Showing results for "Looking for Jane" in Women

Sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, the odd axe-murderess—America's female ghosts differ widely in background, class, and circumstance. Yet one thing unites them: their ability to instill fascination and fear, long after death. Here are the stories behind some of the best-known among them, as well as the lesser-known—though no less powerful. A Haunted History of Invisible Women offers a unique lens on the role these ghostly legends play both within the spook-seeking corners of our minds and in the consciousness of a nation. 

'I relished every page … This is the best book on Jane Austen I have ever read’ Spectator 'Compelling … a delightful and engrossing book … Byrne’s passion is nothing if not persuasive’ Sunday Times Was Jane Austen a woman of prim manners and genteel calm? Or someone who behaved...

A mixed-race orphan, Murray grew up in segregated North Carolina before escaping to New York, where she attended Hunter College and became a labor activist in the 1930s. When she applied to graduate school at the University of North Carolina, where her white great-great-grandfather had been a trustee, she was rejected because of her race. She went on to graduate first in her class at Howard Law School, only to be rejected for graduate study again at Harvard University this time on account of her sex. Undaunted, Murray forged a singular career in the law.

What happened when Jane Austen’s heroines and heroes were finally wed? Marriage is at the center of Jane Austen’s novels. The pursuit of husbands and wives, advantageous matches, and, of course, love itself, motivate her characters and continue to fascinate people today. But what were love and marriage like in reality for ladies and gentlemen in Regency England? Rory Muir uncovers the excitements and disappointments of courtship and the pains and pleasures of marriage, drawing on fascinating first-hand accounts as well as novels of the period.

Long before The Brothers Grimm, there was a sisterhood of writers who defied the patriarchy and launched a literary craze with their feminist fairy tales—these are their stories. In 17th century Paris, a group of women who called themselves conteuses (female storytellers) came together to...

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things offers a startlingly original look at the revered writer through a variety of key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work. Going beyond previous traditional biographies which have traced Austen’s daily life from Steventon to Bath to...

Miriam Thaggert illuminates the stories of African American women as passengers and as workers on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century railroad. As Jim Crow laws became more prevalent and forced Black Americans to "ride Jim Crow" on the rails, the train compartment became a contested space of leisure and work.

The most profound and important speeches ever delivered are here collected in this anthology, this volume featuring some of the most influential women in world history. Fort Raphael Publishing has collected seven of the most important and iconic speeches of all time, all of which were written and delivered by the most important women of their respective eras.

*A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Editor's Choice Pick* From an award-winning journalist covering gender and politics comes an inside look at the female candidates fighting back and winning elections in the crucial 2018 midterms. After November 8, 2016, first came the sadness; then came the rage...

Everyone knows three things about the Women’s Institute: that they spent the war making jam; the sensational Calendar Girls were WI; and, more recently, that slow-handclapping of Tony Blair. About 215,000 women in the UK belong to the WI. Their membership crosses class and has recently begun to recruit huge numbers of young women.

1913: the last long summer before the war. The country is gripped by suffragette fever. These impassioned crusaders have their admirers; some agree with their aims if not their forceful methods, while others are aghast at the thought of giving any female a vote. Meanwhile, hundreds of women are stepping out onto the streets of Britain. They are the suffragists: nonmilitant campaigners for the vote, on an astonishing six-week protest march they call the Great Pilgrimage.

We often think of the enduring tropes of the Gothic in terms of fiction and film—breath-catching escapes that tap into our fears, anxieties, forbidden desires, and unsettling dreams. But what if some of these chilly vibes are rooted in the experiences of real and tragic people who danced a macabre waltz with love and death? That's why we're here. Take the case of teenage Mercy Brown, victim—or was it predator?—of Rhode Island's vampire hysteria of the 1890s. Marguerite de la Roque, a French noblewoman condemned for "sexual crimes" to Canada's long-lost Isle of Demons. 

The Buckeye State produced its share of wicked women. Tenacious madam Clara Palmer contended with constant police raids during the 1880s and '90s. Only her death could shut the doors of her gilded bordello in Cleveland. Failed actress Mildred Gillars left for Europe right before World War II. Because she fell in love with the wrong man, she wound up peddling Nazi propaganda on the radio as "Axis Sally." Volatile Hester Foster was already doing time at the Ohio State Penitentiary when she bashed in the head of a fellow inmate with a shovel.

Warned not to write—and certainly not to bite—these women put pen to paper anyway and wrote themselves into history. From the fourteenth century through to the present day, women who write have been understood as mad, undisciplined, or dangerous. Female writers have always had to find ways to overcome or challenge these beliefs. Some were cautious and discreet, some didn’t give a damn, but all lived complex, eventful, and often controversial lives.

'Timely and fascinating' Amanda Foreman, bestselling author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire What was mothering like in the past? When acclaimed historian Sarah Knott became pregnant, she asked herself this question. But accounts of motherhood are hard to find. For centuries, historians have...

With work like "Religious Education and Contemporary Social Conditions", first published in 1911, it is no wonder American Nobel Peace Prize-winner, activist, philosopher, sociologist, and suffragette Jane Addams is known as the "mother" of social work. The social work Addams did, and the colossal steps she took in the name of world peace and human rights cannot be overstated, and "Religious Education and Contemporary Social Conditions" is among the work that helped cement this woman’s legacy.

No one ever expected Catriona Menzies-Pike to run a marathon. She hated running and was a hopeless athlete. But a decade after her parents died suddenly, she started running and found that her grief started to move, too. Until very recently it was frowned upon for women to run long distances. Running was deemed unladylike - and probably dangerous.