Women’s History Month: A Different Kind of Supper Club

The Astronaut Wives Club, 1959. Back row, Jo Schirra and Louise Shepard; middle row, Annie Glenn, Rene Carpenter and Marjorie Slayton; bottom row, Trudy Cooper and Betty Grissom
(Life Magazine, cover photo, September 21, 1959)

The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story by Lily Koppel; 629.45 K83a
The wives of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts joined together to support and encourage one another through the historic flights, the national publicity campaigns, and even heartbreaking loss. In this engaging book, Lily Koppel tells about the lives of Louise Shepard, Annie Glenn, Jo Schirra, Betty Grissom, and the other wives of the astronauts. Per the publisher this is, “the real story of the women who stood beside some of the biggest heroes in American history.”

Did you know that women trained to be astronauts at the same time that John Glenn and Alan Shepherd were training? Check out this blog post to learn about Wally Funk and the other women known as the Mercury 13.

7 members of the Mercury 13, pictured in 1995
(NASA, public domain)

Want even more?

Women’s History Month: She Works Hard for the Money

The book, Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World; (650.1082 L929e), contains stories from women in the business world who broke the glass ceiling barrier. Joann Lublin, the author and a glass-ceiling breaker herself, talks with and shares insights from fifty women who became leaders, and she presents her own story along with those she interviews.

Visit this blog post to find out about Lilly Ledbetter, another woman who broke barriers in the business world.

Women's History Month: Genetics Pioneer

Nettie Stevens

Upon her death, Dr. Nettie Stevens received notoriety in two publications, the journal, Science, and the newspaper, The New York Times. What prompted the national coverage of her death? Stevens, who had degrees from Stanford and Bryn Mawr and had studied genetics in Germany, determined how the male of a species determines the sex of the offspring (Gelling, 2016). Sadly, Dr. Stevens was not able to see all the results of her studies because she died of breast cancer when she was just 50 years old (Gelling, 2016). To learn more about Dr. Stevens and her work, visit one of these sites:

• Nettie Stevens: Sex Chromosomes to Sexism  
• Students Peer into the Past through Vintage Microscope Used by Trailblazing Scientist  

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Sources:

Gelling, C. (2016, March 31). Nettie Stevens: Sex Chromosomes and Sexism [Web log post]. Genes to Genomes Blog. Retrieved from: http://genestogenomes.org/nettie-stevens-sex-chromosomes-and-sexism/

Women's History Month: Cooking from the Hip and the Heart

Cat Cora

Cat Cora, a Food Network and Iron Chef star, has cooking in her roots, so to speak, because her grandfather and uncle had restaurants in Mississippi. Chef Cora’s training at the Culinary Institute of America and under chefs in the United States and France, including Roger Vergé and Georges Blanc, prepared her well. She was able to cook for and impress Chef Jacques Pépin, and she also became the first female Iron Chef on the Food Network show, Iron Chef America. (Hamilton, pp. 87-93)

The library has materials by or about Chef Cat Cora, and they are listed below for you. You may borrow any of the following from the Sullivan Lexington Library:

• Cat Cora’s Kitchen: Favorite Meals for Family and Friends by Cat Cora; 641.5949 C787c 
• Chef’s Story: 27 Chefs Talk about What Got them into the Kitchen edited by Dorothy Hamilton and Patric Kuh; 641.5092 C515c
• Chef’s Story: Cat Cora; DVD 641.5092 C515cat
• Cooking as Fast as I Can: A Chef’s Story of Family, Food, and Forgiveness by Cat Cora; 641.092 C787c
• Cooking from the Hip: Fast, Easy, Phenomenal Meals by Cat Cora; 641.5973 C787c

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Sources:

Cora, C. (2015). Cooking as Fast as I Can. New York: Scribner.

Hamilton, D. and Kuh, P., eds. (2007). Chef’s Story: 27 Chefs Talk about What Got Them into the Kitchen. New York: Harper Perennial. Pp. 87-95

Check out this blog post about a book that features other female chefs.

Women's History Month: Distinct and Dignified

Coretta Scott King-

Ms. King with her husband's portrait

The widow of civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. supported her husband and left a legacy of her own. She marched with him, attended meetings in his absence, helped coordinate meetings, cared for their four children, and managed their home (Vivian, p. 45).

Mrs. King has a children’s book award named in her honor, The Coretta Scott King Book Award. This award is given annually by the American Library Association’s Ethnic Materials Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT), and it was founded in 1969 by Mabel McKissack and Glyndon Greer (ALA, 2017). The 2017 winner of the Coretta Scott King author award was the book March Book: Three by Congressman John Lewis and author Andrew Aydin. (ALA, Coretta, 2017)

The Lexington Library and Learning Resource Center has a book about Ms. King, available for borrowing: Coretta: The Story of Coretta Scott King by Octavia Vivian; call number: 323.092 V858c
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Sources:
American Library Association. (2017). The Coretta Scott King Book Awards. Retrieved from: http://www.ala.org/emiert/cskbookawards

American Library Association. (2017). The History of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards. Retrieved from: http://www.ala.org/emiert/cskbookawards/about

The King Center. (2014). About Mrs. King: Coretta Scott King. Retrieved from: http://www.thekingcenter.org/about-mrs-king

Vivian, O. (2006). Coretta: The Story of Coretta Scott King. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Women's History Month: Sisters Holding Court

Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan

Left to right: Justices O'Conner, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Kagan

The four women who have served as justices for the nation’s highest court were nominated by three different presidents. Three of the justices graduated from Ivy League schools (Harvard, Yale, and Cornell), and the fourth from Stanford, yet their formative years were not necessarily as privileged as their higher education institutions suggest.

To learn more about these historic women, stop by the library and borrow some of the books we have about them, visit this blog post, or go to the Supreme Court’s website.

Books at the Sullivan Lexington Library

Breaking In: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice by Joan Biskupic; 343.7326 B622b

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon; 347.7326 C287n

Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court by Sandra Day O’Connor; 347.7326 O18o

Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Linda Bayer; 347.73 B357r

Sandra Day O’Connor; DVD 347.7324 S219

  

Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court BecameIts Most Influential Justice; 347.73 B622s

Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Wentto the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirshman; 347.7326 H669s

Sonia Sotomayor: The True American Dream by Antonia Felix; 347.73 F316s

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Source:
Supreme Court of the United States. (24 February, 2017). Biographies of Current Justices of the Supreme Court. Retrieved from: https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx