Raden Adjeng Kartini changed the fate of girls in her country of Indonesia. She became a published author as a teenager and was one of the first people to speak out publicly against polygamy and for the right of girls to be educated. Listen to Kate Rigg’s funny and emotional telling of this national heroine. Preview film…

Alice Guy-Blaché was a filmmaking pioneer with a modern-day attitude, swapping gender roles, demanding diverse casts and not letting a man take credit for her work. She originated the close-up and was an early adopter of sound. Khanisha Foster tells us how Alice shaped the early years of film. Preview film… 

Mary Edwards Walker, one of the first female doctors in America and the only woman to win the Medal of Honor, served in the military during the Civil War despite relentless efforts to stop her. Dee Johnson tells this crucial story of this original American patriot, a “pants girl” and a true inspiration. Preview film…

Zehra Fazal tells the story of the Wellesley Codebreakers, college seniors who secretly became codebreakers in WWII, credited with shortening the war by at least a year. When asked what they were doing in the Department of Defense they were told to say, “Sharpening pencils and emptying trash cans.” No one doubted it. Preview film…

Maggie Lena Walker was a brilliant visionary bringing dignity to her community despite the soul-crushing circumstances of the Jim Crow South. She was the first woman, of any race, to found and become the President of a bank in the United States. Shelby Jiggetts-Tivony tells the emotional story of this foremother who lifted the fortunes of multitudes of African-Americans in the Old South. Preview film…

Award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield tells us about ancient Japanese poet Ono no Komachi, one of the very few women in the Japanese Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry. She wrote brilliantly with a mastery of language that made her a legend in her own time… and for the next two millennia. Preview film…