Re-Feminist History (aka Bitchstory)

  There are certain women history quietly tried to keep in a filing cabinet labeled “miscellaneous.” We’re not doing that. This week on Bitchstory, we’re riding straight into the hills of Kentucky during the Great Depression to talk about the women of the Pack Horse Library Project — a New Deal program under the umbrella of the Works Progress Administration. Translation: the federal government paid women to strap books onto mules and ride through the Appalachian mountains delivering literacy door to door. Yes. That happened. And it is exactly as badass as it sounds Context: Poverty, Mountains, and Zero Infrastructure In the 1930s, parts of Appalachian Kentucky had some of the lowest literacy rates in the country. Roads were barely roads. Schools were scattered and underfunded. Libraries? Mostly nonexistent. So the WPA did something radical: They hired local women — many of them poor themselves — and paid them about $28 a month to deliver books across rugged terrain. These...

  Listen to the latest episode here:  Bitchstory Join Patreon and get weekly  Bitchscopes  & more!    If you have ever used your phone to get somewhere… If you have ever dropped a pin… If you have ever trusted that calm robot lady voice telling you to turn left… You owe part of that moment to a woman you were probably never taught about. This week on Bitchstory, we’re talking about Dr. Gladys West — mathematician, programmer, data pioneer, and one of the foundational minds behind the technology that became GPS. And like so many women in science — especially Black women — she spent decades doing world-changing work quietly, precisely, and without fanfare… while history mostly talked about the men. Let’s fix that. Gladys West was born in rural Virginia in 1930. Her parents worked in tobacco fields. Education wasn’t just encouraged — it was the exit strategy. She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class, earned a scholarship, and studied...