If you're a world traveler and you're interested in all the ways women have made the world a better -- or simply more interesting -- place, you'll want to download the Women on the Map app.
The new mapping application, available for free through Google's Field Trip, is the brainchild of a group of young women who noticed that the vast majority of the world's statues, postage stamps, national holidays and even Google Doodles honor men. They decided to balance things out, for as they put it on their website, Spark, "it's not that women don't make history -- it's that we don't honor them for it."
At this early stage, they've identified just over 100 women "who have done something incredible." That means that when you download the app and turn it on, the next time you're in San Francisco near where mysterious abolitionist Mary Ellen Pleasant lived and worked, your phone will buzz. Your screen will tell you who Pleasant was, what she accomplished, and where exactly she made history just steps from your present location.
And you can be a part of it all. The Spark team admits they're just getting started and need help. They want people around the world to send in nominees of women who should be added to the database. They ask that you write up 150-300 words on your choice and send it to them.
So if, for example, you're a Louise Bryant fan (the early 20th-century radical journalist had a studio across the street from the Central Library in downtown Portland), don't keep it to yourself. You can help make Oregon's history-making women better known to the state's visitors.
Fuente: www.oregonlive.com
