About the Daybook in Women's History Project

What Is the Daybook Project? 

A daybook is a kind of journal, but instead of a personal diary, it is a place for recording important events, ideas, or quotations. Some daybooks do preserve a writer's own thoughts or an artist's observations and reflections, but many more are organized around special topics, like food or gardening, for instance, or offer inspirational quotations for each day.

Pizan in her study
from BL MS 4431

The Monstrous Regiment of Women daybook project began on January 1, 2015 and continued through December 31, 2015. During that year, I posted an essay about an individual woman or an important event in women's history for each day of the year. (Actually, I posted 366 essays; on 22 May I made 2 posts. On that day, the Syrian city of Palmyra fell to ISIS fighters, so, having already posted on Françoise de Cezelli, I added a second essay, this one commemorating the third-century queen, Zenobia of Palmyra. If you read both posts, you'll see they are a remarkable pair!)

In these posts, if I wrote about a remarkable woman, I offered a brief biography; if I chronicled an event, I indicated something of its significance for women. 

This project didn't aim to be chronological, systematic, or comprehensive--this project reflects my own interests, reading, research, and teaching. But I obviously hope that the women and historical events profiled here will be of interest to all readers who might find their way to this blog.

Since the end of the year-look daybook project, I've continued posting whenever I have something to say--often when I'm irritated, furious, or bemused.

There are several other blogs about women's history online--I am not the only writer who has focused her research and writing on significant women and their achievements, but my effort is different in that I aim to present a series of well-rounded, though brief, essays, one for every day of the year.

For some other sites, please see Saints, Sisters, and Sluts: Famous and Infamous Women in History, Today in Women's History, Suffrage Buffs of America, and the Women's History Calendar, just for starters. Because you can never have too much women's history!

Update, 29 January 2023: Thanks to a comment from a reader, I have learned that the Saints, Sisters, and Sluts website is no longer online--what a loss! You can still find many of the old posts on the Internet Archive (click here). You might want to check out her blog. The Freelance History Writer, for great content.