Martha A. Ackmann

Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies

Specialization
women athletes, women in aviation and space, women in national politics, U.S. women’s movements, Emily Dickinson

Martha Ackmann is a noted feminist and public intellectual.  She has been featured on the “Today” show, CNN, BookTV, NPR, the BBC, and many other radio and television outlets around the country. Her columns, articles and op-eds have been published in major metropolitan newspapers including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Houston Chronicle. Her radio commentaries have been broadcast on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Only a Game."

Ackmann’s award-winning book, The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight (Random House), tells the story of American women pilots who were secretly tested to be astronauts in the 1960s. BookMarks magazine and the Boston Globe named The Mercury 13 one of the top nonfiction books of the year. The book received the Amelia Earhart Medal and the media prize from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

A much-in-demand public speaker, Ackmann has presented lecturers, commencement addresses and National Women’s History Month talks at Kennedy Space Center, Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, Oregon Institute of Technology, Wellesley College, Franklin and Marshall College, Edwards Air Force Base, the Experimental Aircraft Association and for professional groups including the Arizona Women’s Lawyers and the Federal Women’s Program.

An expert on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Ackmann teaches a course on the poet every fall in the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts—the very site where Dickinson wrote her poems.  Ackmann is a board member of the Emily Dickinson International Society and has lectured on the poet in Austria, Norway, and Hawaii. Her articles on Dickinson have been published in various scholarly journals as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Miami Herald, and the Hartford Courant.

Ackmann is currently working on a new book about women in baseball.

News Links:

"MHC's Ackmann wins Guggenheim Fellowship," Office of Communications, April 7, 2008

"CBS News Features Ackmann, Merchury 13," CBS Evening News, May 12, 2007

"Ackmann Will Keynote U Wisconsin-Oshkosh's Commencement," May 4, 2007

"Ackmann Tells Tale of Female Astronauts," Worcester Telegram & Gazette, March 14, 2007

"Questioning Authority: Ackmann on Irvins," Office of Communications, February 16, 2007

"Dickinson Family Tombstone Unearthed," Office of Communications, November 1, 2006

"A Tribute to Ann Richards," Austin American-Statesman and Hartford Courant, September 19, 2006

“Only a Game” Audio Commentary," NPR, July 29, 2006

"Raising Our Public Voices," Republican, April 9, 2006 (PDF)

"Working the Graveyard Shift with Emily Dickinson," San Francisco Chronicle, April 30, 2006

"Remembering Women in Baseball", Indianapolis Star, March 5, 2006

"Emily Dickinson: 175, Immortal, Hartford Courant, December 11, 2005

"Women Rose Above NASA's Sexist Attitude", Seattle Post, July 13, 2005

"Martha Ackmann on the Woman Who Didn't Reach the Moon," NPR, July 20, 2004

"Ackmann Discusses Women Astronauts," NPR, September 15, 2003

“All Things Considered” interview on The Mercury 13," NPR, June 17, 2003

Random House: The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream

"Barred from Heaven," Time, May, 25, 2003

"Restricting Women's Military Roles Hurts All," Newsday.com, April 8, 2003

"Backtalk Girls' Group Gives Running Equal Time," New York Times, July 1, 2001

"Widow's Mandate Demeans Women," College Street Journal, November 10, 200

"Mothers Who Think," Salon, January 10, 2000

"Martha Ackmann: Speaking Up for Women," Vista, spring 2000

"Years Later, Maker of a Landmark Film Still Stands Up for Title IX," March 12, 2000

"It's Time to Take One Giant Step for Womankind," Sunday Republican and Chicago Tribune, August 1999

"How Wimbledon Can Save Face and Save Money to Afford Equal Pay," NY Times, June 27, 1999

"It's High Time For a Fair Shot," NY Times, March 7, 1999

"Judging Public Reaction to Abandoned Baby Cases," Chicago Tribune, November 8, 1998