Women in American History

In this collection from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, take an in-depth look at extraordinary women in American history who led advancements in science, politics, sports, activism, the arts and more.

Now Streaming

Film
The Sun Queen

Scientist Mária Telkes dedicated her career to harnessing the power of the sun. Though undercut and thwarted by her male colleagues, she persevered to design the first successfully solar-heated house in 1948 and held more than 20 patents.
Now streaming
Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space

Meet the influential author and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Also a trained anthropologist, Hurston collected folklore throughout the South and Caribbean — reclaiming, honoring and celebrating Black life on its own terms.
Film
Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal

In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY discovered their neighborhood had been built on a former chemical waste dump. Housewives activated to create a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.
Film
Fly With Me

The story of the pioneering women who changed the world while flying it. Maligned as feminist sellouts, “stewardesses,” as they were called, were on the frontlines of a battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace.
Film
Rachel Carson

An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking writings revolutionized our relationship to the natural world and launched the modern environmental movement.
Film
The Vote

One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, The Vote tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.

Watch

Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History | Digital Short
The Woman Behind Monopoly

Monopoly might be America's favorite board game, but it has a surprising secret. The true inventor may be a woman you've never heard of: Lizzie Magie.
Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space | Digital Short
The Films of Zora Neale Hurston

Filmmaker Tracy Heather Strain talks about Zora Neale Hurston and her interest in capturing the rural Black folk in her writings and ethnographic work. In multiple trips to the south, Hurston shot 16mm film of rural Black people, culture and customs amassing 85 minutes of footage that she shot and/or directed.
Chasing the Moon | Digital Short
Poppy Northcutt: Return to Earth Specialist

Frances “Poppy” Northcutt was the first female engineer to work in NASA’s Mission Control.
The Circus | Digital Short
Mabel Stark: The Trainer

Mabel Stark was one of the 20th century's most famous big cat trainers.
Casa Susanna | Clip
(Trans)formation: The Story of Christine Jorgensen

Christine Jorgensen was one of the first people to successfully undergo gender affirmation surgery.
The Vote | Digital Short
Ida B Wells : The Advocate

Ida B. Wells was a prominent journalist who exposed racial violence in the South. In 1913, she led a trip to Washington, D.C. to march in the national suffrage parade.

Read

Fly With Me | Article
‘A revolution waiting to happen’: The Surprising Alliance between Stewardesses and Gloria Steinem

When flight attendants and the most famous feminist of her time joined forces.
Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal | Article
How a Group of Housewives Changed History

The women of Love Canal fought to free their families from toxic waste and created landmark environmental legislation in the process.
The Cancer Detectives | Article
How One Black Doctor Brought the Pap to the People

Helen Dickens was a crusader whose cancer van saved hundreds of lives.
Chasing the Moon | Article
The Women Who Brought Us the Moon

Thousands of women began their careers at NASA as computers, before the advent of electronic machines. A diverse and potent force in space exploration, their calculations were ultimately responsible for sending astronauts to the moon.
Voice of Freedom | Article
How Marian Anderson Became the Voice of the Century

Before the legendary singer was a civil rights icon at home, she battled white supremacy abroad.
The Codebreaker | Article
How Codebreaker Elizebeth Friedman Fought Nazi Spies

For 50 years, her contributions to WWII intelligence were a secret. No longer.
Sandra Day O'Connor: The First | Article
Sandra Day O’Connor’s Journey to Supreme Court Justice

How the Arizona lawyer became one of the most powerful women in America.
The Vote | Article
Carrie & Mollie & Anna & Lucy

Queering the Women’s Suffrage Movement.
The Vote | Article
Black Women’s 200 Year Fight for the Vote

For two centuries, black women have linked their ballot access to the human rights of all.

Explore

The Vote | Interactive
She Resisted: Strategies of Suffrage

Celebrate the strategies and tactics of the movement in a new interactive experience.
Article
Helen Keller's Bookshelf

Dorothy Herrmann, author of Helen Keller: A Life, tells us about the writer and activist’s passion for philosophy, love of Walt Whitman, and devotion to the work of a Swedish theologian.
The Sun Queen | Article
The Marvelously Inventive Life of Mária Telkes

A look at the scientist’s breakthrough innovations, from the world’s first solar-heated home to an electricity-free Easy Bake Oven.

Past Forward: Conversations with American Experience

Fly With Me | Clip
Sweetie, Just Smile

Assistant professor of business administration Allison Elias and author and former flight attendant Ann Hood speak with historian Monica Muñoz Martinez about the relationship between women's appearance and opportunities for advancement in the workplace.
The Cancer Detectives | Clip
Private Parts

Historian Ameenah Shakir and researcher and author Cat Bohannon speak with journalist Pam Belluck about the ways narratives and biases around women's bodies determine and limit our understanding of them.
Voice of Freedom | Clip
The Power and Resilience of Black Women

Opera singer Angela Brown and professor Kira Thurman speak with professor Jessica Marie Johnson about the excellence and power of Black women as they navigate and conquer traditionally white spaces and industries.
Clip
Command & Control: The Uterus

Professor of Law Renée Landers and Professor of Law and Theology Cathleen Kaveny speak with Historian Adriane Lentz-Smith about the history of reproductive rights and future of bodily autonomy in a post Roe v. Wade America.
The Codebreaker | Clip
Breaking the Code

Author Jason Fagone and CODE-EQUAL co-founders Valeria and Kyara Torres-Olivares speak with professor Adriane Lentz-Smith about pioneering women in STEM—from Elizebeth Smith Friedman, to groups like CODE-EQUAL.
Test Tube Babies | Clip
Fertility Science

Fertility rights advocate and America’s first IVF baby Elizabeth Carr, and university professor at Rutgers University Margaret Marsh speak with historian Monica Muñoz Martinez about the evolution of fertility science—from a niche opportunity to an accepted norm.