“Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.” In 1887, investigative journalist for the New York World newspaper Nellie Bly went undercover to expose the dreadful conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum, a mental institution on Blackwell’s Island. Read more about Bly’s fearless investigation and how her work forever changed the field of journalism.
65 years ago, Ayn Rand published her novel Atlas Shrugged. From novels to newspapers, pulp fiction to periodicals, read more about how the popular and controversial author made her voice heard.
The following is a guest post from Meg Metcalf, a reference librarian in the Main Reading Room, currently on detail in the Serial and Government Publications Division. “Margaret Jessie Chung has Aspirations,” the Los Angeles Herald headline read on October 10, 1905. Margaret was a 16-year-old, first-generation Chinese American who was teaching English in the …
Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) was a Chinese-born American physicist who worked on the covert Manhattan Project developing the first nuclear weapons for the U.S. during WWII and later conducted a landmark experiment that established her as one of the premier experimental physicists in history.
Throughout history there have been many women who have greatly contributed to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). While names like Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale are familiar to most, there are so many ingenious others who may not be as familiar; women who were leaders in their fields, who made major discoveries, and whose work led to critical social and political change. Below is a list of just some of the women who have made significant contributions to the fields of STEM. You can discover their stories through historical newspapers.
From discovering radium and winning a Nobel Prize to being a "model married couple," read about Marie and Pierre Curie’s lives and love story and why the two had such amazing chemistry.
