Celebrate Women's History Month

A FEMINIST CLASSIC

This classic 1792 political treatise by British writer Mary Wollstonecraft argues that women should be treated with equal dignity and respect to men, especially regarding education. It was instrumental in laying the foundation for the women's suffrage and feminist movements. Her trailblazing work posits that the educational system deliberately trained women to be frivolous and incapable.

Wollstonecraft’s goal was not to undermine the role of women in the home as she pointed out that if girls were allowed the same advantages as boys, women would not only be exceptional wives and mothers, but they would also be capable workers. She encouraged society to see them as a valuable resource and called for women and men to be educated equally for without an education, women are merely men’s “slaves” and “playthings”—not the intelligent, rational companions of a just and equal society.

“…Effect a revolution in female manners…restore to them their lost dignity…as a part of the human species…reforming themselves to reform the world.”

Tackling many of the punitive patriarchal attitudes that dominated eighteenth-century society, she launched a broad attack against sexual double standards, urging women to prioritize reason over emotion to break free from male notions of female fragility and foolishness. This, her signature, classic work of early feminism remains as relevant today as it was when first released and an essential text in feminist literature.

,MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT died in 1797 at age 38, eleven days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who would become a noted writer herself, as the author of Frankenstein.

When she was 19 months old, Helen Keller (1880–1968) suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps — with the help of her inspired and inspiring teacher, Anne Sullivan — is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. The Story of My Life, first published in 1903, is Helen Keller's classic autobiography detailing the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at a water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names.

She had many experiences which were equally thrilling and noteworthy including her joy at eventually learning to speak so that by the time she was 16, she could speak well enough to attend preparatory school followed by her education at Radcliffe, from which she graduated cum laude, and of course, her extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan who had shown a remarkable gift and genius for communicating with her eager and quick-to-learn pupil. Keller also writes of her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale and other notables.

Keller first began to write The Story of My Life in 1902, when she was still a student at Radcliffe College. The book is dedicated to inventor Alexander Graham Bell, and the dedication reads, "To ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL Who has taught the deaf to speak and enabled the listening ear to hear speech from the Atlantic to the Rockies, I dedicate this Story of My Life."