Q. Who was the world's first female circumnavigator? (Hint: we're talking exploration here, not surgery.)

A. As the "male" go-fer to a French exploration ship's botanist, Jeanne Baret sailed around the globe in 700 days, surviving backbreaking work, scurvy, starvation—and even her own traumatic "outing" as the sole female on the expedition.

Q. Who sewed a million and a half stitches to create an American icon?

A. Betsy Ross? Not! Try Mary Young Pickersgill, the Baltimore needlewoman whose flying fingers created "Old Glory" in 1813, the nation's original Star-Spangled Banner.

Q. Which Asian woman broke a nautical taboo to become CEO of a 2000-ship pirate fleet?

A. Lady Ch'ing Yi Szaou, who ran her fleet of 70,000 do-badders with an iron hand, later finessing full amnesty for her crimes—and a nice smuggling operation for her retirement.

NEWLY RELEASED!
Uppity Women of the New World

Author candid: "I can't get over the sheer audacity of these 227 gals--many of them women of color—who took on racism, sexism, straitlaced religions, and equally tight corsets to become explorers, landowners, inventors, hot-air balloonists, hot-air con artists, and whatever else they darned well pleased—notwithstanding the 12 babies they were obliged to birth and raise."

Oxford Professor Jacqueline Waldren: "A witty, informed gender history that challenges the status quo at every level. León's research brings together a fund of resources for women's history, revealing the ingenuity and tenacity that allowed women to change the course of history in the New World."

Women's Memorial founder, General Wilma Vaught: "A treasure we've needed for a long time! I've learned time and time again, we don't know much about what women have done and the roles they've played. Amusingly and succinctly, León tells us."

[pub. March 2001, Conari Press. Trade paper $15.95 ISBN 1-57324-187-3. b&w art. 320 pages; bibliography; index; resource pages with places to visit, events to see, organizations, and online/offline resources]