WATCH & LISTEN
Women of World War II: The Untold Stories
Sunday, March 2 at 4:30 p.m. and Tuesday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m. on NEPM TV
Meet the American women who built the planes and flew them, fought on the warfront and the home front, cracked codes and broke barriers. The "secret weapon" that helped win the war, they forever changed the world in the process.
Witness History: Women’s History Month
Saturday, March 15 on 88.5 NEPM
A special hour-long edition of Witness History from the BBC World Service. Remarkable stories of women’s history, told by the women who were there. Selected from the BBC’s Witness History program, we hear moving, inspiring and even outrageous stories about a few of the most important women in living memory.
American Experience: 'Fly with Me'
Tuesday, March 18 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV
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"Fly With Me" tells the story of the pioneering women who became flight attendants at a time when single women were unable to order a drink, eat alone in a restaurant, own a credit card or get a prescription for birth control. The job offered unheard-of opportunities for travel and independence. These women were on the front lines of the battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace.
American Masters: 'Roberta Flack'
Thursday, March 20 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV
Discover music icon Roberta Flack's rise to stardom and triumphs over racism and sexism. Detailing her story in her own words, the film features exclusive access to Flack's archives and interviews with Rev.Jesse Jackson, Peabo Bryson and more.
Haitian Voices: Exodus, Community, and the Vital Role of Music
Saturday, March 22, at 3 p.m. on 88.5 NEPM
This documentary weaves together the voices of Haitian artists and activists, in dialogue with historical audio from the one of the world’s most distinguished radio archives, Radio Haiti-Inter, now housed at Duke University. Co-hosts Nathalie and Mélodie Cerin chronicle how Haitians have always used song as the preeminent tool for preserving their shared memory of oppression and injustice — and for mapping a hopeful vision for their future.
American Masters: 'Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined'
Sunday, March 23 at 12 p.m. on NEPM TV
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Explore the life and work of Julia Alvarez, one of America's most celebrated Latina writers. Alvarez burst onto the literary scene in 1991 with her semi-autobiographical novel, "How the Garcia Sisters Lost Their Accents," to great acclaim, followed by "In the Time of the Butterflies," which raised global awareness about three sisters assassinated by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, and was made into a major motion picture. Her most recent novel, "Afterlife," explores the universal issues of aging, loss and healing, and joins the debate about Latino immigrants in the United States.
Lucy Worsley Investigates: Bloody Mary
Sunday, March 23 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV
Does Bloody Mary, England's first ruling female monarch, truly deserve her infamous reputation? Investigate whether Mary I was as ruthless as history suggests or if her notoriety stemmed from being a strong woman in a predominantly male world.
Independent Lens: 'Home Court'
Monday, March 24 at 10 p.m. on NEPM TV
See the coming-of-age story of Ashley Chea, a Cambodian American basketball prodigy in Southern California whose life intensifies as recruitment heats up. As she overcomes injury as well as racial and class differences between her home and private school worlds, in peer groups, and against rival schools, Ashley strives to become her own person and leave a legacy behind.
American Masters: 'Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir'
Thursday, March 27 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV
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The story of the author whose first novel, “The Joy Luck Club,” was published to great commercial and critical success. With the blockbuster film adaption that followed as well as additional best-selling novels, librettos, short stories and memoirs, Tan firmly established herself as one of the most prominent and respected American literary voices working today.
Jacqueline du Pre: Genius and Tragedy
Friday, March 28 at 9 p.m. on NEPM TV
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Those who know consider Jacqueline du Pre one of the greatest cellists of all time — certainly in the top three — despite a career that was cruelly curtailed by multiple sclerosis at just 28 years old. The force of nature took away her prodigious gift and her joy of performing and she endured 14 years of unremitting illness.
American Masters: 'Becoming Helen Keller'
Sunday, March 30 at 12 p.m. on NEPM TV
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Revisit the complex life and legacy of the author, advocate and human rights pioneer. Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, used her celebrity and wit to champion rights for women, people with disabilities and people living in poverty.
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Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up
Civil rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer is remembered by those how worked side by side with her in the struggle for voting rights. An African-American sharecropper from the Mississippi Delta, Hamer’s difficulty registering to vote in 1962 led to her career as an outspoken activist, congressional candidate, and fierce fighter for the rights of all.
