womens history

I’ve seen posts on social media lately stating that women of the past weaponized their hat pins, using this action to both demonstrate the historicity of female rage and as a call for a similar rebellious nature in today’s women. Since these posts never have citations, I got to wondering…

I have noticed lately a trend in which the word “damsel” is used as short-hand to mean “damsel in distress.” As in: “I need you to scream for me.” “Like a damsel?” Or: “I imagined a story where I didn’t have to be the damsel.” This chaps my hide. “Damsel”…

Say you’re on a jury in 1801 Massachusetts. On trial is a young man accused of killing his sweetheart. Her family did not approve of their connection. On the day in question, he had told two witnesses he passed on the road that he was on his way to her…

From American State Trials: “A Southern lady (Margaret Douglass) living with a daughter in Norfolk, Virginia sixty-six years ago (1853) and being greatly interested in the religious and moral instruction of colored children and finding that the Sunday school where they were allowed to attend was not sufficient, invited them…

This is the bedroom where Lizzie Borden allegedly took a hatchet to her step-mother. (And you can actually stay here in this room – the house is a bed & breakfast now.) I’ve long known about the infamous axe murder of her parents and the fact that Lizzie was generally…

Place: New York City Time: August 1808 On Trial: Alexander Whistelo, “a black coachman” The Story: “Adam-colored” Lucy Williams and her black lover Alexander Whistelo had a child together, a child whom Whistelo accepted as his own until his friends (possibly named Iago?) “put it into his head that it…

“For perhaps the first time in your active, tom-boy life, you must accept the fact that you are a girl. … You’re a girl and you are getting ready for the special role of childbearing. … You may think you were intended to be a Hollywood star, or a scientist,…