March CATWoman: Women Pioneers

Welcome to the March thread for CATWoman! This month we are reading about women pioneers in fact and fiction.

Here on LT the tag "pioneers" tends to be used for frontier-dwelling Americans (think Laura Ingalls Wilder) and you can certainly choose to read about women pioneers in this sense. The tagmash pioneers, women provides many great suggestions: https://www.librarything.com/tag/pioneers,+women

But I hope we'll also read about women who were or are the first in their field. One of my favorite books about books, 500 Great Books by Women, includes a list of books about women "Pioneers and Seekers":

All but the Waltz by Mary Clearman Blew
Annapurna: A Woman's Place by Arlene Blum
The Cavalry Maiden by Nadezhda Durova
Crusade for Justice by Ida B. Wells
The Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchet
Daughter of the Hills by Myra Page
The Devil Is Loose by Antonine Maillet
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Exile in the Promised Land by Marcia Freedman
Floreana by Margret Wittmer
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The Hidden Hand by E.D.E.N. Southworth
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird
Libby: The Alaskan Diaries and Letters of Libby Beaman, 1879-1880 by Betty John
Living My Life by Emma Goldman
Mountain Charley by Elsa Jane Guerin
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
A New Home, Who'll Follow? by Caroline Kirkland
Purple Springs by Nellie McClung
Quiet Odyssey by Mary Paik Lee
Spiritual Narratives by Maria Stewart et al.
Tracks by Robyn Davidson
Two in the Far North by Margaret E. Murie
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
Women in the Resistance by Margaret L. Rossiter
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole

Tell us about your favorite women pioneers, share the books you read, and don't forget to update the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/CATWoman_2022#March:_Women_Pioneers_.28N...

I might read The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel about a group of women working in the Harvard College Observatory from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s

I might try to read The Personal History of Rachel DuPree but it isn’t based on true characters. But also could read a Willa Cather book like My Antonia.

I'm going to read a GN, Radioactive.

I keep pushing The Arctic Fury (based on women explorers) up my list. Maybe this is the month! Her other book that I loved would work for this as well Girl in Disguise-based on the first female Pinkerton agent.

I will be reading The Doctors Blackwell for a book club, and it seems to be a perfect fit for this theme.

>6 cbl_tn: I read that last year for a read along. I really enjoyed it..hope you do too.

I am also going the fiction route with The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal which is about women pioneers of space travel.

Our book club read Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World by Andrea Barnet a few years ago and I would certainly recommend it.

I think I will finally get to reading Hidden Figures.

Like Carrie, I will be reading The Doctors Blackwell for the same book club. I too thought it was a perfect fit for the theme.

I hope to read Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier featuring Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot.

>10 JayneCM: Oh, I love the film and often use it in my lessons, but I haven't read the book!

I'm going to read the autobiography of a politician I admire very much (who announced recently that she will not be seeking reelection at the next UK election, after many decades in UK politics), Harriet Harman's A Woman's Work. If I get time (haha) I might also reread a fun anthology of women travellers, Unsuitable for Ladies.

I’m thinking of reading Two in the Far North by Margaret E. Murie and/or a novel by Selma Lagerlof, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

>10 JayneCM: - Oh - That's a good idea, Jayne. I've had that on my TBR for a while. (and I've seen the movie numerous times)

>14 marell: Selma Lagerlof is a good suggestion. I've been meaning to read The Saga of Gosta Berling for ages, so this could be the time.

My first thought was first in their field. I might go with something medical, but I'll try to take time to check my tbr later this evening.

>5 beebeereads: Oh, I think I have "The Arctic Fury" on my tbr, as well...

So, without having to look too hard, I found this:
Prayers for Sale / Sandra Dallas

I do have The Arctic Fury on my tbr, as well. So that's possible, too. I may have other options, as well.

I'm going to read Women Who Pioneered Oklahoma: Stories from the WPA Narratives by Terri Baker.

Climate Justice - A Man-made Problem with a feminist solution
I picked this up at WOW London a few years ago and felt it fitted this category from Robinson's own career to the women celebrated in the book for their activism.

I read this last month and can recommend it: Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

I completed Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss. This was the first graphic novel, besidesMaus, that I have ever read. I'm not a fan of the GN. However, this book was fantastic. It was so very interesting and written in a way that a laymen can understand nuclear fission and carbon-14. The love life of Marie Curie was also interesting. There are many copies of original documents contained within as well as a good amount of end-notes. My only complaint is that there was a lot of white ink on red or orange pages that I could barely make out--I struggled to read a good many pages. I highly recommend this book as a GN, a biography, a NF, and just a plain good read! 176 pages 5+ stars

Prayers for Sale / Sandra Dallas
3.5 stars

It’s 1936 in a small gold mining town in the Colorado Rockies. 86-year old Hennie has lived here for 70 years. When a new young woman moves to town, Hennie befriends her, as she knows it will take time for most people to accept the newcomer to town, especially when they think her husband has taken a job away from a local. Hennie is one for telling stories, so she keeps Nit entertained with stories of her background when and why she moved from the South (as did Nit and her husband), and more about Hennie’s own life and stories about some of the happenings around town over the years. Unfortunately, Hennie’s daughter wants Hennie to move “down” (off the mountain), as she worries with Hennie living alone in a dangerous place.

I enjoyed this. There was a lot about quilting, which is something I have never done, but I bet people who do quilt would appreciate that in this book. Leaned a bit about gold mining, as well (one thing - I’d never heard of dredging; I guess I’ve read more about the gold rush and panning for gold). There was one unexpected turn at the end (I see other reviews tell me there was lots of (too much!) foreshadowing about something, but somehow I managed to miss that!). Overall, this was enjoyable.

April's thread is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/340278

I have completed my read of The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, an alternative history about the space program and the difficulties women had to be included as astronauts.

I read Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Irin Carmon, for a pioneering woman.

This was a good overview of RGB and her career. It was not as in depth as other biographies may be, but her personality shone through.

>28 Cora-R: - I was planning to read this but don't think I'll get to it.

COMPLETED The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel

My review:
The story of the women who worked in the Harvard Observatory from the beginnings of photographic astronomy to the post WWII period, as computers, recording the observations of the astronomers and squeezing as much information as possible from the results, gaining recognition for their contributions to astronomy until ultimate recognition as astronomers in their own right from the university and academia at large.

I read The Treasure by Selma Lagerlof.

I've decided to count The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman who Saved Dostoyevsky by Andrew D. Kaufman for this challenge (even though it is written by a man). The woman was Dostoyevsky's wife. She was a pioneer who established the first publishing company in Russia run be a single female. She published Dostoyevsky's works so that the family would have control over the timing and content of his writing; when he had been published by other companies he did not have that control.

I finished Harriet Harman's A Woman's Work - she was certainly pioneering in improving women's representation in the UK Parliament and equality laws in the UK, and will be a hard act to follow when she steps down at the next election.