One Hundred Women Hidden From History

I recently started reading She Caused a Riot: 100 Unknown Women Who Built Cities, Sparked Revolution, & Massively Crushed It by Hannah Jewell, a Washington, D.C.-based writer (Sourcebooks,2018).*

The book is intriguing although the author's use of profanities, anachronistic comments, and levity got under my skin a bit. I'm old-fashioned when it comes to books of biography and history. I prefer a serious, scholarly approach. I suppose in order to grab and hold the attention of millennials (the intended audience, I suspect), you have to be as entertaining and irreverent as possible.

The thing that drew me to the book, other than the provocative and attention-getting title, was the subject matter. This was the opportunity to learn the names and the life stories of women heretofore unknown. (I should point out that a few of these women are not as unknown as the book's subtitle would have us believe, such as actress/inventor Hedy Lamarr and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett.)

The book spans continents, time periods, races, and ethnic groups. Unfortunately, the black female mathematicians featured in the hit movie Hidden Figures are missing from the table of contents. Despite that oversight She Caused a Riot is a useful introduction to the accomplishments and concerns of one hundred women hidden from history. They are potential role models for young women and maybe young men as well.


*The book was published in 2017, in the United Kingdom, with the title 100 Nasty Women of History. Obviously a reference to Donald Trump's characterization of Hillary Clinton at one of the 2016 presidential debates.