Lafayette author visits library to celebrate Women’s History Month –…

Sisters become each other’s first friend and first enemy; there for each other through the highs and the lows, they pick each other up when they fall, although they might laugh before offering a hand up.

Olivia Meikle visited the Lafayette Public Library on Sunday to talk about “The Book of Sisters: Biographies of Incredible Siblings Through History,” which she wrote with her sister Katie Nelson.

Meikle came to the library dressed to talk about historical women, with a late 1700s dress and wig to match the era. The book tells history through the lenses of different sisters, from the Greek fates, to the Bronte sisters, to tennis’s Williams sisters.

Meikle lives in Lafayette and is an adjunct professor of gender and women’s studies at Naropa University in Boulder. Nelson has a doctorate in history from the University of Warwick in England. The sisters also have a podcast called “What’s Her Name,” in which they talk about the stories of lesser known historical women.

“The Book of Sisters” tells the stories of more than 50 sisters. At the storytime Sunday, Meikle told only the stories of a few sisters, including one story that can only be found in their book. She spoke about the Fox sisters, whose little prank on their mom got so carried away, the religion of Spiritualism got its start. Meikle spoke of the positive relationships of sisters as well as the negative ones, like that of Caroline and Sophia Herschel. She said that the sisters were always competing with each other, with Sophia being the clear favorite of their mother, only for Caroline to become a famous astronomer and Sophia to get stuck in a bad marriage.

“These women totally deserve to be world famous, totally changed everything and nobody has ever heard of them. It’s incredibly frustrating, so it’s nice to put them back in,” Meikle said.

She said that women’s history is just history, as women do make up half the world’s population. She said that the narrative often is that historical women did not do anything because they were told not to and “were not allowed to do anything,” but that this is not true, as women have always been making history.

Meikle said that as she studied women, for both her podcast and her book, she thought that it would be that women never received credit for their accomplishments. But she said that time and time again, the women were incredibly famous in their lifetime, but as soon as they died their achievements and legacy would die with them.

“It’s the narrative that women weren’t allowed to do things, and there were these few exceptions that snuck through. And that’s not true. There were always incredible women doing incredible things. You just have to look for them,” Meikle said.

Meikle said that to her, it is not a burden to tell the story of women who have been forgotten by history. It’s her passion to learn about these women and celebrate them. She said that if she was not telling these stories for a podcast or a book, she would be talking about it during family dinner or to anyone who would listen.

Jinna Jones attended the storytime Sunday and has been listening to Meikle and Nelson’s podcast for years. Jones said that the people who write history are the ones who tell the history, which might mean discarding women’s accomplishments or not telling their true story.

“The stories of these amazing women have been lost. And it’s only … now that people like Olivia and Katie are able to bring it back up,” Jones said.

Jones said that remembering the accomplishments of women throughout history is empowering for girls and women today.