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Women with field hockey sticks in a physical education class circa 1920.

The Physical Education of Women is Fraught With Issues of Body, Sexuality, and Gender

A new book, ‘Active Bodies,’ explores the history.
by Nina Renata Aron via Timeline on September 21, 2017

Flora and Femininity: Gender and Botany in Early America

Embroidered orchards and peony hair ornaments testify that women were practitioners of floral display, but many women sought knowledge as well as style.
by Susan Branson via Commonplace on January 1, 2012
Amelia Earhart wearing flight gear.

Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight

The aviation pioneer was many things before—and after—her career as a pilot was cut short.
by Judith Thurman via The New Yorker on September 6, 2009
Aimee Semple McPherson addresses a crowd.

An Eerily Familiar 20th-Century Hoax

Aimee Semple McPherson created a wildly popular personal brand as a preacher—then suddenly disappeared.
by Dorothy Fortenberry via The Atlantic on May 12, 2025
Promotional flyer for Zorita’s 1949 film, I Married a Savage, ca. 1949. In addition to her attire and the fact that she’s featured alongside her signature snake and her “Jungle Queens,” the film’s plot was anchored in deeply racialized, “exotic” tropes that were made more palatable to general audiences through the prism of her whiteness, femininity, and sexuality. Courtesy of the Tawny Petillo Collection.

Zorita in Miami

A queer Southern history.
by Julio Capó Jr. via Southern Cultures on April 8, 2025
Nan Lurie's "Women's House of Detention drawing in Greenwich Village.

How Greenwich Village Became America’s Bohemia

Greenwich Village’s bohemian and queer culture roots lie in its history of incarcerating women, notably via the Women’s Court and House of Detention.
by Hugh Ryan via The Gotham Center on November 20, 2024
Painting depicting the Salem Witch Trials.

Did the Witch Trials Ever Truly Come to an End?

Marion Gibson’s research rigorously traces the legal and human aspects of the trials through today.
by AX Mina via Hyperallergic on October 30, 2024
A sketch of a woman praying outside.

“To Eat This Big Universe as Her Oyster”

Margaret Fuller and the first major work of American feminism.
by Randall Fuller via The Public Domain Review on October 29, 2024
Nine synchronized swimmers underwater in a pool.
partner

Why No Men Will Compete in Synchronized Swimming in Paris

For the first time, men are permitted to compete in artistic swimming at the 2024 Olympics. But none will.
by Vicki Valosik via Made By History on August 5, 2024
Old advertisements selling cars to women.

Driving While Female

Is the car our most gendered technology?
by Leann Davis Alspaugh via The Hedgehog Review on July 31, 2024
Norman Mailer in front of Brooklyn skyline.

The New York Intellectuals’ Battle of the Sexes

Norman Mailer’s generation learned to “write like men.” But their female contemporaries from Mary McCarthy to Diana Trilling pioneered a more enduring style.
by Michael Kimmage via The New Republic on July 5, 2024
A masculine caricature of an Irish-American woman threatening an American woman in a kitchen.

From Saint to Stereotype: A Story of Brigid

Caricatures of Irish immigrants—especially Irish women—have softened, but persist in characters whose Irishness is expressed in subtle cues.
by Melanie Beth Curran, Margaret Lynch-Brennan, M. Alison Kibler, Peter Flynn via JSTOR Daily on March 27, 2024
Mary A. Hallern sitting in her military uniform.

The Little Colonel That Could: Mary Hallaren and the Fight for Women in the Military

After World War II ended, government and military leaders were ready to return women to their domestic roles. But one woman had other ideas.
by Tanya L. Roth via The Saturday Evening Post on February 18, 2024
Women at National Organization for Women demonstration

Betty Friedan and the Movement That Outgrew Her

Friedan was indispensable to second-wave feminism. And yet she was difficult to like.
by Moira Donegan via The New Yorker on September 11, 2023
Illustrated silhouette of a person writing, with handwriting layered over the photo.

