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People protesting with signs to secure welfare rights.

The Welfare Rights Movement Wanted Society to Value the Work of Child-Rearing

The welfare rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s resisted invasive policies. Their animating vision: that society treat every mother and child with dignity.
by Annelise Orleck, Sasha Lilley via Jacobin on August 17, 2023
Woman smiling mischeviously and holding bottles of liquor

Whiskey, Women, and Work

Prohibition—and its newly created underground economy—changed the way women lived, worked, and socialized.
by Mary Murphy, Tanya Marie Sanchez, Ashawnta Jackson via JSTOR Daily on April 20, 2023
A toddler at a small table eat a plate of food with a large glass of milk.

Empathy in the Archive: Care and Disdain for Wet Nursing Mothers

The complex story of wet nurses and their children in the time before the advent of baby formula.
by Anna K. Danziger Halperin via Nursing Clio on October 11, 2022
Housewife Annie Driver of Hunstanton, Norfolk, scrubbing the floor, while a toddler plays with the water bucket, 1956.

NOW and the Displaced Homemaker

In the 1970s, NOW began to ask hard questions about the women who were no longer "homemakers", displaced from the only role they were thought to need.
by Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on March 23, 2022
Title card for The Class Room, and drawing of a woman holding a child.

How America Got (And Lost) Universal Child Care

The U.S. managed to pay for a child care program during the most expensive war ever. What happened?
by More Perfect Union via YouTube on November 7, 2021
Henrietta Rodman walking

How Teachers Won the Right to Get Pregnant

In the early twentieth century, teachers were prohibited from keeping their jobs after getting pregnant. Socialist feminists organized to change that.
by Christopher Phelps via Jacobin on July 11, 2021
Newspaper headline stating "Mrs. Sarah Corleto to become nurse"

How an Embalming License Freed Sarah Corleto from an Abusive Husband

She used her work to live an autonomous life in a time when women were often trapped by socially constructed gender roles and systematic oppression.
by Kami Fletcher via Rad Death Blog on July 1, 2021
A woman speaks at a union rally.
partner

America Once Led the Push For Parental Rights. Now It Lags Behind.

It’s time to adopt paid parental leave as a right.
by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Mona L. Siegel via Made By History on February 8, 2019
Sketch on Rosie the Riveter working with a crying baby on her back.

Who Took Care of Rosie the Riveter's Kids?

Government-run childcare was crucial in enabling women’s employment during World War II, but today the program has largely been forgotten.
by Rhaina Cohen via The Atlantic on November 18, 2015
Kamala Harris waving at the Democratic National Convention.
partner

Kamala Harris Is Borrowing From the Feminist Playbook

Harris is taking a page from the playbook that has long helped women advance the quest for equality.
by Melissa Blair via Made By History on September 26, 2024
Wet-nurse strike in Chicago, 1937.

No Money, No Milk

Black wet nurses made a show of militance in 1937.
by Dana Frank via Hammer & Hope on July 23, 2024
Octavia E. Butler.

The Spectacular Life of Octavia E. Butler

The story of the girl who grew up in Pasadena, took the bus, loved her mom and grandmother, and wrote herself into the world.
by E. Alex Jung via Vulture on November 21, 2022
Constance Motley and Randolph Rankin attending City Hall budget hearing, February 25, 1965

The Legal Mind of Constance Baker Motley

The story of Motley's legal career prior to Brown v. Board, and her crucial participation in it.
by Tomiko Brown-Nagin via Black Perspectives on October 14, 2022
Illustration of a 1950s woman surrounded by orange flames, pink background

Reading Betty Friedan After the Fall of Roe

The problem no longer has no name, and yet we refuse to solve it.
by Tis Lyz via Men Yell At Me on September 21, 2022
Mary Kay Ash photo with pink filter.

How Mary Kay Contributed to Feminism – Even Though She Loathed Feminists

Ash derided women’s liberation as “that foolishness” – but her success story is very feminist.
by Cassandra L. Yacovazzi via The Conversation on August 30, 2022
Meghan Rapinoe, member of the U.S. Women's Soccer team, speaking at a podium about Equal Pay Day as President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden stand behind her, masked.
partner

Why International Women’s Day Matters

It’s a chance to spotlight the challenges for women, especially mothers, in the workplace.
by Suzanne Cope via Made By History on March 8, 2022
Third World Women's Alliance member demonstrating in crowd

How Black Feminists Defined Abortion Rights

As liberation movements bloomed, they offered a vision of reproductive justice that was about equality, not just “choice.”
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on February 22, 2022
Young and old hands.
partner

The Pandemic has Exacerbated the Transformation of Grandparenthood

While our perceptions of grandparents have remained static, we've asked them to do a lot more.
by Sarah Stoller via Made By History on October 18, 2021
Yumi Doi, an activist with Group of Fighting Women, at a protest against sexual discrimination, Tokyo, June 1972

A Work in Progress

Two new books on the history of feminism emphasize global grassroots efforts and the influence of American women labor leaders on international agreements.
by Nancy F. Cott via New York Review of Books on September 15, 2021
Victorian women waving from ship

The Glamour and the Terror: Why Women in the Victorian Era Jumped at the Chance to Go to Sea

The daring women whose transatlantic journeys challenged gender roles.
by Siân Evans via Literary Hub on August 12, 2021
A woman with a baby

The Feminist History of “Child Allowances”

The Biden administration’s proposed “child allowances” draw on the feminist thought of Crystal Eastman, who advocated “motherhood endowments” 100 years ago.
by Lucie Levine via JSTOR Daily on May 12, 2021
Equal Rights Amendment supporters cheer for the passage of the House ERA Resolution at the Capitol in Richmond, VA
partner

2021 Could Finally Be the Moment for the Equal Rights Amendment

The turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic could push the amendment across the finish line after a century of work.
by Rebecca DeWolf via Made By History on March 17, 2021
Book cover of Feminine Mystique

The Powerful, Complicated Legacy of Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique'

The acclaimed reformer stoked the white, middle-class feminist movement and brought critical understanding to a “problem that had no name”
by Jacob Muñoz via Smithsonian on February 4, 2021
Black and white photo of a girl sitting with a baby carriage and dollhouse

The US Government Can Provide Universal Childcare — It’s Done So in the Past

There’s no reason we can’t have universal childcare that’s wildly popular and provides high-quality care — in fact, during World War II, we did.
by Daphna Thier via Jacobin on December 27, 2020
Elegant Boardroom

The Limits of Telecommuting

Perhaps the lesson to take from this year of living online is not about making better technology. It’s about recognizing technology’s limits.
by Margaret O'Mara via Public Books on November 18, 2020
Headshot of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Glorious RBG

I learned, while writing about her, that her precision disguised her warmth.
by Irin Carmon via Intelligencer on September 18, 2020
Daycare classroom
partner

Richard Nixon Bears Responsibility for the Pandemic’s Child-Care Crisis

The policy roots of today’s childcare crisis.
by Anna K. Danziger Halperin via Made By History on August 6, 2020

The Class of RBG

The remarkable stories of the nine other women in the Harvard Law class of ’59—as told by them, their families, and a SCOTUS justice who remembers them all.
by Molly Olmstead, Dahlia Lithwick via Slate on July 21, 2020

The First Lady of American Journalism

Dorothy Thompson finds a room of her own.
by Nancy F. Cott via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 17, 2020

How Film Noir Tried to Scare Women out of Working

In the period immediately following World War II, the femme fatale embodied a host of male anxieties about gender roles.
by Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on March 12, 2020
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