A Women’s History Month reading list

Including the history behind behind Michelle Yeoh's Oscars win |

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Since March is Women’s History Month, I’m highlighting some of the women’s history stories in the TIME archives. Among the pieces: Historian Eleanor Janega explains how women were active participants in the workforce during the Middle Ages.   Contributor Rebekah Taussig writes about the late activist Judy Heumann, who galvanized the disabled rights movement.   I look back at a missed opportunity to implement a national childcare program during the Nixon era.   And in terms of present-day changemakers, TIME recognized 12 individuals as Women of the Year for 2023, like actors Cate Blanchett and Quinta Brunson. And for TIME's centennial year, we have revisited some of our most influential covers and will be featuring them below in future newsletters.

HISTORY ON TIME.COM This Is How March Became Women’s History Month By Julia Zorthian "Women's history is women's right" Read More » How We Chose the 2023 Women of the Year By Naina Bajekal and Lucy Feldman This year's list features 12 leaders who are working to build a more equal world Read More » The Complex History of Asian Representation at the Oscars By Olivia B. Waxman From Merle Oberon's obscured identity to a win for an actress in yellowface to 2023's record-breaking year Read More » The Secret Tax on Women's Time By Lauren C. Howe, Lindsay B. Howe, and Ashley V. Whillans Column: Time is a luxury many women can't afford. Read More » Column: What We Can Learn From Medieval Women in the Workforce By Eleanor Janega Women in the workforce is nothing new. Medieval history proves it, writes Eleanor Janega. Read More » Column: Judy Heumann Insisted That Disabled People Like Me Belong By Rebekah Taussig She lived in a story of her own making, and she expected the world to bend to it, not the other way around. Read More » The U.S. Almost Had Universal Childcare 50 Years Ago. The Same Attacks Might Kill It Today By Olivia B. Waxman Among the policy proposals included in the "Build Back Better" Act championed by the Biden administration and congressional Democrats is legislation the White House describes… Read More » Column: The Black Power Movement Is a Love Story By Dan Berger More than outrage, the emotion most befitting Black Power is love, writes Dan Berger. Read More » The Unsung Stories of 3 Pioneering Black Female Doctors By Olivia B. Waxman Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler is considered the first Black woman physician in the U.S. Read More » She Exposed the Discrimination in College Sports Before Title IX. Now She's a Women's History Month Honoree By Olivia B. Waxman Margaret Dunkle saw it firsthand Read More » How the Work of Black Voting Rights Activists Is Left Out of History Classes By Olivia B. Waxman and Video by Arpita Aneja Many of the Black voting rights activists who paved the way are not even taught in U.S. schools. Read More » Historians Pick 9 Women From History You Should Know By Olivia B. Waxman From a pioneering cancer doctor to a fighter for Cuban liberation Read More » Historian: Why I Think Women's History Month Is a Mistake By Nancy Goldstone "By allowing women to be shunted off to the side in this way, we ensure that women remain a subset of history rather than an integral part" Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1957: Author Sinclair Lewis “Author Sinclair Lewis, whose position as National Champion Castigator is challenged only by his fellow idealist, Critic Henry Louis Mencken, has made another large round-up of grunting, whining, roaring, mewing, driveling, snouting creatures—of fiction— which, like an infuriated swineherd, he can beat, goad, tweak, tail-twist, eye-jab, belly-thwack, spatter with sty-filth and consign to perdition…the Castigator, trained on newspapers to inflict sansculottism, portrays skeletal types of Americanos with all the malice, which is more than all the art, of which he is capable. The clerical creatures in Elmer Gantry are children of ideas and the ideas seem to have been whipped up out of unhappy memories of the Sauk Centre Sunday School, with all the panicky fury of a believer's wrestling with Doubt.” (March 14, 1927) Read More » This week in 1979: The future of TV “Cable and pay TV are siphoning off more viewers each year; videocassette recorders enable people to record and watch shows at their own leisure, at least partially negating all the network attempts to find a strong 8 o'clock lead-in; and relatively cheap videodiscs will soon allow people to buy their own shows to play again and again. Public television is becoming increasingly popular and even the local affiliates are less reliable. They are frequently bumping network shows and replacing them with syndicated specials like Edward the King. The networks, in short, may soon be fighting for a smaller prize. Whether that will increase or reduce the chaos in television programming remains, quite literally, to be seen.” (March 12, 1979) Read More » This week in 2010: Tom Hanks “Yet over the past two decades--from his movies Saving Private Ryan and Charlie Wilson's War to the HBO miniseries he has produced, From the Earth to the Moon, Band of Brothers, John Adams and The Pacific , which begins March 14 at 9 p.m.--Hanks has become American history's highest-profile professor, bringing a nuanced view of the past into the homes and lives of countless millions... He's the visual David McCullough of his generation, framing the heroic tales of explorers, astronauts and soldiers for a wide audience. (McCullough's John Adams has sold about 3 million copies; Hanks' John Adams brought in 5.5 million viewers per episode.) And in the history world, his branding on a nonfiction title carries something like the power of Oprah.” (March 15, 2010) Read More »

100 Years of TIME Revisiting TIME's First-Ever Cover The first TIME magazine cover featured Republican lawmaker “Uncle Joe” Cannon. Former Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs looks back at how that issue set a precedent for future editions. Read More »

Want more from TIME? Sign up for our other newsletters. Subscribe to TIME

TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services in this email. Offers may be subject to change without notice.   Connect with TIME via Facebook | Twitter | Newsletters       UNSUBSCRIBE    PRIVACY POLICY   YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS   TIME Customer Service, P.O. Box 37508, Boone, IA 50037-0508   Questions? Contact history@time.com   Copyright © 2023 TIME USA, LLC. All rights reserved.