Mary Ann Shadd Cary was an American-Canadian suffragist, abolitionist, journalist, publisher, teacher, and lawyer. The oldest of 13 children, she was born in 1823 to free black parents whose Wilmington, Delaware home often served as a refuge for fugitive slaves. Shadd Cary was the first black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher […]

Pearl S. Buck believed “herstory” was worth repeating. In her 1941 collection of feminist essays, Of Men and Women, she wrote: Many people know Pearl S. Buck as a prolific writer of best-selling and award-winning books, especially novels. The author of more than seventy books in a variety of genres, Buck was one of the

Mattie Brinkerhoff is the author of one of the most resonant passages regarding women and abortion that have survived from the 19th century; a passage linking early feminist battles for women’s rights with that century’s debate about the persistent evils of abortion and infanticide. “When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that

Inez Milholland Boissevain (1886-1916) was the privileged daughter of a New York Tribune writer and salesman. Boissevain’s parents supported her feminist agitations, but her elders at Vassar College were less enthused. Suspended from Vassar and denied entrance to several Ivy League schools, Boissevain finally graduated from NY University Law School in 1912. As a freshman