new era of sexual ...read more

Confederate President Jefferson Davis occupied an anxious home in Richmond, Virginia, during the Civil War. A steady leak of information dripped from the highest ranks of the Confederacy to the Union. Davis was wary of a mole in his house, but had no idea how to stop the flow of ...read more

Supreme Court Justice nomination hearings are never dull. But few observers expected the issue of whether Clarence Thomas should serve on the highest court of the land to become a firestorm—and a national referendum on sexual harassment. That all changed on October 11, 1991, when ...read more

It was an electric day in Detroit for those passing through Cobo Hall at a NAACP celebration dinner in April of 1995. Rosa Parks and her niece, Urana McCauley, had come for the event following the death of McCauley’s grandmother. At just 19 years old, McCauley was in awe. The ...read more