BEHIND EVERY MAN by Sunny Frazier
In school we've learned much about the great men of history. Somehow, women are overlooked. Before the movie Hidden Figures came out, we'd never heard of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Christine Barden. These mathematicians worked with NASA but they had two strikes against them: they worked in a field dominated by men and they were African-American. Another Black woman hidden in the shadows is Belle da Costa Green, the subject of the novel The Personal Librarian. She passed for white to work for J.P. Morgan, who was very racist. She became instrumental in amassing priceless books (Gutenberg Bible anyone?) and became one of the most powerful women in NYC. Helen Frick was the daughter of Henry Clay Frick. He was the chairman of Carnegie Steel and partially responsible for the infamous Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania which killed over 2,000 people. Helen, who remained a spinster, inherited her father’s collection of art and artifacts and turned the family mansio...