12 stops exploring women’s history in the U.S.

Kenya’s motorcyclist sisterhood, solving a botanical mystery, and more. Email not displaying correctly? [View in your browser](. [73ed94ee-f881-4ea1-8e1f-44f98483021c.png]( April 02, 2022 [A New History of women]( [Hitting the Road]( [Hi all. This is Atlas Obscura senior editor April White with a final dispatch from Women’s History Month. Over the last 31 days we’ve traveled to all seven continents and across two millennia to begin to write "A New History of Women." It’s been quite a ride! So it’s fitting that we’re ending the month on the road: with a 3,000-mile adventure across the United States to some of the most important and moving sites in the history of the American woman. And if you’d like some company on that long drive, read on to meet up with the Inked Sisterhood of Kenya, with their pink and purple motorcycles and hard-earned feminist wisdom. You may have missed a great story or two along the way (there were a lot of them!) so click here to find all our Women’s History Month coverage. And stay tuned: We’re definitely not done telling her story.]( [See All Stories →]( [Road Trip Ideas]( [On The Road]( [Over the past month, we’ve explored the stories of women who changed the world, from wildlife biologists and mountain climbers to Civil War spies and tattoo artists. To celebrate these daring women who struck out on their own, we’ve put together a cross-country road trip. Over 12 stops and more than 3,000 miles, this route will give you a front-row seat to women’s history in America. Buckle in.]( [Read more →]( [Badass Bikers]( [Kenya’s Sisterhood of Motorcyclists]( [Meet the women of the Inked Sisterhood, a local group of female motorcycle riders. Decked out in neon pink reflector jackets embossed with the group’s name in bold black and white, the tattooed women also sport intricately styled dreadlocks, hardshell body armor, and heavy riding boots. Their look pushes back against conservative Kenyan society—and so does their passion for riding motorcycles. Despite the modern edge to the group, the Inked Sisterhood follows a long tradition of African women creating community among themselves to lift each other up.]( [Read more →]( [Toba-shi, Japan]( [Ama Hut Hachiman Kamado]( [Weather-beaten structures form the headquarters of the Ama divers’ headquarters in Mie Prefecture, Japan. Salt encrusted huts like these were once an integral part of working Ama life, where the all-female divers could rest and socialize between diving for shellfish, seaweed, and pearls. The earliest records date the practice of Ama freediving to as early as 927 AD. Today, there are still Ama in Japan, though not nearly as many as there used to be.]( [Read more →]( [Peer A Little Closer]( [How A Painting Solved a Botanical Mystery]( [Something about the painting made Tianyi Yu pause. The artwork, depicting tropical plants crowded together in a riot of color, had been painted in 1876 by prolific botanical illustrator Marianne North, who had filled this canvas with plants from a particular spot in Borneo’s northwest forests. Yu’s eye was drawn to clusters of berries, some green and unripe but others black or a bold blue. These berries would solve a botanical cold case more than a century in the making, and connect both illustrators forever.]( [Read more →]( [Music History]( [The First Black Music Magazine]( [Today, so far as anyone knows, there are just two surviving issues of The Musical Messenger. It was and is a groundbreaking publication that ran from 1886 to 1891—and by all accounts the very first Black music magazine. Only seven pages remain, but whole movements, plans, and ideas rest on those seven pages from 1889. It isn’t a stretch to link The Musical Messenger to any number of Black-owned and -run publications. Ebony. Freedomways. Vibe. Each is a link in a chain that was started by Amelia Tilghman, a musician and educator from Washington, D.C.]( [Read more →]( [Boston, Massachusetts]( [Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum]( [The low-key, three-floor Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum embodies a woman who, for over three decades, assembled a collection of more than two thousand artifacts (paintings, sculptures, objects, textiles, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, letters, etc.) from around the world. Isabella’s story is intriguing, and her collection, a lifetime’s pursuit of diverse eccentricities, conveys the energy one woman found in the art of collections.]( [Read more →]( [Centerville, Tennessee]( [Minnie Pearl Chicken Wire Statue]( [As the comic icon of the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years, and the most cherished $1.98-hat-wearing star Tennessee ever fashioned, no one would have been more proud of a larger-than-life statue made out of chicken wire than Minnie Pearl herself. The piece stands about eight feet tall, and is really a bust rather than a full statue, but Minnie is all there: wry smile, frilly costume, and her straw hat with the price tag still unabashedly dangling from the brim.]( [Read more →]( [Add a place to the Atlas]( [Subscribe to our other newsletters]( [The definitive guide to the world's hidden wonders.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Instagram]( [Visit AtlasObscura.com]( · [View in Browser]( · [Unsubscribe]( · [See All Newsletters]( 61 Greenpoint Ave #622, Brooklyn, NY 11222