Today, we take it for granted that you can buy a home pregnancy test at the pharmacy. Before the end of the 1970s, this was not the case. Then along came Margaret Crane, a young designer working for a pharmaceutical company. Looking at the rows of pregnancy tests in the lab one day in 1965, she thought, “Well, women could do that at home!” But Crane faced an uphill battle to convince the pharmaceutical companies, the medical community, and conservative social leaders that at-home pregnancy testing was safe and necessary.

This podcast first aired in 2014, when Margaret Crane’s role in the development of the home pregnancy test was eventually recognized. Almost 10 years later, Crane’s experience remains relevant as women continue to fight for their reproductive rights. Making Contact is a radio show and podcast from Frequencies of Change Media.

For a full list of the episode credits, go to: Buried History: The Feminist Birth of the Home Pregnancy Test.

In The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science Dava Sobel celebrates the many women who came to Paris to work with Marie Curie after she won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. Many of these women went on to become experts in radioactivity, creating their own networks to support female scientists.

Among others, we meet Norwegian Ellen Gleditsch, who was the first person to introduce the science of radioactivity to Norway and Canadian Harriet Brooks, who eventually gave up her stellar scientific career to marry. In retelling the story of Marie Curie, Sobel also shows how the women she mentored contributed to completing the periodic table in the early 20th century.

After Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo died in 1947, the Trujillo regime did its best to erase her legacy, while at the same time appropriating her ideas. Yet those who had known and loved Evangelina in San Pedro de Macorís, where she spent most of her life, kept her memory alive, sharing stories of her kindness and her work. After the assassination of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in 1961, Dominicans across the country started to recover her story. Laura Gómez follows in Evangelina’s footsteps across Santo Domingo, the city where Evangelina studied medicine, and visits the memorials that are testament to Evangelina’s role in the fight for women's health and reproductive rights, a struggle that continues in the Dominican Republic to this day.