Keep Rewriting the Script: A Guest Post by Norah O’Donnell

Bringing women to the forefront of America’s founding, Norah O’Donnell’s gripping storytelling shines a spotlight on scientists, artists and abolitionists long overlooked by history. Read on for an exclusive essay from Norah on writing We the Women.

I wrote We the Women to mark America’s 250th birthday, but also because I reached a moment in my own life when I began asking deeper questions about whose stories we tell, and whose we leave out. As a journalist, my work has always been about listening, asking questions, and uncovering truth. Yet when I looked back at the history I was taught, I realized how incomplete it was. Women were everywhere in the making of this country, and yet so often missing from its official story.

This book is dedicated to my mother and my daughters, and to the women in history who remind us that nothing is impossible. I kept wondering how my own sense of confidence, courage, and possibility might have been shaped differently if I had grown up learning about these women – not as footnotes, but as central figures in American history. Storytelling matters. The stories we tell shape not just how we understand our country, but how we understand ourselves. I wanted to do my part to reshape the story of how women shaped American history.

What surprised me most in the research was not just how many women have been omitted from the historical record Americans share and teach, but how boldly, bravely, and relentlessly women pushed this nation to live up to its founding ideals. From the American Revolution forward, women were fighting wars, running businesses, printing revolutionary documents, organizing movements, and demanding rights – often at great personal cost.

The women I write about were rejected, ridiculed, erased, and told to wait. Instead, they persisted. Again and again, rejection became redirection. They stood by their convictions even when it meant losing friends, jobs, or public standing. And they forced a reluctant nation to listen.

I was especially struck by how revolutionary these women truly were; not only for their time, but in ways that still shape our lives today.  We wouldn’t have the right to vote, to have a bank account, to enjoy female-focused medicine, to get a divorce, if it wasn’t for these extraordinary women who came before us. Women have been the true architects of society, helping America inch closer to its promise of liberty and equality for all.

My hope is that readers come away with a deeper understanding of American history, and most importantly, a renewed sense of possibility. This book an invitation, especially to young people, to see themselves in the American story, to claim their power, and to keep rewriting the script.

Because We the People has always depended on We the Women