March is Women's History Month. Here's a recap of the books that I've read since last March that deal with women's history themes or have notable women characters.
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Kugels and Collards: Stories of Food, Family, and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina. Rachel Gordin Barnett and Lyssa Kligman Harvey. University of South Carolina Press, 2023. 256 pages.
South Carolina became home to some of the first Jews to ever live in North America, with the first recorded Jewish settlers arriving in Charleston in the 1690s. Over the centuries, more Jews arrived, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi, then Germans, Russians, and Eastern Europeans, at the turn of the 20th century and, later, escaping the Holocaust. Jewish families adapted and blended their traditions and foodways in their new home, influenced by contact with other ethnic groups, black and white, and by new and different ingredients that they found. The result is this history and cookbook, containing some 80 recipes alongside dozens of stories about their creation and history. As I've said lots of times in the past, it's hard to go wrong when combining food and history, and this book is a revealing insight into a particular culture.
Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis. Jeffrey H. Jackson. Algonquin Books, 2020. 336 pages.
Another book about anti-German resistance in occupied territory during WWII, but this one is unique. First, it's set on the island of Jersey, one of the Channel islands between France and the UK which doesn't get a lot of ink. Second, it's the first book to tell the story of two queer artists, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe (known in the art world as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore), whose lives and resistance were almost forgotten. Third, their resistance involved no weapons, no espionage, and no hiding of Jews or Allied pilots. Their resistance was writing anonymous notes. That might sound benign and low-key, but their actions were still punishable by death.
Schwob and Malherbe were well-to-do French women (childhood friends who actually became stepsisters when their parents married) who became lovers and were deeply involved in the cross-dressing, homosexual, gender-bending, artistic, and literary free-for-all that was Paris in the 1920s. They socialized with all the big names (Gertrude Stein, Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Aldous Huxley, among others) of the Lost Generation and Surrealism. They became avant-garde artists themselves, dabbling in various media but mostly photography focusing mostly on gender and challenging social norms. As the European situation deteriorated, they decided to move to the quaint peaceful island of Jersey. There, they had to closet themselves as just sisters because it was a different world from Paris. Their respite was brief, however, as Jersey was occupied by German troops. The pair began a propaganda war against the occupiers, conducting psychological warfare by creating and distributing "paper bullets" — small typed notes containing wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops. They would sneak the notes into soldiers pockets, on and in vehicles, and various other places. Finally arrested and sentenced to death, they continued resistance in prison, reaching out to other prisoners to lift their spirits. It's quite an interesting story.
Harriet Tubman Live in Concert. Bob the Drag Queen. Gallery Books, 2025. 239 pages. (Audio version 4hrs, 17 minutes)
Wow! I had no idea what to expect when I first learned about this book, but I immediately pre-ordered it. We've been fans of Bob the Drag Queen since his first appearance on "RuPaul's Drag Race" and have seen him on a couple of stand-up comedy tours, but a book about Harriet Tubman? It blew me away. Pure creative genius and one of the most original things that I've read in a very long time.
Picture it: NYC, present day. People from the past, including many major historical figures have suddenly returned to life. There's no explanation, almost no attention paid to it in the story. It's just the mechanism which makes the story possible. Don't worry about it. "The Returned" live their lives and integrate into the present. Cleopatra, for example, becomes a hugely successful makeup and fashion Instagram influencer. Harriet Tubman, and several of the people she led to freedom on the Underground Railroad, have returned, and she's on a mission, again - a mission from God. She contacts Darnell Williams, a once-hot hip-hop writer and producer whose music career is struggling, and tells him that God has chosen him to assist in her mission. While one might deny God, nobody dares to say No to Harriet Tubman! Her mission: create an epic hip-hop album and stage show, a la "Hamilton." In her first life, Tubman freed about 700 people from physical chains, and many more indirectly. Now, she's back to free millions from metaphorical chains of all sorts. Darnell has his own metaphorical chains to break, and he goes to work, with Harriet's guidance, to break free into his own authentic self. This is a fantastic work, and I so hope that Bob is actively working to create a real album and show; it could be bigger than "Hamilton." I highly recommend the audio version. Not only is Bob the reader, but it also includes two of the show's songs at the end. (NOTE: The photo above was generated using AI. There is no known photo of Harriet Tubman spittin' fire.)
Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco. Gary Krist. Crown, 2025. 400 pages.
First things first: the title is horrendous, "Trespassers at the Golden Gate" has next to nothing to do with the story. But don't let that put you totally off, there's a good story inside. On November 3, 1870, Laura D. Fair shot and killed her married lover in front of dozens of eyewitnesses, including the man's wife and a few of his children on a ferryboat in San Francisco Bay. The victim, A.P. Crittenden was a well known lawyer and former California state legislator who had told Fair for years that she was his one, true wife and that he was going to divorce his wife and marry her. When she finally realized that he was lying, she snapped, setting into motion a legal episode that captured the interest of the entire country. The resulting trials led to public and private debates about marriage, morality, gender issues, and justice in California and beyond.
Krist not only relates the now forgotten affair, but he also places the story in a larger context of the development of San Francisco which was a tiny little insignificant village in 1848 that became a wild and rough Gold Rush den of vice and corruption and, by 1870, was struggling to become a cultured and progressive metropolis. During its meteoric rise, the fortunes of women, blacks, and Chinese in the city rose and fell, and Krist tells the stories of select representatives of those marginalized groups in parallel storylines. He also introduces characters like Mark Twain, Brett Harte, and Susan B. Anthony who were swept up in the Laura Fair story. It all makes for a really interesting story and a good history of San Francisco. My only complaint is that, while I appreciated the tangents and the larger context, I can see that some readers would find them distracting and maybe even consider them filler material to pad a pretty cut and dried, straightforward story.
Stranger in the Shogun's City. Amy Stanley. Scribner, 2020. 352 pages.
When asked why they don't appreciate history, many people might say that history is just the stories of kings and queens and the upper class, and, honestly, a lot of history is exactly that. The lives of kings and queens are the most likely to be documented and written about, creating lots of material for historians to comb through. "Regular" people don't often leave paper trails. That's what makes a book like Stranger in the Shogun's City really stand out. Stranger is the story of Japan just before the 1853 arrival of the American fleet which resulted in Japan's emergence onto the world stage, told through the life of Tsuneno, the daughter of a Buddhist priest. Tsuneno grew up in a small village, and her parents ran the local temple. The family enjoyed a relatively comfortable lifestyle, and the children were all educated. Tsuneno's eldest brother was set to inherit his father's position, and Tsuneno and her sisters were expected to follow the normal path for priest's daughters, probably an arranged marriage with a priest in another village and a life managing the day-to-day operations of the local temple. However, that life didn't appeal to Tsuneno; she had dreams of life in the big city, Edo (now Tokyo), the seat of power of the Shogun, the de facto ruler of Japan. She finally makes it to Edo in her mid thirties, having been divorced three times. Alone and penniless, owning little beyond the clothes on her back, she has to make her own way, and it's a struggle. Her struggles are documented in numerous letters between her and her family, and they also present a detailed look at life in Edo. The book is a great window into the culture of 19th century Japan, and specifically into the life of a Japanese woman at the time.
Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest. Crown, 2005. 432 pages.
In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, arrived at a sanitorium in the forests of the Pacific Northwest to undergo the revolutionary “fasting treatment” of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. They were always open-minded when it came to new health treatments and crazes, and Dr. Hazzard's treatment looked promising to them. Hazzard and her husband were building a sanitarium outside of Seattle that they dreamed would rival Kellogg's famous sanitarium in Battle Creek Michigan. The sisters entered into her care and submitted to weeks of enforced fasting, subsisting on weak tomato and asparagus broths, and daily enemas. Claire died, and her sister Dora finally made contact with the girls' childhood nurse in Australia and an uncle who arrived to rescue her. What they found on their arrivals made no sense, and they got British and American authorities involved, discovering many more deaths caused by Hazzard's "medicine." It's a real life horror story and a story of extreme quackery tinged with pure evil.
Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend. Graham Russell Gao Hodges. Chicago Review Press, 2023. 304 pages. Updated 2nd edition, first published in 2004.
Between 1919 and 1960, Anna May Wong appeared in over 50 movies, and she was one of the biggest celebrities in the world. American, European, and Asian movie magazines constantly published photos of her, stories about her, and stories written by her. She socialized with other A-list celebrities and with European royalty. She was recognized as an excellent actress, but she was also a stage and nightclub star, as an actress, singer, and monologist, often performing in multiple languages. She was incredibly talented at presenting herself, thoughtfully using her own hairstyles and wardrobe to develop fuller characters and to advance the film plots. During the Sino-Japanese War and World War II, she contributed most of her income and much of her time to raising funds for aid to Chinese civilians and refugees. She invested wisely and made a comfortable living, enough for herself and to educate her siblings. She was one of Hollywood's brightest stars --- quite an accomplishment for the daughter of a laundryman born in Los Angeles in 1905 who made her on-screen debut at 14.
Yet, few people know her name today, and far fewer have ever seen one of her films. Her career and legacy were handicapped from the beginning by outside forces over which she had no control. Strict movie codes of the day forbade any hint of romance between characters or actors of different races, so she was not considered for leading roles. Her roles were often stereotypical, reflecting American racism. She played the devious Chinese female, almost always a villain or a servant, and almost always forced to kill herself in the end. Hollywood refused to hire Asian actors, casting white actors in "yellow-face," instead. While she had many adoring fans in China, the Nationalist government condemned her because she embraced being a flapper, bared her legs and arms in films and photos, and she often played prostitutes or slave girls. She was accused of shaming the Chinese people and their culture. Wong was a very complicated and interesting character, and there has been a bit of resurgence in curiosity about her in recent years, with new biographies, documentaries, and even a Wong Barbie and U.S. quarters. This bio was ahead of the curve, however, and this new, updated edition is a thorough look at her life and career, although it's a bit dry.
The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn. Amrita Chakrabati Myers. The University of North Carolina Press, 2023. 296 pages.
Even the buffest of history buffs outside of Kentucky have probably never heard of Richard Mentor Johnson, the ninth Vice President of the United States and presidential contender who was a US Representative and Senator for years and whose political career was enhanced by stories that he was the man who killed Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames. His family was among the first white settlers of Kentucky and was a prominent family in the area of Georgetown for decades. However, Johnson's story goes much deeper, and it is an incredibly important and quintessential part of southern history and the legacy of slavery.
For six months each year, Johnson lived in a boarding house in Washington while doing the young nation's business by day and attending the young society's most exclusive society affairs by night. As far as Washingtonians knew, he was a lifelong bachelor. His Kentucky neighbors knew different, and, later, political opponents used that knowledge to tarnish his career and to thwart his presidential aspirations. The secret? He was married. To an enslaved woman that he "owned," a woman named Julia Chinn. He and Julia had two daughters who were legally his property as well. He never officially freed wither Julia or his daughters. Julia died enslaved, and her daughters weren't freed until the ratification of the 13th amendment. That doesn't make Johnson that unique. The history of American slavery is the history of interracial sex, consensual and not consensual. Slaveowners viewed enslaved women as their sexual property, and that view was universally accepted even if it was not stated aloud. Slaveowners raped, cajoled, bribed. Some treated their concubines as wives. Some freed their lovers and children. Some sold them when there was too much gossip and people started noticing resemblances. A few left their property to their enslaved or freed wives or children.
