Women: Historical & Fictitious

Here are several portrayals of women, four who are historical, that is real people, and one from a novel adapted for a television series. BIOGRAPHY—OVERDUE RECOGNITION The Agitators: Three Friends who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights by Dorothy Wickenden One of the satisfactions of the times we’re living in is seeing women whose achievements have …

Tidy Tidbits: Medicine, Crime, Food

READING—FEMALE DOCTORS The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura The book’s subtitle:  How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine, aptly captures the mission of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell.  Born in Bristol, England, into a large family, Elizabeth and Emily emigrated to Cincinnati when they were just eleven and six.  Although not wealthy, their parents prized …

March Diversions

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY Tomorrow, March 8, is International Women’s Day.  The theme for 2021 is Women in Leadership:  Achieving an Equal Future in a Covid-19 World.  IWD was started in 1910 at the suggestion of a woman named Clara Zetkin at a conference of working women in Copenhagen.  In 1914, Germany marked the day on March 8 because it was a …

Film, Fun & Food

RECENT FILMS POISON GLOW Radium Girls (Netflix) Based on history, this is the heart-tugging story of several young women who work in a New Jersey factory painting luminous numbers on clock faces.  It’s 1925, and the “girls” are told the brush point is finer if they dip the brush in the paint, lick it, and then paint.  Paid …