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Category: Women’s History

A child carrying a bundle of newspapers in one hand, the other arm held high with a copy of the Anchorage Daily Times, the headline reading

American Women’s Declaration of Independence: Newspaper coverage, 1848

Posted by: Arlene Balkansky

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal…” On July 20, 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, the first Woman’s Rights Convention approved a Declaration of Sentiments, which had been drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and modeled after the Declaration of Independence in its commitment to secure women’s …

A photo of a young woman is highlighted with rays of light coming from behind the image. The rays of light continue behind text to the left of the young woman.

Radium Girls: Living Dead Women

Posted by: Arlene Balkansky

Catherine Wolfe Donohue is not a well-known name, but in the late 1930s newspapers featured her as she lay dying. She was among the women who painted luminous numbers on watch, clock, and instrument dials using radium-laced paint in factories in New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut. Dubbed “Radium Girls” and “Living Dead,” they suffered radium …