“Women’s History Month, celebrated annually in March, honors the contributions of women to American history, culture, and society. Originating from a local California celebration in 1978, it grew into a national observance in 1987, featuring notable figures like Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, and Rosa Parks. The month includes International Women’s Day on March 8.”
To celebrate Women’s History Month, I read Nora O’Donnell and Kate Andersen Brower’s We the Women: The Hidden Heroes Who Shaped America (2026). I confess: I was unfamiliar with many of the important women listed in the early chapters of this book. Fascinating nonetheless!
I did know all the women in the last section of the book–recency bias perhaps. But my favorite chapter in We the Women was Chapter 24: Agnes Meyer Driscoll: The Code Breaker. What an amazing woman! She was born in 1889 and excelled at mathematics, music, and physics. She was proficient in five languages: German, French, Latin, Japanese, and English. Driscoll worked for the Director for Navel Communication in the Code an Signal Section in Washington, D.C. during World War I. She became one of the first Navel instructors in the field of cryptography.
During World War II, Driscoll worked on cracking the German and Nazi codes. “In 1959, just before her retirement at the age of seventy, Agnes received her final assignment: to decode a set of ‘unreadable’ messages that others in her section had found impossible to solve. Two weeks later, she figured it out. Of course she did!” (p. 202)
Norah O’Donnell honors the many women who have made the cause of Women’s Rights key to success and freedom in America. Although the battle continues, my allegiance is with the women and not the stupid men who run this country right now. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — 3
Part 1: The first fifty years : the women behind America’s fight for independence, 1776-1826
- Mary Katherine Goddard: The Printer — 13
- Phillis Wheatley: The Poet — 18
- Mercy Otis Warren: The Intellectual — 25
- Elizabeth Ellet: The Historian — 32
- Elizabeth Freeman: The Freedom Seeker — 39
- Deborah Sampson: The War Fighter — 46
- Patience Lovell Wright: The Sculptor — 51
Part 2: Risk takers and rulebreakers : Seneca Falls and the Civil War, 1826-1876
8. The Grimke Sister: The Truth Tellers — 67
9. Charlotte Forten: The Abolitionist — 76
10. The Women of Seneca Falls: The Signers — 83
11. The Blackwell Sister: The Doctors — 95
12. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker: The Medal of Honor Recipient — 103
13. Susan and Susette La Flesche: The Advocates — 111
14. Anna Dickinson: The Orator — 118
15. Belva Lockwood: The Lawyer — 121
Part 3: Blood, sweat, and tears : the Gilded Age and the great demand : 1876-1926
16. Emily Warren Roebling: The Builder — 143
17. Katharine Wright: The Aviator — 151
18. Inez Milholland, The Suffragist — 157
19. Maggie Lena Walker: The Titan of Finance — 164
20. Mary Tape: The Determined Mother — 170
21. Zitkala-Sa: — The Writer — 175
22. The Hello Girls of World War I: The Operators — 182
23. The Ninetieth Amendment: The Vote — 190
24. Agnes Never Driscoll: The Codebreaker — 198
25. Margaret Sander and Katharine McCormick: The Birth Control Pioneers — 205
Part IV: Warriors, rebels, and visionaries : women at war at home and abroad, 1926-1976
26. Mary McLeod Bethune: The First Lady of the Struggle — 220
27. Eleanor Roosevelt: The Great “Agitator” — 232
28. Frances Perkins: The Cabinet Member — 245
29. The Six Triple Eight: The Soldiers — 252
30. The New Orleans Four: The Barrier Breakers —258
31. Romana Acosta Banuelos: The Treasurer — 267
32. Babe Didrikson: “The Greatest Athlete Who Ever Lived” — 273
33. Patsy Mink: The Mother of Title IX — 280
34. Pat Schroeder: The Legislator — 287
35. Constance Baker Motley: The Judge — 296
Part V: My lifetime : women’s progress in America, 1976-today
Acknowledgements — 327
Photo Credits — 333
Notes — 337
Index — 397
“…excelled at mathematics, music, and physics”–these three do tend to cluster in some fortunate people. The languages as well is, I suspect, rarer…but clearly she was destined for cryptography.
Seems like at least a good survey of underappreciated people, and perhaps a few who have gotten more of their due attention and respect. Patsy Mink, who put herself in contention in 1972, along with Shirley Chisolm, for the Dem nomination for US Pres/VP…both would’ve been better candidates than McGovern, in several ways. Even if the US electorate in ’72 might have had difficulty with them. In my time in Hawaii, she was only elected to the Honolulu City Council, and I voted for her. My term in the U Hawaii student Senate overlapped with her term in the HCC, between her two stretches in the US House.
And, of course, even Nixon was closer to sanity than Drumpf.
Todd, the profiles of women in WE THE WOMEN are exemplary! Very encouraging!
You know you’re in trouble when your Secretary of Defense, sorry, War, is President of the He-Man Woman Haters Club.
What a sad, pathetic lot they are.
Jeff, the Secretary of War is taking a lot of heat as the Iran War drags on. What a fiasco!
And, George, do you hear from very many who find they are getting a lack of security warning from you blog’s address for not having the https// prefix? Using Alice’s computer (so that I can post Anything on Jerry’s) means I always get the warning if I come over to post on yours.
I’ve just had a discussion with Alice as to whether Hegseth is even more stupid than Mullen…I think of Mullen as a lunkhead, but not quite as malignant as either Drumpf or Hegseth, even if my fellow partial Cherokee who looks pretty Caucasian is a bit too ready for a fistfight if flustered. As was the Teamster he was annoyed by.
Hegseth brings all and any heat he suffers on himself, as a blithering fool (and unsurprisingly someone who fantasizes he’s better than others, when he’s a drunken dumbass whose contempt for women might even exceed Drumpf’s…albeit Drumpf holds any non-worshiper of himself in contempt., along with his idolators, to a slightly lesser extent). Finally have access to my online accounts again.
Ah…Mullin, not Mullen. He’s always mullin’…
Todd, another incompetent lackey.
Todd, I’ll check with Patrick over the security warnings. Trump surrounds himself with fools and wonders why everything is turning to shit.
Drumpf’s used to embezzling his business projects into bankruptcy. Doing so with a country takes A Lot More Work.
Todd, driving the U.S. into bankruptcy looks likely when Trump spends a Billion dollars a day on this stupid war.
Where’s Margo St. James’ name? This book is useless without her!
Bob, I’m sure Norah O’Donnell didn’t want WE THE WOMEN banned because it included Margo St. James in it. We live in the Age of Self-Censorship.
Oh, there’s room in a lot of today”s feminists’ panoply for Margo St. James. Libertarian threads run strong.
I’m not so sure! There’s porno of every stripe available and TV shows contain rough language and situations! I noticed a commercial today in which a man happily applied deodorant! Katy Winters would be apoplectic at the very idea!
Bob, groups attack libraries and schools to remove books for lesser offenses.
Seems to me that even with her transphobia, J. K. Rowling is still more decried and removed by those claiming to represent the religious right. There is some hostility from censorious feminists to certain books, but none of that gets such widespread support from the widest range of feminists…while some of the loudest complaints from the right usually have widespread support except among the more libertarian rightiists.
The Rs could use a few more Thomas Massies. https://archive.ph/XBFKy
Todd, all movements fracture along ideological lines. The ones who can repair the rifts tend to be most successful.