How Handwriting Lost Its Personality

Penmanship was once considered a window to the soul. The digital age has closed it.
by Rachel Gutman-Wei via The Atlantic on July 11, 2023
Willie Mae Thornton

'Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters' Explores the Legacy of the Black Musician Who Made 'Hound Dog' a Hit

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton lived an unapologetic life that transcended genres and gender norms beyond her bluesy hit song and the “Elvis moment.”
by Daja E. Henry, Lynnée Denise via The 19th on June 27, 2023
Marsha P. Johnson and others at Pride march, with large fan.

Beyond the Binary

The long history of trans.
by Stephanie Burt via The Nation on June 25, 2023
A poster made by Ghazal Foroutan showing solidarity with the women of Iran

Was She Really Rosie?

The unlikely, true story of the Westinghouse “We Can Do It” work-incentive poster that became an international emblem of women’s empowerment.
by Michelle C. Smith via JSTOR Daily on March 15, 2023
Emblem an eye looking down on a winged globe above an ancient Egyptian landscape and the word "try".

The Emancipatory Visions of a Sex Magician: Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Occult Politics

How dreams of other worlds, above and below our own, reflect the unfulfilled promises of Emancipation.
by Lara Langer Cohen via The Public Domain Review on February 8, 2023
Swami Vivekananda (centre right) at the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893.

Against Boiled Cabbage

The story of Swami Vivekananda and his time in America.
by Michael Ledger-Lomas via London Review of Books on February 2, 2023
Three muscle builders pose at Muscle Beach on the Santa Monica Beach in California, 1949.

Gay Panic on Muscle Beach

The skin and strength on display at Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach aggravated American fears of gender transgressions and homosexuality.
by Livia Gershon, Elsa Devienne via JSTOR Daily on August 26, 2022
Actress Bobby Bradshaw is tempted by a pearl necklace, 1925.

Pearl Jam

In the twentieth century, the mollusk-produced gem was a must have for members of WASP gentility. In the twenty-first century, its appeal is far more inclusive.
by Hillary Waterman via JSTOR Daily on June 8, 2022
"Stalls for All" sign with transgender flag hearts

Transgender Legal Battles: A Timeline

New laws regarding transgender youth are based on the assumption that the gender binary is natural.
by Mena Davidson via JSTOR Daily on May 12, 2022
Sonora Smart Dodd; her father, William Jackson Smart.

The Forgotten History of Father's Day

Find out how one woman asked to recognize the fathers in her town and inspired others.
by Aurelia C. Scott via Old Farmer's Almanac on April 28, 2022
Photo of Ethel Barrymore over collage of citrus, eggs, and toast.

The Golden Age Hollywood Diet That Starved Its Famous Starlets — And Then America

In 1929, Ethel Barrymore went on the ‘18-Day Diet.’ From there, it took the country by storm. Until, that is, its disciples began dying.
by Ian Douglass via MEL on March 31, 2022
Minnie Mouse waves to visitors at the Hong Kong Disneyland
partner

The Right Worries Minnie Mouse’s Pantsuit Will Destroy Our Social Fabric. It Won’t.

Of mice and men.
by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell via Made By History on February 2, 2022
Illustration of Louise Fitzhugh smiling and holding journal.

The Tragic Misfit Behind “Harriet the Spy”

The girl sleuth, now the star of a TV show, has been eased into the canon. In the process, she’s shed the politics that motivated her creation.
by Rebecca Panovka via The New Yorker on December 9, 2021
Lucille Ball wrapping a baby doll in a diaper on "I Love Lucy" (left) and drawing of tie-waist skirt design (right)

How a Genius Fashion Invention Freed Midcentury Women Like Lucille Ball to Be Pregnant in Public

The inventor thought her pregnant sister looked like “a beach ball in an unmade bed.”
by Michelle Millar Fisher, Amber Winick via Slate on October 12, 2021
A white woman lounging on a "marshmallow sofa"

Mid-Century Modernism’s Racial History

What do we know about the history of these designs? Who was buying this furniture when modernism was new, and why?
by Kristina Wilson via Hyperallergic on April 26, 2021
Asian-American men waiting to be questioned by white police officers

Racism Has Always Been Part of the Asian American Experience

If we don’t understand the history of Asian exclusion, we cannot understand the racist hatred of the present.
by Mae Ngai via The Atlantic on April 21, 2021
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