Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé

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Feminism was born in 1776. When the United States became a nation, a woman had no legal existence beyond her husband. If he abused her, she couldn’t leave without abandoning her children. Abigail Adams tried to change this, reminding her husband John to “remember the ladies” when the Founders wrote new laws in 1776. He simply laughed—and women have been fighting for their rights ever since.

Elizabeth Cobbs tells the story of women who dared to take destiny into their own hands, and who fueled America’s political and economic growth in the process. They were feminists and antifeminists, activists and homemakers, victims of abuse and pathbreaking professionals. Fueled by an unshakeable sense of right and wrong, and inspired by ideals drawn from the anti-patriarchal writings of English philosopher John Locke, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. In time, they carried the country and the world with them.

Elizabeth Cobbs is a historian, novelist, and documentary filmmaker. Author of nine books, she has won prizes for fiction as well as non-fiction. She has served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in History and the Historical Advisory Committee of the U.S. State Department, and written for the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, and Reuters. A Stanford Ph.D., Cobbs is an Emeritus Professor at Texas A&M. She has produced documentaries for public television on the history of U.S. foreign policy and on the future of Artificial Intelligence, winning an Emmy and a Telly. In 2020, the U.S. Army Signal Corps Association named her Brevet Colonel for unearthing the story of the “Hello Girls,” America’s first women soldiers.

Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Time Zone: Eastern Time – US & Canada (change)
Online: This is an online event. Event URL will be sent via registration email.
More information: For more information about these programs, call at 518-474-2274, or send an email to NYSLTRN@nysed.gov.