Every day women have, and are, making history. Discover their stories.
On 11 March 1959, Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun debuts on Broadway in New York. She is the first female African-American playwright to be staged there.
Continue reading “Lorraine Hansberry: 11 March 1959”Since we started compiling our database of things women achieved on this day in history, we have discovered many, many women we had not known about. Moira has written about one of them, Althea Gibson, for this year’s Illustrated Women in History Women’s History Month fanzine.
The site and zine are produced by Julie Gough, who is attempting to illustrate one women a week to learn more about women in history and celebrate their accomplishments. ‘zines, and women’s use of them to get their messages out, is something we’re big fans of so we are delighted to contribute a biog of Althea.
You can find out more about who the zine features this month over at Julie’s website, or click straight to her etsy shop to buy a copy!
We may well come back to Althea here: probably around the time the English media gets excitable about Wimbledon!
On 4 March 1933 Frances Perkins is sworn in as Secretary of Labour in Washington DC. She became the first woman to hold a cabinet post in the USA, and holds it until 1945.
Continue reading “Frances Perkins: 4 March 1933”The blue plaque scheme in London, UK, honours the notable men and women who have lived or worked in them. But mostly the men.
English Heritage, who run the scheme, have asked the public for help on improving the percentage of blue plaques dedicated to women. Moira crunched some numbers for this article on the CityMetric website:
Which London boroughs have the best gender balance in their blue plaques?