Thursday, June 3, 2021

The Girl Explorers

by Jayne Zanglein
Sourcebooks, 2021, 416 pages. Nonfiction

The Girl Explorers is the inspirational and untold story of the founding of the Society of Women Geographers—an organization of adventurous female world explorers—and how key members served as early advocates for human rights and paved the way for today's women scientists. They scaled mountains, explored the high seas, flew across the Atlantic, and recorded the world through film, sculpture, and literature. Some of the women covered in this book include the group’s founder, Blair Niles; mountaineer Annie Peck; author Pearl Buck; pilot Amelia Earhart; and suffragist Margaret Mead.

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by Marianne Monson
Shadow Mountain, 2016, 198 pages. Nonfiction

The stories of twelve women who heard the call to settle the west and came from all points of the globe to begin their journey. These are gripping miniature dramas of good-hearted women, selfless providers, courageous immigrants and migrants, and women with skills too innumerable to list. Many were crusaders for social justice and women's rights. All endured hardships, overcame obstacles, broke barriers, and changed the world.

 

by E.B. Wheeler
History Press, 2019, 188 pages. Nonfiction

Representing lawmakers and lawbreakers, artists and adventurers, scholars and activists, the women of Utah defied stereotypes. At the crossroads of the West, they found new challenges and opportunities to forge their own paths. Emma Dean explored the Rocky Mountains with her famous spouse, John Wesley Powell. Martha Hughes Cannon defeated her husband to become the first female state senator. Maud Fitch drove an ambulance under German artillery fire to rescue downed pilots in World War I. Author Emily Brooksby Wheeler celebrates the remarkable Utah women who, whether racing into danger or nurturing those who fell behind, changed their world and ours.

by Katherine Sharp Landdeck
Crown, 2020, 435 pages. Nonfiction

When the U.S. Army Air Forces put out a call for women pilots to aid the war effort, just over 1,100 women from across the nation made it through the Army's rigorous selection process to earn their silver wings. The brainchild of trailblazing pilots Nancy Love and Jacqueline Cochran, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) gave women a chance to serve their country—and to prove that women aviators were just as skilled as men. While not authorized to serve in combat, the WASP helped train male pilots for service abroad, and ferried bombers and pursuits across the country.

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