How Nature Shaped the ‘Wild Girls’ Who Changed America

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Girls had rich lives outdoors, but history has largely overlooked them,” writes Harvard professor and National Book award winner Tiya Miles. In her latest book, “Wild Girls,” Miles sets out to unearth those stories. There’s Harriet Tubman, an “outdoorswoman” who used her knowledge of the natural world and the night skies to lead people escaping slavery to freedom. And “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott, a runner, who thought of herself as part deer. For renegade women like these, Miles says nature was a training ground for their ambitions. We’ll talk to Miles about how the wild girls of her book reclaimed nature for themselves and we hear from you: How has the outdoors shaped your own narrative and those of generations before you? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, a wellness resort in Baja, California, just an hour from San Diego,
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0:27.3	Support for Forum comes from Broadway S.F. presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a
0:33.2	true story. From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and
0:39.7	Lucille Frank, a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused
0:46.3	of an unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice,
0:53.4	and devotion.
1:02.6	The riveting and gloriously hopeful parade plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th.
1:06.9	Tickets on sale now at Broadway, sF.com.
1:09.5	From KQED. From KQED. From KQED,
1:11.6	Harriet,
1:12.6	Harriet,
1:13.6	These are women who changed the I'm Grace Juan, in for Alexis Madrigal. Harriet Tubman, Louisa May Alcott, Dolores Werta.
1:30.2	These are women who changed the frame of American history through activism, literature, and politics.
1:35.7	And in her latest book, Harvard historian Taya Miles argues that these quote-unquote wild girls,
1:41.9	and others like them, were able to buck the constrictive norms of
1:45.1	their time because as young people, they had found freedom and themselves outdoors in the natural
1:50.5	world. Miles joins us to talk about our book, Wild Girls, how the outdoors shaped the women who
1:56.0	challenged a nation. That's all coming up next after this news.
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