history

What's that in the sky? It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Bessie Coleman, the first black woman in history to hold an international pilot's license!

Don't pack up your jerseys yet folks! Don't you put that vuvuvuvuzazula on eBay! The next World Cup is just one year away! In fact, it'll be the twentieth anniversary of the first FIFA Women's World Cup.

The ubiquity of commercial cigarettes in the United States is a 20th century phenomenon. In large part, the massive popularity of cigarettes in the United States can be traced back to their rationing to soldiers during World War I and World War II. The cigarette's rise in popularity amongst women, however, is a different story all together. In this special edition of Adventures in Feministory, we're taking a look at how flappers, Freud, feminism and fashion transformed the perception and popularity of women cigarette smokers.

Yes, Liz Lemon's evoking of the name Anna Howard Shaw made for some big laughs on the most recent episode of 30 Rock. But did you know that in addition to being funny (at least by association, and probably in real life as well), Shaw was also the first woman ordained by the Methodist church, a medical doctor, a published author, a decorated member of the National Council of Defense, a social justice activist, and a pioneer for women's suffrage? It's true!

Writing history is a radical act. I’m going to say it again. Writing history is a radical act. The process by which historians choose to deify, demonize, or emulate individuals and events is a malleable and contentious undertaking. As I’m sure you savvy readers out there know—with this retelling comes power. Sure, narratives can be retold, historical ‘facts’ reformulated, and legacies reclaimed. But whose voices get heard? Which versions get told? Who gets remembered and why? (For far too long ‘our’ Nation’s history consisted overwhelmingly of the male, pale, and stale variety.)

Cherrie Moraga is featured in this week's Adventures In Feministory because she is one of the most influential and visible Latina feminists of our time. Moraga revolutionized the feminist movement in 1981 with the release of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color, a collection she co-edited with Gloria Anzaldua. She is a writer, a lesbian, an editor a poet and an activist. She's not just those things, though, and they are not mutually exclusive. That "not just" qualification is what Moraga is most known for. Read more after the jump!