Johnson stands out because he called Julia his wife. The preacher of the church that Johnson's family co-founded married them. He gave Julia complete and total authority to run his plantation and the Choctaw Academy (a federally funded school for young Choctaw men that provided a major income for Johnson) that was located on his property. His daughters married local white men, and they and their descendants have "passed" ever since, with the vast majority of their descendants never knowing their family history until the last few years. In this book, Myers digs deep to tell Julia's story for the first time. Because there isn't much of a paper trail, (Johnson's papers are sparse for such a political man. It is thought that his brothers destroyed most of his letters and documents upon his death due to shame.), there is a lot of "could have," "probably," "possibly," and the like, and a lot of references to similar stories, but she does an excellent job of telling the important story and bringing it to light. Important and extraordinarily complicated. Spoiler alert: don't go thinking Johnson was heroic.
Dinner With King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-Creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations. Sam Kean. Little, Brown and Company, 2025. 464 pages.
I'm a fan of Sam Kean's podcast, "The Disappearing Spoon," and all of his books. He tells great, little-known stories that blend history and science. His most recent book is one of his best and one of my favorite reads so far this year. In it, he explores the field of experimental archaeology. Experimental archaeologists are not content to study documents and artifacts. They seek to experience life as the people of the past did, and they carry out controlled, scientific experiments designed to replicate ancient human behavior and lifestyles, all in hopes of answering the questions that simply analyzing artifacts can't answer. Some traditional archaeologists look down on the field and consider it frivolous or sensationalistic.
Kean seeks out the experts and learns the skills that they study. He learns and practices mummification, hide tanning, trepanation (skull surgery), flint knapping, beer brewing, open ocean navigation, Roman roadbuilding, and ancient tattooing among other skills. He learns to cook and eat ancient foods including ostrich eggs, guinea pigs, walrus, acorn bread, and various insects. He plays the ancient Aztec ball game and learns how to build and fire a giant trebuchet (a medieval siege sling weapon). He relates these experiences with great deference and respect for his teachers, who are - not surprisingly - extremely interesting and unique people, and he incorporates lots of humor, often at his own expense. (I really wish he had made a video series of each chapter. I think it would be a huge streaming hit.) But wait - there's more! Each chapter also includes a gripping short story that immerses the reader in each culture that he addresses. This is a must-read book for people who love history!
Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How To Love. Basic Books, 2009. 432 pages.
Thomas Maier's newest book is the biography of a secret British agent who worked his way up high into the FDR administration and helped to inspire Ian Fleming's creation of James Bond. When I picked up that book, I looked at his past works and decided to read his biography of pioneering sexologists Masters and Johnson. It was the basis for a Showtime drama that I watched from 2013 to 2016. For more than four decades, William Masters and Virginia Johnson were the leading American experts on human sexuality, following the groundbreaking work of Alfred Kinsey. They changed Kinsey's paradigm, however. Whereas Kinsey relied on interviews with thousands of subjects to learn about sex in America, Masters and Johnson actually watched and recorded thousands of people having sex in their laboratory, and they used scientific instruments to take thousands of measurements during the process. They published their findings and offered physical and mental therapy to thousands of couples and individuals who traveled to their St. Louis offices for solutions to sexual dysfunctions of all varieties. They went from working in secret isolation -fearful of condemnation from the scientific and medical communities, the legal establishment, and the general public- to becoming media darlings and pop culture icons. During their journey, America's experts on love and sex had their own relationship issues with other people and then entered into their own relationship with each other, a relationship fraught with each individual's personal foibles, egos, insecurities, and character flaws. Maier uses interviews with both principals and many others in their circles as well as Masters' own unpublished memoir to tell their story. It is a thoroughly engrossing story. One thing that I took from it was the truth behind the aphorism "There's a fine line between insanity and genius." It's interesting that so many people hailed as scientific geniuses throughout history tend to be mentally unbalanced in some way and often not very nice people. The word "hubris" definitely comes to mind while reading this book as well. Note: As a person with common sense might suspect, this book is full of extremely graphic language and descriptions.
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