Welcome to A Little HerStory

After a very steep learning curve and a not entirely pleasant experience with my publisher, I have cut all ties with them. Big thanks to all those near and dear who have supported me during this adventure. I am painfully aware that there are typo's in the book - part of the reason I have a new publisher. The fault may lie with me, the editor, or the publisher, but at this point it is moot, the book is published (2017). I beg your forgiveness and ask that you read for content.

In March 2016 it was announced that the al-Qarawiyin Library in Fez, Morocco, the oldest working library in the world, founded ed 859 CE, around the time early forms of algebra were being invented just to lend some perspective, would re-open after restoration. The library was founded by Fatima Muhammad Al-Fihri Al-Quraysh, the daughter of a rich immigrant from al-Qayrawan (Tunisia today). Well educated and devout, she vowed to spend her entire inheritance on building a mosque

Lavinia Dock was born on February 26, 1858 to an upper middle class family. She was one of six children and they lived comfortably, receiving a proper Victorian education in art, music, literature, and language. She knew at an early age that she wanted to become a nurse and after high school she went on to study at the Bellevue Hospital school for nurses in New York City. After graduation, she worked as a visiting nurse for a variety of charitable organizations, supervised a

Elizabeth Barker Johnson During World War II, there was a significant shortage of soldiers who were able to manage the postal service for the U.S. Army overseas. In 1944, Mary McLeod Bethune worked to get the support of first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, for "a role for black women in the war overseas.” Black newspapers, too, challenged the U.S. Army to "use black women in meaningful Army jobs.” The women who signed up went to basic training in Georgia. Women who were already in

Martha Ellis Gellhorn was the only woman journalist who landed on the beach in Normandy during World War II. She was born on November 8, 1908, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the daughter of Edna Fischel Gellhorn, a suffragist and George Gellhorn who was a German born gynecologist. Her older brother Walter, became a noted law professor at Columbia University and her younger brother Alfred was an oncologist and former dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

A big thank you to my friend, Karen Callahan, for introducing me to this amazing woman. Adeline Gray was the daughter of German immigrants, Martin and Pauline Gray, born in 1917 and raised in Oxford, Connecticut. Adeline had two brothers and two sisters. From a very young age she was infatuated with the idea of parachuting. As a girl she was inspired by reading about parachute jumps. Later in her life when interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times of Florida, she said: "Back

Mary was born into a Quaker family on March 8th, 1856 in Richmond, Indiana. She was the daughter of Jonathan Wright Plummer (a wholesale druggist) and Hannah Ann (Ballard) Plummer. Mary graduated from Friends Academy and studied for a year at Wellesley College before she began teaching in Chicago. She was an avaricious reader and fluent in German, French, Spanish and Italian. She wrote many poems that were published in the Atlantic Monthly and Scribners. She graduated in 1

It was certainly not customary for women to accompany their husbands to construction sites during the nineteenth century, or to ever go to a construction site for that matter. For one thing, their long skirts and multiple layers of petticoats would certainly get in the way. For another thing, it just wasn’t done. However, Emily Warren Roebling was an exception, in many ways. Emily Warren Roebling was born on September 23, 1843 in Cold Spring, Putnam County, New York. She wa

Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated. ...For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes. . .