Celebrating Mighty Women

Marmee and Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother

Louisa May Alcott's Marmee from Little Women is one of the most famous mothers in literature, and she was inspired by Alcott's own mother, Abigail May Alcott. Previously treated as mere background to her author daughter, this biography draws out the woman hinted at in Alcott's writing: politically active, feminist, intelligent, and a gifted writer in her own right. The real-life Marmee fought for causes like the end of slavery, universal civil rights, and women's suffrage, and made a deep impression on her more famous daughter. This well-written story of the mother-daughter bond that inspired this classic character — and this beloved author — is meticulously researched and fascinating.

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA

Since 1962, when they were awarded the Nobel Prize, Maurice Wilkins, Francis Crick, and James Watson have been hailed for discovering the double helix structure of DNA. But it's only been in recent years that appropriate credit is given the Rosalind Franklin, the woman whose data and photographs of DNA allowed them to reach that conclusion. Brenda Maddox tells a powerful story of the single-minded and marginalized young woman who declared that she would be a scientist at the age of fifteen, and whose Photo 51 has been called "among the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken." Drawing extensively from interviews and personal letters, Maddox creates a sympathetic portrait of a groundbreaking scientist whose career ended all too soon.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

The popular picture of Rosa Parks is of a quiet, unassuming woman who suddenly, fatefully, chose not to give up her seat on a segregated bus. The truth, however, is far more interesting: Parks was a dedicated activist who had been active long before the boycott and contributed for decades after it. In this fascinating look at Parks’ life, Theoharis explores her politics, activism, and the consequences of her participation in the bus boycott.

My Life On The Road

Gloria Steinem began her life as a traveler — her itinerant family drove across the country every fall seeking adventure and opportunity. This experience planted the seed that would lead to a lifetime of travel, of activism and leadership, of listening to people whose voices and ideas would inspire change. In this moving, funny, and profound story of Steinem's growth and also the growth of a revolutionary movement for women's equality, she urges people to adopt an “on the road” state of mind to change how we learn, how we listen, and how we understand one another.

Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe

At the turn of the 20th century, "computers" were not machines: instead, they were a group of female astronomers hired by the Harvard Observatory. Their role was not to observe or discover, but simply to process the observations of their male counterparts; women were not permitted to use the telescope. Henriette Swan Leavitt, an aspiring astronomer of independent means, took on the role for a wage similar to what she would make working at a textile mill, and was assigned to study variable stars. Her calculations allowed her to discover something truly remarkable: a means to measure the distance to astronomical features like galaxies and nebulae, and a new sense of how large the universe truly is. This true story of the woman who changed the way we see the night sky is fascinating and inspiring.

Jane Addams: Spirit in Action

The first new biography about Addams in over forty years showcases the boldness and ingenuity of this inspiring woman. She co-founded Chicago's first settlement house: Hull House became a place where people of all classes and ethnicities could gather and where education and resources were available to all. Then, she began advocating and organizing with anyone seeking social justice, including women, immigrants, trade unions, African Americans, and more. She was an advisor to presidents and a co-founder of the NAACP, "the most dangerous woman in  the United States" for her pacifism — and a Nobel Peace Prize winner for the same. This fast-paced biography of Addams will leave readers cheering for the determined statesperson who proved just how much women could change the world.

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography

In the 1930s, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her autobiography...but it remained hidden away for decades. Pamela Smith Hill, the award-winning author of a biography of Wilder, has now edited this remarkable annotated version of her story. Some of the stories will be familiar, and some will surprise you! From Hill's introduction, discussing Wilder's writing career and the dynamic mother-daughter relationship that inspired Wilder to write her life story in this set of classic novels, to intriguing details about the history, culture, and community life in the frontier where the Ingalls and Wilders lived, this unique volume provides a new perspective and a fuller picture of the woman behind these beloved stories.

Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina

Misty Copeland was living in a motel room with her five siblings when she first laid her hands on a ballet barre at the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles. Within a year, she was performing professionally. Today, she is the first African American soloist for the American Ballet Theater. During her meteoric rise, she found herself caught between the joy she found in ballet and the tough reality of her family life, culminating in a custody battle between her ballet teacher and her mother. With an honest, warm voice, she talks about the challenges of poverty, dance, and finding the balance between achieving your dreams and staying true to yourself

Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life

Dorothy Hodgkin was a ground-breaking scientist, famous for her work discovering the molecular structures of penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin and the only British woman to receive a Nobel Prize in the sciences. But beyond her scientific career, she was also involved in nearly every social movement of the 20th century, from women's education to the rise and fall of communism to international peace movements. And yet she was always tremendously wary of biographers and how they might represent — or misrepresent — her story, calling their works "attempts on my life." Georgina Ferry has done justice to the formidable subject of her book, capturing the complexities of both her scientific career and of her other work around the world.

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

In the space of a few decades, this canny woman transformed herself from the daughter of a minor noble family to the Empress of Russia. During her thirty-four year reign, she dealt with rebellion both within and outside her country and all the political change and violence prompted by the French Revolution. From the rumors intended to discredit her to the truths about her lovers, enemies, and friends, this book creates an impressive portrayal of one of the most powerful women of her day. Seasoned biographer Robert K. Massie's page-turning book takes Catherine the Great's real-life story and truly makes it come alive.

Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Hope, and Defiance

In 1944, three women in Eastern Europe were transported to Auschwitz — while in the early stages of pregnancy. Rachel, Priska, and Anka found themselves in one of the most notorious concentration camps of World War II, with their families all dead — except for their unborn children. To keep these babies, the last connection they had with the husbands they had lost, these women would have to hide the evidence of their pregnancies from the SS and infamous Nazi medical experimenter Dr. Josef Mengele, keep themselves alive despite brutal work and starvation, and then, once they had birthed the children, hope for a miracle to see them all out of captivity. This remarkable story about love in the midst of horror and misery captures the incredible power of the human spirit.

Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom

To most, Harriet Tubman is practically a legendary figure, larger than life and shrouded in mystery. Catherine Clinton has written the first full-scale biography of Tubman, covering everything from her personal escape from slavery to her work on the Underground Railroad and her involvement in the Civil War. Despite the lack of written documentation — Tubman was illiterate and the Underground Railroad kept no written records — Clinton creates a vivid and astonishing picture of this determined woman. Additional historical background on everything from legal decisions like the Fugitive Slave Acts to important people like Mary Shadd Cary ensure that Tubman's true importance in history shine through.

The M Train

Patti Smith calls this book “a roadmap to my life,” and like any good journey, the road has its twists and turns. Beginning in her favorite Greenwich Village café, Smith’s thoughts wander from past to present and from dreams to reality. In between stories of events and meetings are reflections on writing and art, travel, love, and coffee. Smith’s signature Polaroids add the final touch to this unique and intriguing look at the woman whose albums merge poetry and rock and roll.

Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail

In 1955, 67-year-old great-grandmother Emma Gatewood told her family she was going for a walk. The next time anyone heard of her, she had walked 800 miles of the 2,050 mile Appalachian Trail. And she wasn’t done yet: at the end of five months, she became the first woman ever to walk the full length of what was then a little-known and poorly maintained footpath. Her stories of surviving a rattlesnake, two hurricanes, and more captivated the country — and her criticism of the state of the path led to public attention, saving the Appalachian Trail.

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World

Nellie Bly, reporter for the World newspaper, was a scrappy hardened journalist; Elizabeth Bisland, journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, was born to privilege and preferred novels to newspapers. But on November 14, 1889, each of them set off on a quest to outdo Jules Verne’s fictional Phileas Fogg’s 80-day trip around the world. This remarkable story of two round-the-world journeys, from their frenzied starts to the aftermath, chronicles how two very different trailblazing women found themselves rivals in a race the world would never forget.

Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed A Nation At War

As a young Liberian woman, Leymah Gbowee saw how civil war often made women suffer most of all. Trapped in an abusive marriage with a young child, it would have been easy for her to give up, but instead, she saw the potential power of ordinary women like her — if they joined together. In 2003, Gbowee coordinated both Christian and Muslim women as they took action by confronting warlords, sitting in public protest, and even holding a sex strike. The Nobel Peace Prize winner writes a dramatic account of her difficult early years, her revelation, and the rise of a committed sisterhood that brought peace to her country.

Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts

Today, the Girl Scouts of America counts 59 million women and girls as current or past members — and it all started with one determined young woman. After struggling to reconcile her adventurous spirit with the expectations of a “proper” lady's behavior as a child, Juliette Gordon Low discovered her purpose when she met Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts. This intriguing and fascinating biography chronicles Gordon Low’s pioneering work to bring the joy of adventure in the outdoors to American girls.

Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage

In 1773, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral — the first book ever published by an English-speaking person of African descent — became an international sensation. The author, Phillis Wheatley, was a former slave who had earned her freedom; the poems, written when she was a teenager, had been written while she was still enslaved. Despite her iconic status, the real story of this remarkable woman's life have nearly disappeared into obscurity. Vincent Carretta's research unveiled new information about Wheatley's life as a slave, how she earned her freedom, and the significant role she played in the production, marketing, and distribution of her own work -- and why she died in obscurity so shortly after being so widely acclaimed.

The Hospital By The River: A Story of Hope

When Dr. Catherine Hamlin moved from Australia to Ethiopia, she never dreamed that she would devote her life to one medical condition. That was before she realized how many women suffered from obstetric fistula, an injury of childbirth that's common in places where there is limited medical care. Not only did these women suffer the physical symptoms of their injuries, but they also found themselves ostracized and shamed. In this memoir, Dr. Hamlin tells the story of her work opening the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, and its satellite Hamlin Fistula Centers, to provide fistula repairs free of charge. Forty years later, over 40,000 women’s lives have been changed forever.

The Lonely War: One Woman's Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran

Nazila Fathi has seen first-hand how Iran's 1978 revolution replaced decades of inequality with a new form of oppression: her English-speaking father was fired and had to travel hundreds of miles from his family to labor in an orchard, just to support his family, while their uneducated housekeeper retired and purchased her own apartment, all thanks to her family's support of the new regime. When Fathi began her career in journalism, she quickly ran up against Iran's glass ceiling — and the danger of attracting the attention of the ruthless intelligence division. Although she now lives in the West, Fathi drew on interviews with many Iranians — both the general public and high-level officials — as well as her own experiences to create this dramatic portrait of how moderates are slowly taking back their beloved country.

When Marian Anderson sang at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, she was at the peak of a dazzling career... but banned from performing many places, including the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall in Washington, DC, because she was black. Then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a tremendous fan of Anderson, resigned from the DAR when she heard, turning the segregation that artists faced every day across the country into national news. Anderson took political advantage of her 75,000-person crowd in Washington, captivating the world and beginning the push to end segregation in the arts. Raymond Arsenault beautifully captures Anderson's quiet heroism and dignity in this story of one of civil rights' first milestones.

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer

Ada Lovelace translated Charles Babbage’s plans for a mechanical calculator in 1842, but this mathematical genius did more than just rewrite his words: she also added annotations three time longer than the original work and buried within them was the origin of computing theory. Sadly, the Difference Engine was never built... but what if it had been? In this rollicking graphic novel, Padua presents an alternate reality where Lovelace and Babbage build their machine and use it for everything from exploring mathematics to fighting crime. This unique and intriguing graphic novel that combines history and fantasy is sure to delight both teen and adult readers alike.

Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story

As Japanese soldiers take young Jae-Hee and her sister away from their parents, their mother gives them an antique comb with an inlay of a two-headed dragon, swearing it will protect them. The girls are to become "comfort women" — sex slaves for the soldiers of the Imperial Army — and their time at the "comfort station" is brutal; when the war ends, Jae-Hee is forced to flee while her sister lies dying. For years, she hides her story as she endures yet more tragedy: love found in North Korea, then lost when the communists drag her husband away; a new life in South Korea that turns to poverty when people learn her secret. Then Jae-Hee learns the true meaning of her mother's gift, still with her after all these years, and sets out for a remarkable reunion. This engrossing story tells the story of the "comfort women" in a respectful and gripping fashion.

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

In Afghanistan in 2007, with her father addicted to drugs and no brothers to support the family, Rahima takes on the life of a boy in the tradition of the bacha posh. Until she comes of age, she can have all the freedoms of a son, including the right to work and to escort her mother and sisters in public. But Rahima is not the first in her family to wear a man's identity: a hundred years earlier, her great-great-grandmother, Shekiba, built herself a new life in the same way. This haunting novel interweaves the story of these two women, both of whom face extraordinary hardship and tragedy, and whose lives may be different but whose destinies seem eerily similar. This debut novel depicts the strange contradiction of two women who are powerless, yet find the freedom to control their own fate.