Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin | revolutionary astronomer & unsung hero

wonder | wander | world kicks off Women's History Month with this homage to unsung hero, revolutionary astronomer, wonder woman - Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin.

While accepting the Henry Norris Russell Prize from the American Astronomical Society, she spoke of her lifelong passion for research.

"The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience [...] The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape."

Jeremy Knowles, discussing the complete lack of recognition Cecilia Payne gets, even today, for her revolutionary discovery [via aliterate].

Sylvia Plath | stripped bare

Reading Sylvia Plath was very much part of our rites of passage growing up.

wonder | wander | world greatly anticipates the recent release of two volumes of her letters published by Harper Collins.

Between February 18, 1960, and February 4, 1963, a week before Sylvia Plath committed suicide, at the age of thirty.

She sent a series of candid letters to her close friend and former psychiatrist, Ruth Beuscher. What has happened to these documents in the intervening years is a case study in Plath’s legacy.

The fiftieth anniversary of Plath’s death came and went in 2013. Almost all the major players in this story are now dead.

[F]or most of Plath’s readers a vexed affinity endures. When I discovered Plath in high school (as many still do), I remember the feeling of being an interloper in a totally absorbing story.

Much of Plath’s letter-writing is consumed with a day-by-day account of rents, leases, meals, of diaper-changing, bicycle-hawking, bill-paying.

These onerous preconditions for writing and mothering and being a wife had to be brokered all by herself, all for herself.

Plath had none of the leisure for contemplation that we associate with male writers. Her muses were economy, thrift, and the clock.

[W]e see Plath stripped of the mythos that her creativity has accrued, and more astonishing without it.

botanical illustrations

Our wonder | wander | world find for this week celebrates both the art and beauty of science, as well as the life and work of Maria Sibilla Merian - 17th century entomologist, artist, and adventurer.

In a time when women were corseted in limitations and had few options, Merian made her own profession.

Wonder Woman at 75!

Our lifelong hero celebrates a milestone! This year marks the 75th anniversary of Wonder Woman, the Amazing Amazon. San Diego Comic Con had Wonder Woman fans out in full force, promoting the new DC Rebirth comic drawn by Australian powerhouse Nicola Scott, and of course the first major female-led comic book movie...WONDER WOMAN.

Here at wonder | wander | women HQ we could NOT be more excited. Wonder Woman is our hero and inspiration (since one of us was 2 years old!) and we have followed her rising and falling popularity with unchanging devotion over the years. If you're a Wonder Woman fan, read on to share our love; if you've heard of her but aren't sure what all the fuss is about, we're happy to show you why she's so inspiring to us.