Women Activism

After growing up in a conservative middle-class Republican household and working several years as a left-wing journalist, Dorothy Day converted to Catholicism and became an anomaly in American life for the next 50 years. As an orthodox Catholic, political radical, and a rebel who courted controversy, she attracted three generations of admirers. A believer in civil disobedience, Day went to jail several times protesting the nuclear arms race. She was critical of capitalism and US foreign policy, and as skeptical of modern liberalism as political conservatism.

Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows listeners how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.

With grit and grace, Katie Britt has tackled a lot that life’s thrown at her. From working in her parent’s hardware store, to finding her path at the University of Alabama and marrying the captain of the football team, to an extremely close call with a tornado that destroyed her house while she held her baby in her arms, to her upstart campaign for Senate, Britt has overcome setbacks, defied expectations and shocked the political establishment. So how did Britt become the youngest woman in the U.S. Senate?

Life in a castle isn’t always a fairytale, as the Duchess of Rutland vividly illustrates in her fascinating, revealing and funny autobiography. When Emma Watkins, the pony-mad daughter of a Welsh farmer, imagined her future it was as the wife of a younger version of her father. But then she fell in love with David Manners, having no idea that he was heir to one of the most senior hereditary titles in the land. When David succeeded his father, against all the odds Emma became the chatelaine of Belvoir Castle, ancestral home of the Dukes of Rutland.

Fight Like a Mother is the incredible account how one mother’s cry for change became the driving force behind gun-safety progress. Along with stories of perseverance, courage, and compassion, Watts shines a light on the unique power of women - starting with what they have, leading with their maternal strengths, and doubling down instead of backing down.

In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward. Through exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country.

In 40 Unstoppable Women Who Changed the World, author Harold Sala paints portraits of 40 Christian women who were used by God to change the lives of the people around them. This book will inspire Christians and help them discover the path for their own lives. Stories told in this book include: Joni Eareckson Tada, Corrie ten Boom, Susanna Wesley, Mother Theresa, Elisabeth Elliot, Amy Carmichael, Rosa Parks, and many more.

As a young girl growing up in the '50s, Hillary Diane Rodham had an unusual upbringing for the time - her parents told her, "You can do or be whatever you choose, as long as you're willing to work for it." Hillary took those words and ran. Whether it was campaigning at the age of 13 in the 1964 presidential election, receiving a standing ovation and being featured in Life magazine as the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, or graduating from Yale Law School - she was always one to stand out from the pack.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America's 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future. In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed.

Just in time for the kickoff of the 2012 presidential campaign, Joe McGinniss, the author of the classic account of the packaging of a presidential candidate, The Selling of the President; of the acclaimed search for the essence of Alaska, Going to Extremes; and of the best-selling study of the dark family secrets of an American patriarch, Fatal Vision; presents his already controversial investigative chronicle of Sarah Palin as an individual, politician, and cultural phenomenon.

In this unusually personal document, Queen Liliʻuokalani paints a detailed picture of life in a royal family—something few such figures ever attempt. She shares important memories from her childhood and chronicles her life on the international stage, beginning with her momentous ascension to the throne and ending with her effective overthrow by American businessmen and politicians who had little interest in maintaining Hawaii’s autonomy.

With Her Fist Raised is the necessary biography of Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pivotal figure in women’s history and Black feminism whose story will finally be told. Historian Laura Lovett weaves together a biography of an activist who was intersectional to the core revealing a remarkable legacy that few have known until now.

In America’s collective consciousness, Pat Nixon has long been perceived as enigmatic. She was voted “Most Admired Woman in the World” in 1972 and made Gallup Poll’s top ten list of most admired women fourteen times. She survived the turmoil of the Watergate scandal with her popularity and dignity intact. The real Pat Nixon, however, bore little resemblance to the woman so often described as elusive, mysterious and “plastic” in the press. Pat married Richard Nixon in June of 1940. As the couple rose to prominence, Pat became Second Lady from 1953-1961 and then First Lady from 1969-1974.

The true story of the fierce band of women who battled Washington - and Hanoi - to bring their husbands home from the jungles of Vietnam.

The history of women in medieval Wales before the English conquest of 1282 is one largely shrouded in mystery. This misfortune touches even the most well-known royal woman of the time, Joan of England, the wife of Llywelyn the Great of Gwynedd. This first-ever account of Siwan, as she was known to the Welsh, interweaves the details of her life and relationships with a gendered re-assessment of Anglo-Welsh politics by highlighting her involvement in affairs, discussing events in which she may well have been involved but have gone unrecorded and her deployment of royal female agency.

Florence Bramford was a ladies' maid to the ladies-in-waiting of two Queen Elizabeths from 1939 to 1974. Think real-life The Queen, Downton Abbey, or Upstairs Downstairs...inside the British Royal Family from the servant's perspective half a century ago. Margaret Bramford presents the life of her aunt, told in her own words. Florence had a Victorian childhood and Edwardian adolescence. She was privileged to reside in many royal residences with her ladies-in-waiting and joined many royal tours around the world.

Henrietta Maria is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain's Three Kingdoms. Condemned as that 'Popish brat of France', a 'notorious whore' and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic—so causing a civil war—and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle's White King was hailed as 'the definitive modern biography about Charles I' (Observer). Here she considers Henrietta Maria's point of view, unpicking the myths to reveal a very different queen.

Our media and education system often tells us that that nice White people are the solution...but what if they are the problem? How can we build a better world? And why do so many people with privilege end up making things worse when they try to help? From the Crusades to Black Lives Matter, No More Heroes is a grassroots history of resistance to the savior mentality. This book weaves the stories of teachers, international volunteers, sex workers, FBI informants, indigenous organizers, and prison abolitionists into a narrative of revolutionary change.

From one of America's most transformative politicians and activists, a powerful and inspiring memoir that sheds light on a harrowing personal journey and reveals how urgently we need our political leadership to prioritize meeting the needs of our most marginalized communities.

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg’s life shaped her career, and her career shaped her life. From inheriting her mother’s overwhelming passion for knowledge and equality to changing the legal system as we know it, this book travels with Ruth on her journey from Kiki Bader to the “notorious RBG”.