Nearly 150 years of women's progress is charted in this compilation of significant women's obituariesWith entries dating from 1872 to 2013, the latest in TheTimes' series of anthologies of its obituaries focuses attention on almost two centuries of groundbreaking achievements by more than 100 women, from around the world. Mary Sommerville (d. 1872), the pioneering mathematician and scientist with whose obituary the anthology begins, would have been astonished by what many of the other women remembered here achieved—not least one of the more prominent graduates of the Oxford college that was named Somerville after her—Margaret Thatcher (d. 2013). The collection also recalls the lives of actresses, aviators, botanists, doctors, British royalty, musicians, Nobel Prize winners, novelists, travelers, U.S. First Ladies, and many other prominent women.

This selection of Times obituaries from 1872 to 2014 revisits the lives of 125 women who have all, in their own way, played an important part in women's educational, professional, social, cultural and emotional journey over the best part of two centuries. The anthology starts with the obituary of 91-year-old pioneering mathematician and scientist Mary Somerville (d. 1872) and concludes with that of 110-year-old concert pianist and Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer (d. 2014). In between come a formidable trio of later scientists: the discoverer of radium Marie Curie; the unsung heroine of DNA, Rosalind Franklin; and the only British woman to win a Nobel Prize for science, Dorothy Hodgkin. Plus a further quintet of great pianists: Clara Schumann, Myra Hess, Eileen Joyce, Tatiana Nikolayeva and Moura Lympany. Among campaigners, there is nursing reformer Florence Nightingale (d. 1910), along with suffragists Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst (d. 1928, 1958 and 1960), the 20th century's best-known promoter of contraception (Marie Stopes, d. 1958), civil rights worker Rosa Parks (d. 2005), founder of the hospice movement Cicely Saunders (d. 2005), anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman (d. 2009) and Nobel Prize-winning environmentalist Wangari Maathai (d. 2011). Interspersed are women prime ministers from Golda Meir of Israel (d. 1978) to Margaret Thatcher (d. 2013); actresses from Sarah Bernhardt (d. 1923) to Marilyn Monroe (d. 1962) and Elizabeth Taylor (d. 2011); novelists from George Eliot (d. 1880) to Doris Lessing (d. 2013); singers from Jenny Lind (d. 1887) to Joan Sutherland (d. 2010); plus aviators, a mountaineer, a Channel swimmer, war correspondents, ballerinas, sportswomen, botanists, US first ladies, iconic members of the British royal family, and more.

This volume describes the lifecycle events and daily life activities experienced by girls and women in ancient Israel examining recent biblical scholarship and other textual evidence from the ancient Near East and Egypt including archaeological, iconographic and ethnographic data. From this Ebeling creates a detailed, accessible description of the lives of women living in the central highland villages of Iron Age I (ca. 1200-1000 BCE) Israel. The book opens with an introduction that provides a brief historical survey of Iron Age (ca. 1200-586 BCE) Israel, a discussion of the problems involved in using the Hebrew Bible as a source, a rationale for the project and a brief narrative of one woman's life in ancient Israel to put the events described in the book into context. It continues with seven thematic chapters that chronicle her life, focusing on the specific events, customs, crafts, technologies and other activities in which an Israelite female would have participated on a daily basis.

Volume Two: The biographical essays in this volume provide new insights into the various ways that South Carolina women asserted themselves in their state and illuminate the tension between tradition and change that defined the South from the Civil War through the Progressive Era. As old rules--including gender conventions that severely constrained southern women--were dramatically bent if not broken, these women carved out new roles for themselves and others. The volume begins with a profile of Laura Towne and Ellen Murray, who founded the Penn School on St. Helena Island for former slaves. Subsequent essays look at such women as the five Rollin sisters, members of a prominent black family who became passionate advocates for women's rights during Reconstruction; writer Josephine Pinckney, who helped preserve African American spirituals and explored conflicts between the New and Old South in her essays and novels; and Dr. Matilda Evans, the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in the state. Intractable racial attitudes often caused women to follow separate but parallel paths, as with Louisa B. Poppenheim and Marion B. Wilkinson. Poppenheim, who was white, and Wilkinson, who was black, were both driving forces in the women's club movement. Both saw clubs as a way not only to help women and children but also to showcase these positive changes to the wider nation. Yet the two women worked separately, as did the white and black state federations of women's clubs. Often mixing deference with daring, these women helped shape their society through such avenues as education, religion, politics, community organizing, history, the arts, science, and medicine. Women in the mid- and late twentieth century would build on their accomplishments.

A New York Times Best Art Book of 2019 “A riveting book . . . few stones are left unturned.”—Roberta Smith’s “Top Art Books of 2019,” The New York Times This fascinating and enlightening study of the tie-on pocket combines materiality and gender to provide new insight into the social history of women’s everyday lives—from duchesses and country gentry to prostitutes and washerwomen—and to explore their consumption practices, sociability, mobility, privacy, and identity. A wealth of evidence reveals unexpected facets of the past, bringing women’s stories into intimate focus. “What particularly interests Burman and Fennetaux is the way in which women of all classes have historically used these tie-on pockets as a supplementary body part to help them negotiate their way through a world that was not built to suit them.”—Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian “A brilliant book.”—Ulinka Rublack, Times Literary Supplement

When Stephanie Staal first read The Feminine Mystique in college, she found it "a mildly interesting relic from another era." But more than a decade later, as a married stay-at-home mom in the suburbs, Staal rediscovered Betty Friedan's classic work -- and was surprised how much she identified with the laments and misgivings of 1950s housewives. She set out on a quest: to reenroll at Barnard and re-read the great books she had first encountered as an undergrad. From the banishment of Eve to Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Staal explores the significance of each of these classic tales by and of women, highlighting the relevance these ideas still have today. This process leads Staal to find the self she thought she had lost -- curious and ambitious, zany and critical -- and inspires new understandings of her relationships with her husband, her mother, and her daughter.