What do you think?
Rate this book
Her Story
Most people have heard of Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Sanger, and Eleanor Roosevelt. But did you know that a female microbiologist discovered the bacterium responsible for undulant fever, which then led to the pasteurization of milk? Or that a female mathematician's work laid the foundation for abstract algebra?
Her Story is a one-of-a-kind illustrated timeline highlighting the awesome, varied, and often unrecognized contributions of American women throughout U.S. history, beginning in the 1500s and spanning all the way through 2011. The women featured in Her Story range from writers, artists, actors, and athletes to doctors, scientists, social and political activists, educators, and inventors, and come from all backgrounds and philosophies. Her Story is a captivating look at America's often unsung female champions that will resonate with women and men alike.
Her Story is a one-of-a-kind illustrated timeline highlighting the awesome, varied, and often unrecognized contributions of American women throughout U.S. history, beginning in the 1500s and spanning all the way through 2011. The women featured in Her Story range from writers, artists, actors, and athletes to doctors, scientists, social and political activists, educators, and inventors, and come from all backgrounds and philosophies. Her Story is a captivating look at America's often unsung female champions that will resonate with women and men alike.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2007
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 20, 2014
Really lovely book to look at but there is so much more value to it than that. Even though I live in a time where I know I can do anything reading this book provides a motivator to not let my foremothers down. They fought so that I might succeed. They fought so that I might gain access to an education. They fought so that I wouldn't have to. Even though we have come so far there are so many things left to do and maybe I should carry the torch they left for me all the way to the finish line.
February 13, 2014
This could be used as a resource to get students started on a project. They could be looking at the contributions of women but also just learning more about a particular historical time period. There are plenty of places where they can find info about men, this book will give them a starting point for learning about strong,powerful and effective women.
May 5, 2014
I got to listen to a presentation by the author, Charlotte Waisman today, and it was such an interesting presentation! I can't wait to share this book with my daughters. Women can and do anything they want to do. Some inspiring stories, with a bibliography in the back to help you find more information about the women who inspire you.
September 18, 2023
"Most people have heard of Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Sanger, and Eleanor Roosevelt. But did you know that a female microbiologist discovered the bacterium responsible for undulant fever, which then led to the pasteurization of milk? Or that a female mathematician's work laid the foundation for abstract algebra?
Her Story is a one-of-a-kind illustrated timeline highlighting the awesome, varied, and often unrecognized contributions of American women throughout U.S. history, beginning in the 1500s and spanning all the way through 2011. The women featured in Her Story range from writers, artists, actors, and athletes to doctors, scientists, social and political activists, educators, and inventors, and come from all backgrounds and philosophies. Her Story is a captivating look at America's often unsung female champions that will resonate with women and men alike."
I found this book at a book store in Seneca Falls and found it to be a great portrayal of many women who have paved the way for those that follow.
Her Story is a one-of-a-kind illustrated timeline highlighting the awesome, varied, and often unrecognized contributions of American women throughout U.S. history, beginning in the 1500s and spanning all the way through 2011. The women featured in Her Story range from writers, artists, actors, and athletes to doctors, scientists, social and political activists, educators, and inventors, and come from all backgrounds and philosophies. Her Story is a captivating look at America's often unsung female champions that will resonate with women and men alike."
I found this book at a book store in Seneca Falls and found it to be a great portrayal of many women who have paved the way for those that follow.
April 18, 2019
Excellent book on women in our history and how they worked toward change. Each woman was given a short account of who they were, or are, in the case of women who are still alive.
September 4, 2021
This book was full of so many important women that I have never heard of before and it’s a true shame that more people don’t know about them.
January 14, 2013
I recommend the print edition of the book, Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America, by Charlotte S. Waisman and Jill S. Tietjen, as a casual introduction to the contributions of women in American history. It provides brief descriptions of women and their contributions that may prompt the reader to pursue learning more in greater depth from other sources.
I placed a pre-order for the Kindle version of this book as soon as I learned that it was being published, in April 2012. I believe, as do the authors, that women have been largely overlooked in the documentation of history, and it is important that we include women in the historical record. I was excited to see on January 2, 2013 that the work had been sent to my Kindle. I opened it immediately to read.
The authors have presented the historical information they have gleaned in the form of a timeline. I think this choice of presentation is interesting and useful. They have associated a picture of the woman in question, or of some aspect of her contribution, with each entry in the timeline. The imagery provides richness and context to the materials. I cannot imagine the effort that must have gone into securing permissions to reproduce all those images. There are over 20 pages of illustration credits, single spaced.
As for the substantive historical content, there is very little. Generally the authors have summarized each point in time, and each woman’s contribution, in a small paragraph accompanying the photograph or other illustration. I flipped through the first several pages thinking there must be more, and was disappointed to learn that there was not.
I was also disappointed in the format of the book in electronic edition. I expect that as a timeline, this must be a lovely print book; on a Kindle, it was not well formatted. For example, time periods were distinguished by text boxes specifying the year. These text boxes come scattered throughout the text, distracting from the illustrations and snippets. It would be more accessible on a Kindle if the editor would insert a new section break before each text box denoting the year so that they started a new page. I expect that appropriate section formatting might also help with another issue, specifically the cases in which the snippets relating to a photograph are orphaned from the photo, trailing onto the next page, making it awkward to read and follow. When I open the book on my Kindle, the text boxes designating the year are small, often too small to accommodate all four digits, so that the display shows, for example “160” on one line and “8” on the following line. When I open the book using the Kindle application for PC, the text boxes extend the entire width of the column of text and do not have the problem of being too short to accommodate four digits. Happily, these are minor technical editing issues that could be addressed in the electronic version of the book with limited effort in order to provide an improved presentation for future Kindle readers.
