Recommended Reading: 13 Women Writing History
In our latest post from the archives, our communications manager Colleen highlights histories written by women.
This Women’s History Month we’re excited to recommend some amazing works of history written by women. (I could make a really bad her-story joke here, but I’ll spare you!) As they say, history is written by the victors, so reading and celebrating nonfiction from diverse or marginalized writers is so important to creating a more inclusive historical record and for understanding different perspectives on the accepted stories we’ve all heard and known for years. Following in the tradition of women like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Drew Gilpin Faust, and Jill LePore who have helped to break the mold, paving the way for more women to enter traditionally male spheres of academia, research, and nonfiction writing, below are some of our favorite nonfiction works by women that get at the little-known, largely-ignored, and under-reported, or make huge shifts in our understanding of long-solidified history.
Written by Colleen Callery
You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe
Coe joins the ranks of many historians in cataloging our first president, but reader beware, her take is decidedly different than your grandfather’s historical biographies. Not a long or terribly in-depth look, Coe works to reframe our understanding of one of the most storied figures in American history in an accessible and lively narrative perfect for readers new to the genre or the subject, and for those well-versed in our presidential history but are interested in a fresh pair of eyes.
An Indigenous History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Oritz
Winner of the 2015 American Book Award, this is the first comprehensive history of the country’s founding from the perspective of indigenous peoples, written by Dunbar-Oritz, an acclaimed historian and activist for the indigenous movement with Native American heritage. It challenges the colonial myths and centers the centuries of grassroots resistance, resiliance and fighting against the systematic displacement and genocide of Native peoples that have been all but removed or glossed over in dominant cultural narratives.
Black Wave by Kim Ghattas
This new Middle-Eastern history focuses on the rivalry between Saudia Arabia and Iran, starting in 1979 with the Iranian Revolution and problematic US foreign policy. Years of extensive research and on-the-ground reporting gives life to this new framing of historical figures, events, and understanding of a region plagued by distorted information, especially for American audiences. Ghattas was born and raised in Lebanon and has covered the Middle East for twenty years for the BBC and Financial Times, lending a unique and knowledgeable lens to the geopolitical and religious nuances of the region.
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments uncovers the revolutionary lives of young black women in New York and Philadelphia at the beginning of the 20th century. While Victorian morals dominated the cultural sphere and Black people were relegated to second-class citizenship and demoralizing living and working conditions, this history gives us a look into the radical women upending traditional expectations of relationships with new kinds of liberating and empowering partnerships, families, sex work, and queer relations. Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, this book acknowledges those for their role in shaping a cultural movement by daring to imagine more equitable ways of living under a system of oppression.
SPQR by Mary Beard
A giant in the Classics, Mary Beard has done so much to dust off the stuffy reputation of the male-dominated, leather-bound field, and has become the preeminent authority on Ancient Rome. Her compelling and thorough history of the empire, SPQR, distinguished itself not only by being accessible to the everyday reader but also in its scholarship. Beard focuses not on the decline of Rome, but what made it succeed, highlighting their radically inclusive society, complicated power dynamics, new concepts of citizenship and identity. She’s done wonders to open up new avenues of thinking about a highly mythologized and mysterious past and is living proof why we need more women writing history!
Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis
This history of the women’s liberation movement from the legendary activist and political scholar has become a classic in the field for a reason. Davis details the racist and classist underpinnings of the movement that has left minority women struggling against layers of oppression to be included in the fight for basic human rights. Davis has been a radical leader of the intersectional feminist, Black liberation, and abolition movements for years and her insights into these struggles are crucial and transformative.
Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
An incredible interview with the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade, Oluale Kossula, this was an unpublished project from a then-unknown anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, written as part of a WPA project. Kossula was captured and sold into slavery in Western Africa in 1860, arriving in the US aboard the fabled last slave ship across the Atlantic, even though it had already been outlawed for over 50 years at the time. Even all these years later, Hurston’s work is still revolutionary, and we are so lucky to have one more momentous piece of history thanks to her.
The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan
Perhaps most well-known for her bestselling memoir Brain on Fire, which detailed her disturbing experience with the medical and mental health industry when she suddenly developed an autoimmune disorder, Susannah Cahalan takes her research and reportage one step further in this history of the mental health industry and diagnoses with The Great Pretender. This journalistic account of a shocking 1970s psychological study that went into the belly of the beast, so to speak, as a Stanford psychologist and several “sane” volunteers were committed to asylums to report on the conditions and test the medical labels and diagnoses, only to be released if they could prove their sanity. What Cahalan finds is unnerving and a fascinating history of an institution that has impacted so many vulnerable and marginalized people.
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
This award-winning account of little-covered American history by Pulitzer-Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns chronicles The Great Migration, or the mass exodus of Black people moving from the Southern US to the North between 1915 and 1970. Wilkerson creates an engaging narrative, following several individuals on their journeys, while also constructing big-picture understanding of the cultural, political, and economic dynamics contributing to this massive shift in American life.
Radium Girls by Kate Moore
We hear a lot about the celebrated story of the discovery of radium, even as it cost Madame Curie her life. But now is also a great time to read up on the consequences of these kinds of technological advances on the working class. For years, women working in radium watch dial factories were exposed to hazardous materials which caused them extreme pain and bodily deterioration. When officials at these companies discovered the dangers of working with radium they remained silent and, later, refused to take responsibility for the harm they did to their female employees. In Radium Girls, Moore tells the stories of a handful of these wronged women and the frustrating lawsuits which ensued.
The Golden Thread by Kassia St. Clair
Following her hit book on the Secret History of Colors, Kassia St. Clair is back with a cultural history of the impact and importance of fabrics in shaping our history. Due to the impermanent nature of the materials, and the long-held association between textiles and women’s work, St. Clair argues this is a huge subject largely ignored and all but left out of traditional histories. She chronicles the rise of textiles as economic exports, and of course the deep link between the exploding cotton manufacturing industry to the slave trade. While this book tends to focus more on Western perspectives and experiences with fabrics, it’s an important start to bringing more research and scholarly writing around such an essential part of our society.
1919 by Eve L. Ewing
Not a history in the traditional format, 1919 is sociologist, professor, comic writer, and poet Eve L. Ewing’s second work of poetry and centers around the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, an eight-day event that left 38 dead and almost 500 injured. One of the most violent of a slew of outbreaks across the country, during a time period that became known as the “Red Summer,” Ewing brings to light a moment of racial unrest that has been relatively unknown, the culmination of decades of structural racism and violence against Black people in Chicago. Ewing based this work largely on a 1922 report called “The Negro in Chicago” detailing living conditions at that time, but the really special part of this book is her ability to integrate the historical with elements of Afrofuturism, engaging the same dreams of a better future that brought so many to Chicago in the first place.
The Ghosts of Eden Park by Karen Abbott
When it comes to historical narratives, there’s nothing quite like true crime to really unite readers. Karen Abbott’s Ghosts of Eden Park takes us to the Prohibition era of bootleg crime with a gripping story of George Remus, “King of the Bootleggers,” who by 1921 owned 35% of all the liquor, complete with swanky Gatsby-esque mansions parties, jail time, affairs, backstabbing schemes, government corruption, and of course, murder.
