Martha Ackmann
CommentatorMartha Ackmann is a journalist and author who writes about women who have changed America. Her essays and columns have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
Ackmann’s books include “The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight,” “Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone, First Woman to Play Professional Baseball in the Negro League,” and “These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson.”
A Guggenheim fellow and former scholar in non-fiction at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Ackmann lives in western Massachusetts, and is at work on a new book about Dolly Parton.
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When nearly everyone else believed Wally Funk would never get a shot at space, she persisted. For years, Funk has pursued commercial space flight – but… -
You might have seen the video of Dolly Parton receiving a COVID vaccine, developed with the help of her $1 million donation to research.Before getting the… -
Baseball legend Henry Aaron died last week at age 86. He broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974, and became the target of white supremacists,… -
I’m not much for holiday decorating, but I do have a soft spot for a three-foot tall Frosty the Snowman.Years ago, after giving a talk in Maine, I began… -
For some reason, I enjoy diving into frigid water in winter.Ten years ago, I was on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, visiting a friend. She mentioned the… -
Sometimes it’s the smallest details that reveal the most. Emily Dickinson knew that. More than many other poets, she distilled, zeroed in and elevated the… -
September 11 was my late mother's birthday. When I called her that morning, I worried about whether to wish her a happy birthday or tell her about the… -
I first met Jerrie Cobb two decades ago at a space shuttle launch. Tall, lanky, unassuming, a person of few words — Jerrie was all but invisible to people… -
You’ve seen them, no doubt. Those solitary corn stalks standing alone in a field. My friend James, whose father is a Wisconsin farmer, told me those… -
When I was a girl, for some inexplicable reason, my brothers and I always had to sit in birth order in the back seat of the Pontiac. That meant that on…