I was pleased to see an extensive bibliography, but disappointed that there were no footnotes or endnotes connecting the historical snippets to their bibliographic sources. For the women I wanted to learn more about, it would be more productive for me to type their names into a search engine than to take advantage of the bibliography contained in this book. This is one area where access to the information contained in Her Story via Kindle is an advantage – for those women whose works intrigued me, it is easy to query the internet for more information or even buy a copy of books written by or about them. Again, this is a book to pique interest, not to provide in depth substantive information. For more scholarly and in-depth reference to women in American history as a companion to Her Story, I would recommend The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History, edited by Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, Wilma Mankiller, Barbara Smith, and Gloria Steinem; The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History.
This review posted at www.onehundredyearhorizons.com/review....
I placed a pre-order for the Kindle version of this book as soon as I learned that it was being published, in April 2012. I believe, as do the authors, that women have been largely overlooked in the documentation of history, and it is important that we include women in the historical record. I was excited to see on January 2, 2013 that the work had been sent to my Kindle. I opened it immediately to read.
The authors have presented the historical information they have gleaned in the form of a timeline. I think this choice of presentation is interesting and useful. They have associated a picture of the woman in question, or of some aspect of her contribution, with each entry in the timeline. The imagery provides richness and context to the materials. I cannot imagine the effort that must have gone into securing permissions to reproduce all those images. There are over 20 pages of illustration credits, single spaced.
As for the substantive historical content, there is very little. Generally the authors have summarized each point in time, and each woman’s contribution, in a small paragraph accompanying the photograph or other illustration. I flipped through the first several pages thinking there must be more, and was disappointed to learn that there was not.
I was also disappointed in the format of the book in electronic edition. I expect that as a timeline, this must be a lovely print book; on a Kindle, it was not well formatted. For example, time periods were distinguished by text boxes specifying the year. These text boxes come scattered throughout the text, distracting from the illustrations and snippets. It would be more accessible on a Kindle if the editor would insert a new section break before each text box denoting the year so that they started a new page. I expect that appropriate section formatting might also help with another issue, specifically the cases in which the snippets relating to a photograph are orphaned from the photo, trailing onto the next page, making it awkward to read and follow. When I open the book on my Kindle, the text boxes designating the year are small, often too small to accommodate all four digits, so that the display shows, for example “160” on one line and “8” on the following line. When I open the book using the Kindle application for PC, the text boxes extend the entire width of the column of text and do not have the problem of being too short to accommodate four digits. Happily, these are minor technical editing issues that could be addressed in the electronic version of the book with limited effort in order to provide an improved presentation for future Kindle readers.
I was pleased to see an extensive bibliography, but disappointed that there were no footnotes or endnotes connecting the historical snippets to their bibliographic sources. For the women I wanted to learn more about, it would be more productive for me to type their names into a search engine than to take advantage of the bibliography contained in this book. This is one area where access to the information contained in Her Story via Kindle is an advantage – for those women whose works intrigued me, it is easy to query the internet for more information or even buy a copy of books written by or about them. Again, this is a book to pique interest, not to provide in depth substantive information. For more scholarly and in-depth reference to women in American history as a companion to Her Story, I would recommend The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History, edited by Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, Wilma Mankiller, Barbara Smith, and Gloria Steinem; The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History.
This review posted at www.onehundredyearhorizons.com/review....
May 1, 2024
3.5 stars rounded up
Her Story is a book that notes the hundreds of women who made a mark in American history. From the earliest pre-colonial era women to the 21st century, the book gives a sentence to a paragraph long description of each woman's commendable deeds. It was cool to see the impact they made in various fields and I recommend this book to read for those who want an overview on the many women who made history in the United States.
Her Story is a book that notes the hundreds of women who made a mark in American history. From the earliest pre-colonial era women to the 21st century, the book gives a sentence to a paragraph long description of each woman's commendable deeds. It was cool to see the impact they made in various fields and I recommend this book to read for those who want an overview on the many women who made history in the United States.
September 8, 2008
A very pretty book to glance at. One that would be better suited for owning than the library check out, since it's not a sit down and read straight through. It was laid out as an actual historical timeline with interesting pictures and short texts about women in history. Interesting way to want to read about some women more thoroughly.
August 31, 2015
I will admit I did not read every word cover to cover in this one. But, I would love to own this book. So many incredible women throughout the years that have done amazing things. Many of them I had not heard of or known what they did. Love the timeline display. This is a great flip through book for a coffee table, waiting room etc.
October 13, 2008
Nothing you don't already know and considering it is pretty much a coffee table book, it is surprising that there are mistakes. The most interesting thing in the book is the foreward by Madeline Albright.
June 5, 2016
I was not able to indicate my progress with this book since I started at 1980 and read it backwards then picked up and read it forward. Now I have about 50 post-it notes hanging out from this book so I can read more information on some of these remarkable women.
Want to Read
May 10, 2008A friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend co-authored this book, so I want to read it now :)
Want to Read
February 22, 2010Slideshow of American women; pictures; short captions
July 1, 2020
Great read. Full of interesting facts and thoughts about the history of women.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews