we spoke with professors, authors, and graduate students about their research. , soon to bea blain at the university of iowa studying history. your research is looking at women on the margins. why? it has been interesting for a while, capturing the voices of women who -- you know, their voices have been lost. hidden in the cracks of u.s. history. i really wanted to excavate their stories. i wanted to help us better understand african-american history, the black freedom , the communist party. i won it to look at women most people had never heard of. paper -- what did you learn? ms. blain: so, that paper i shared based on the life of a woman -- i spoke about her. she is a working-class white woman from detroit. i spoke about the way she engaged in this concept of lacking to nationalism. forging alliances with asian activists in particular. part of it -- this particular panel were trying to think about ways these actors who we talk about working-class black women or working for black women, can be thought of as key political shapers of the 20th century. steve: these are people who would