Eliza McGraw

 

Eliza McGraw is the author of Here Comes Exterminator!, a book about the 1918 Kentucky Derby winner. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Couriers’ duties included fetching patients from cabins, weighing babies, delivering medicine, cleaning saddles and bridles, and escorting any guests who rode the routes between FNS outposts.

Why Debutantes Volunteered to Be Horse-Riding Couriers in Rural Kentucky

Between the 1920s and 1940s, wealthy young women signed up to run errands and carry messages for the Frontier Nursing Service, whose nurse-midwives provided care to patients in hard-to-reach areas

Tourists in Great Onyx Cave, now part of Mammoth Cave National Park, in 1925

How the Kentucky Cave Wars Reshaped the State's Tourism Industry

Rival entrepreneurs took drastic steps to draw visitors away from Mammoth Cave in the early 20th century

A 1918 photo of a Christmas tree for horses in Washington, D.C.

When Humane Societies Threw Christmas Parties for Horses

Held across the U.S. in the early 20th century, the events sought to raise awareness for poor living conditions and offer the animals a holiday respite

A view of the wreckage in the Malbone St. Tunnel

The Malbone Street Wreck of 1918

A confluence of circumstances led to the deadly disaster, 100 years ago today, in the New York subway that killed 93

The ponies of eastern Maryland and Virginia, seen here in 2002, were made famous in the book "Misty of Chincoteague."

The True Story of Misty of Chincoteague, the Pony Who Stared Down a Devastating Nor'Easter

The Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 was a horse of another color

Early 20th century poster of magician Howard Thurston's spirit box illusion

Howard Thurston, the Magician Who Disappeared

Overshadowed by more famous contemporaries, the visionary behind “The Wonder Show of the Universe” left a far-reaching legacy

Before she tackled tuberculosis, Sabin helped rethink the lymphatic system and wrote an acclaimed anatomy textbook.

Florence Sabin Pioneered Her Way in Medical Science, Then Made Sure Other Women Could Do the Same

A scientist and so much more, she helped lay the groundwork for curing tuberculosis but still found time to promote women doctors

Ruth McGinnis: The Queen of Billiards

Back when pool was a serious sport that grabbed the attention of the nation, one woman smoked the competition

'Cattle Kate' and Postmaster Averill, lynched. Stockmen a Sweetwater, Wyo., July 21, end the career of a lawless pair of depredators - swung from a cottonwood at the rope's end. Undated illustration.

The Tragedy of Cattle Kate

Newspapers reported that cowgirl Ella Watson was a no-good thief who deserved the vigilante killing that befell her, when in reality she was anything but

Illustration made using an 1851 portrait of Mitchell by H. Dassell and a false-color image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A by NASA.

When Girls Studied Planets and the Skies Had No Limits

Maria Mitchell, America's first female astronomer, flourished at a time when both sexes “swept the sky”

A Pack Horse Librarian returning over the mountain side for a new supply of books

Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression's Bookmobiles

During the Great Depression, a New Deal program brought books to Kentuckians living in remote areas

Ruth Law, (circa 1915, at the controls of her Curtiss Model D Headless biplane) once said that wearing a seatbelt "was a bit cowardly."

This Ace Aviatrix Learned to Fly Even Though Orville Wright Refused to Teach Her

With flint and derring-do, the early 20th century pilot Ruth Law ruled American skies

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