Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

The nineteenth century was a fantastic decade for scandalous women, as more and more strong-minded, early feminists were stepping out of their male counterpart’s shadows to make their own names on the world’s stage. In literature, this decade saw Mary Shelly galvanize readers with her controversial thriller, “Frankenstein,” and the Bronte sisters tear at the heartstrings of many—albeit not under their own names. However, one female writer from the 1800s overstepped so many of her assigned gender roles at the time that publishing under her own name was probably one of the least controversial of her actions. Isabella Bird was one of the most outspoken and daring adventuresses of her time, and although her first book was published anonymously, her age-old classic “A Ladies Life In the Rocky Mountains” proudly bore her birth name in all its feminine glory. Early Outcry Born Isabella Lucy Bird in 1831 to a devout Reverend in a small town in Yorkshire, she was known fr...

Mr. Harvey Weinstein The Weinstein Company 345 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014 　 Dear Mr. Weinstein, Congratulations on your recent Best Picture Oscar for The Artist . This makes the second year in a row that The Weinstein Company has won Best Picture! Not to mention sweeping the Best Actor and Actress awards as well. Along with Oscar nominations for Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, this has been a banner year for The Weinstein Company. Why waste time making sequels to Shakespeare in Love , and Bridget Jones’ Diary not to mention Scream 5? It’s time The Weinstein Company add another classy production to hopefully add more Oscar Gold. I’m talking about making a biopic about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. The 19 th Century is totally hot right now, not to mention poets. John Cusack’s starring as Edgar Allen Poe in The Raven soon and did you see Bright Star ? I’m telling you that The Barretts of Wimpole Street is even better than Bright S...

The Dragon Empress – The Life of Cixi, Dowager Empress of China (1835-1908) "I have often then that I am the most clever woman that ever lived, and others cannot compare with me...I have 400 million people dependent on my judgement." - Empress Cixi Once upon a time in a distant province of China, an ordinary girl named Yehenara was born. She would one day grow up to be one of the most feared women in the Eastern world, known as the Dragon Empress. Only five feet tall, this daughter of a minor Manchu official, believed herself to be the cleverest woman alive. Historians and filmmakers have long portrayed her ‘The Dragon Empress,’ a despot and villain, murdering anyone who got in her way including her daughter-in-law and the Dowager Empress Niuhuru. For almost fifty years, this powerful and charismatic woman ruled China with iron fist inside a velvet glove, but her feudal outlook, her belief that China was the center of the universe, and that all foreigners were barbarians w...

“Humanity is divided into Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller,” – Edgar Allan Poe “The greatest woman of ancient or modern times,” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Yesterday was the 201st birthday of Margaret Fuller (1810-1850). If you’ve never heard of Margaret Fuller, you are not alone. Although she hung out with the likes of Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Fuller seems to have slipped through the cracks compared to 19th century feminists Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Victoria Woodhull. Yet in her forty years on the planet, Fuller managed to accomplish a lot. Just take a gander at just a few of her firsts (from the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial Site ): • First American to write a book about equality for women, Woman in the 19th century (1845). • First woman foreign correspondent and first woman war correspondent to serve under combat conditions, covering the revolutions of 1849. • First woman journalist for Horace Greeley's New-York Tribu...