American Masters: 'Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It'
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Discover how Rita Moreno defied her humble upbringing and racism to become one of a select group of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award winners. Explore her 70-year career with new interviews, clips of her iconic roles and scenes of the star on set today.
American Masters: 'Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands'
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Discover an international singer who captivated royalty in Europe and defied the conscience of 1939 America. Watch rare archival footage and hear audio recordings exploring her life and career from the Metropolitan Opera to the State Department.
American Experience: 'The Vote'
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Over one hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, "The Vote" tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.
Frontline: 'A Thousand Cuts'
With press freedom under threat in the Philippines, "A Thousand Cuts" goes inside the escalating war between the press and the government. The documentary follows Maria Ressa, a renowned journalist who has become a top target of President Duterte's crackdown on the news media.
Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song
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After getting her start in coffee shops Joni Mitchell went on to set a new standard, marrying music and lyrics with such songs as “Both Sides, Now.” While her early material is often categorized as “folk,” she became a household name with music that defies categorization.
Great Performances: 'The Conductor'
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Follow Marin Alsop’s journey to become the first female music director of a major American symphony despite repeated rejection by the classical music industry. Features archival footage with her mentor Leonard Bernstein and is set to a soundtrack of her performances.
American Experience: 'Sandra Day O'Connor: The First'
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Discover the story of the Supreme Court’s first female justice. A pioneer who both reflected and shaped an era, Sandra Day O'Connor was the deciding vote in cases on some of the 20th century’s most controversial issues—including race, gender and reproductive rights.
American Masters: 'Twyla Moves'
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Explore legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp’s career and famously rigorous creative process, with original interviews, first-hand glimpses of her at work and rare archival footage of select performances from her more than 160 choreographed works.
American Masters: 'Flannery'
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Explore the life of Flannery O’Connor whose provocative fiction was unlike anything published before. Featuring never-before-seen archival footage, newly discovered journals and interviews with Mary Karr, Tommy Lee Jones, Hilton Als and more.
Where I Became
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"Where I Became" traces the story of 14 women who left apartheid in South Africa to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The film, narrated in their own voices and filmed between South Africa and the U.S., follows their stories from childhood to discovering themselves through the power of higher education.
American Masters: 'How It Feels To Be Free'
A documentary that tells the inspiring story of how six iconic African American women entertainers – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier – challenged an entertainment industry deeply complicit in perpetuating racist stereotypes, and transformed themselves and their audiences in the process.
PBS KIDS
Students, educators and parents can find a wealth of information and inspiring stories from PBS Kids, PBS Parents, and PBS Learning Media.
PBS Kids: Celebrate Women's History Month with PBS KIDS!
PBS Parents: Children's Books to Celebrate Women's History Month
PBS Learning Media: Celebrate Women's History: Rebel Girls
PBS Learning Media: Teaching Women’s Suffrage
PBS Learning Media: Women’s Empowerment
NEPM BOOK CLUB
Looking for something to read that digs into the stories of women’s lives and work? Check out these recommendations from the NEPM Book Club.
- “Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy” by Karen Abbot tells the true story of four women — a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow — who risked everything to become spies during the Civil War.
- “Pachinko” by Min Jin Lee follows four generations of Korean women who move to Japan amidst Japanese colonization and political warfare from the 1890s through 1989.
- “The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is the fictionalized story of the real librarian to mega-financier J.P. Morgan, Belle da Costa Greene. A Black woman who passed as white at the turn of the 20th century, she was a key figure in the establishment of the Morgan Library.
- “The Letters of Emily Dickinson” edited by Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell is the definitive collection of the surviving letters of the Belle of Amherst, and “reads like the closest thing we'll probably ever have to an intimate autobiography of the poet,” according to Fresh Air.
- “Take My Hand” by Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a novel inspired by true events, about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible injustice done to her patients.
- “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” by Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of Black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the 20th century, and how they shaped a cultural movement amongst “riotous Black girls, troublesome women, and queer radicals.”
- “The Radium Girls” by Kate Moore tells the true story of the women who worked coveted jobs in radium-dial factories after World War I — and what happened when the glowing dust they were covered with every day started making them mysteriously ill.