Washoe County Library System

The first full authoritative biography of Dorothy Day, American icon, radical pacifist, Catholic convert, and activist whom Pope Francis I compared to Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. After a middle-class Republican childhood and a few years as a Communist sympathizer, Dorothy Day converted to Catholicism and became an anomaly in American life for almost fifty years. As an orthodox Catholic, political radical, and a rebel who courted controversy,...

Sometimes, one moment changes a person's life. And that person goes on to change other lives. That's what happened to Frances Perkins. After she witnessed the 1911 catastrophic fire at the Triangle Waist Company, in which one hundred and forty-six people died, she devoted her life to improving conditions for workers. Frances became the first woman to serve in a president's cabinet. As Secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped...

An introduction to the history of feminist activism in the U.S. profiles fifty notable women, including Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Roxane Gay.