History
Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies
Laura Thompson
OverDrive Audiobook
History
Heiresses: surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife's inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions. Heiresses tells the stories of these women: Mary Davies, who inherited London's most valuable real estate, and was bartered from the age of twelve; Consuelo Vanderbilt, the original American "Dollar Heiress", forced into a loveless marriage; Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress who married seven times and died almost penniless; Patty Hearst, heiress to a newspaper fortune who was arrested for terrorism. However, there are also stories of achievement: Angela Burdett-Coutts, who became one of the greatest philanthropists of Victorian England; Nancy Cunard, who lived off her mother's fortune and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement; Daisy Fellowes, elegant linchpin of interwar high society and noted fashion editor. Heiresses is about the lives of the rich, who—as F. Scott Fitzgerald said—are 'different'. But it is also a bigger story about how all women fought their way to equality, and sometimes even found autonomy and fulfillment.
The dressmakers of Auschwitz : the true story of the women who sewed to survive
Lucy Adlington
940.5318 /Adlington
History
Drawing on a vast array of sources, including interviews with the last surviving seamstress, this powerful book tells the story of the brave women who used their sewing skills to survive the Holocaust, exposing the greed, cruelty and hypocrisy of the Third Reich.
This was a beautiful and heartbreaking read about an aspect of the Holocaust I was not aware of. It was inspiring to read about what these women did to survive and help each other and all they encountered. -Amanda
Women in white coats : how the first women doctors changed the world of medicine
Olivia M. Campbell
610.922 /Campbell
Nonfiction, History, Science
Documents the true stories of three pioneering women who defied Victorian-era boundaries to become the first women doctors, discussing how they banded together to support each other and advocate for women's health in a male-dominated field.
For fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls comes the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, revolutionizing the way women receive health care. With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care today. -Angie
Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem
Rosalyn
133.4309/Schanzer
Religion, History
"Tackling the same twisted subject as Stacy Schiff's much-lauded book The Witches: Salem, 1692, this Sibert Honor book for young readers features unique scratchboard illustrations, chilling primary source material, and powerful narrative to tell the true tale.In the little colonial town of Salem Village, Massachusetts" (From Amazon)
A historical account with just the right amount of flavorful text and illustrations to keep it interesting. A humbling look at what superstition and zeal can do to people when it's not tempered with reason. -Mykle
The woman they could not silence : one woman, her incredible fight for freedom, and the men who tried to make her disappear
Kate (Writer and editor) Moore
BIOGRAPHY Packard, E. P. W.
History
"1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Threatened by Elizabeth's intellect, independence, and outspokenness, her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her and makes a plan to put her back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum. The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they've been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line--conveniently labeled "crazy" so their voices are ignored. No one is willing to fight for their freedom, and disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose..."--
This incredible work of nonfiction reads like a fast-past melodrama. -Anne M
Let's get physical : how women discovered exercise and reshaped the world
Danielle Friedman
613.7045 /Friedman
History, Sports
"A captivating blend of reportage and personal narrative that explores the untold history of women's exercise culture--from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda--and how women have parlayed physical strength into other forms of power"--
This is a super enjoyable and informative read about the history of women's fitness and so many of the players who started the programs and clothes and mindsets we have today. I couldn't put it down! -Amanda
The rape of Nanking : the forgotten holocaust of World War II
Iris Chang
951.042 /Chang
History
In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written the definitive history of this horrifying episode.
Iris Chang will be remembered forever for her in-depth documentation of this horrifying episode during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Why couldn’t we forget the history? because “those who failed to learn from history are condemned to repeat it’. -Fang
Plunder : a memoir of family property and Nazi treasure
Menachem Kaiser
940.5318 /Kaiser
Nonfiction, Literary Nonfiction, History, Religion, Political
When Kaiser takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather's former battle to reclaim the family's apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland, he finds himself on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as "The Killer." A surprise discovery-- that his grandfather's cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex-- leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder. Here Kaiser questions: What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? -- adapted from jacket
First, this book is beautifully written. Menachem Kaiser's grasp of language to tell a story, illustrate situations, and convey thoughts and emotions is so fluid and engaging. Second, this book is important in many ways, but also very interesting--a real nonfiction win-win. It's a slightly winding story, starting out with particular goals and desired outcomes, but as so often happens when researching and interacting history, the modern world and reality intervene, and make things a lot harder to get hold of and follow. Menachem goes where the story leads him, and the results are so strange, interesting, and profound that you couldn't have imagined some of it. This story is also full of love and learning and respect--for self, for others, for history, and for the stories that survive. -Candice
The least of us : true tales of America and hope in the time of fentanyl and meth
Sam Quinones
362.293 /Quinones
History, Science
Quinones was among the first to see the dangers of synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-- at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent. He investigated these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable. -- adapted from jacket
This book is part history, part science, and part character study. It is heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. -Tom
The secret history of home economics : how trailblazing women harnessed the power of home and changed the way we live
Danielle Dreilinger
640.922 /Dreilinger
History, Technology
"The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken cakes. But obscured by common conception is the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople that were otherwise foreclosed. In The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field's history from small farms to the White House, from Victorian suffragists to Palo Alto techies. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them; Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by Black women who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics' women, as they chose being single, shared lives with women, or tried for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a maligned subject to its rightful importance"--
I had no idea the field of home economics was so progressive and wide-reaching! I kept having to stop to share a fun piece of trivia I just learned. You'll recognize a lot of the influence today from the women of decades past. -Amanda
Unlike many books about this topic that are more gossipy, Thompson really looks at the social issues and the power (or complete lack of power) woman had over their own money in England and Europe. From the time of Henry VIII to the 20th Century, Thompson examines individual women from Mary Davies to Jennie Churchill to Barbara Hutton and how different laws, social pressure, and culture impacted their experiences as heirs to large fortunes. It is a pretty engaging, interesting read. And this is one of those audiobooks where the author's voice is truly magnetic. You can tell she loved researching and writing this book. -Anne M