This is a whirlwind book- we are introduced to over 500 women whose work and lives have been ignored and discredited throughout the centuries, many of whom I was familiar with but many of whom I am not. This is definitely a "pick up and read a few quick bits at once books" rather than sitting and reading for hours, as the whistle-stop approach gets a bit odd to read for a long period of time. However, I think that these are all very important stories that need to be shared!

Uncredited by Allison Tyra is a fascinating, well-researched exploration of how women’s ideas, inventions, and contributions have been overlooked or outright stolen throughout history. Tyra exposes the systemic gender bias that has shaped historical narratives, often erasing women’s achievements and attributing them to men.

The book highlights the power structures that have minimized women’s roles in science, technology, the arts, and more, while celebrating the resilience and brilliance of those whose legacies deserve recognition. Uncredited challenges readers to confront the historical erasure of women’s contributions and calls for a future where merit—not gender—drives recognition and credit.

I think there are three broad category types for books about women in history. Some are biographies about a single woman. Some are group biographies. Some attempt to show the depth and breadth of women’s achievements over centuries by including hundreds of women.

Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work, by Allison Tyra (Rising Action Publishing Co., May 2025) is of this third type.

Tyra has created a book containing details of 600 women and their achievements. This is actually a subset of the women she’s featured over on her Infinite Women project and podcast. Unsurprisingly, we have some overlap of interests and follow each other on Bluesky.

Over the winter I read Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries by Kate Mosse. Mosse had crowd-sourced 1,000 women to mention, creating a similar bombardment of names. What surprised me in reading Tyra’s Uncredited was that some names were still new to me.

Tyra also takes a different approach to Mosse. As well as some chapters focusing on a specific area (women who were scientists) she also combines it with looking at the specific types of patriarchal barrier women faced. So there’s a chapter on women whose work was misattributed to their brothers or husbands, or who were barred from joining their professional organizations.

There are also some chapters that cover the contemporary impact of patriarchal practices on women today. These reminded me of Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women* and how simply seeing the data laid out reawakens awareness. I really liked how Tyra’s structure showed the same barriers can apply to women across different fields: that it is a systemic issue, not an individual one.

I found the one challenge with this structure is some women are mentioned several times across the book, which can feel a little disorientating. I did like that everything is footnoted (yay, love a source) but a lot are to websites which runs the risk of link rot. It would be sadly ironic if a book that focuses on how women’s achievements are lost ends up with a lot of orphaned references.

This is a book to dip into, reading a chapter as the mood suits. It will definitely make you curious about more women in history who you might not have known about.

This is a really long book - in a good way - so I'll admit that I haven't read the entire book; if that colours your reading of this review, so be it. But I would point out that the author herself suggests - even encourages - the reader to dip in and out, to go follow up points and people as they read through the book, so perhaps it would be better to say that I have not finished the book YET. But I am aware of time ticking on, and so I will provide my review now.

This is a necessary book. Despite everything that has been done over the last several decades to reclaim women's places in history, their contributions are still not particularly well known - and, well, I can't help but think that feminism and an understanding that women are actually humans with something to contribute - and have been that for, like, ever - is currently under threat, and it therefore needs to be constantly brought to the fore.

Some of these stories weren't new to me, because I am the sort of person who has sought out these stories and indeed I already own some books like this; but those have tended to be more specialist (eg women as scientists in Europe). One advantage of this book is that it covers a wide range of topics, as well as locations. One of its drawbacks is that it's not a particularly deep book, precisely because it's aiming for breadth instead. But knowing that intention, the reader can then seek out more depth on their own.

I will note one surprising omission, based on the index: there's no mention of Joanna Russ, and her seminal "How to Suppress Women's Writing". I would have thought this an entirely apropos book to reference. But maybe it's too old now and has itself gone the way of much previous women's work. Oh the irony.

I hope this book will become a valued and valuable reference for all people seeking to counter the lie of the Great Man, and the idea that women have contributed nothing to our current society.

This book is both inspiring and rage inducing. I've always been interested in the phenomenon of women being erased in every area despite being incredibly accomplished. This book shines a light on women's history with passion and without prejudice

Reading the ebook was not ideal due to the formatting and encyclopedic nature, but, like an encyclopedia, Uncredited is a book we should all have on hand to pick up and dip into, reading some highlights of unsung women of history, then, as the author herself suggests, use that as inspiration to dig deeper and learn more.

Reading Uncredited by Allison Tyra was both eye-opening and deeply frustrating, as I uncovered the countless stories of women whose accomplishments were overlooked or stolen throughout history. I felt a mix of admiration and anger as I learned about these hidden trailblazers, whose contributions have long been ignored or suppressed. This book not only inspired me but also left me with a greater understanding of the systemic barriers women have faced and continue to face in achieving recognition for their work.

this was a great read. this book catalogues areas in history where women have gone uncredited. the topics range from journalism, to art, to comedy, and many more. the book highlights facts that have been altered or overlooked in order to avoid crediting women throughout history. after reading a book like this readers are left with the maddening thought: these women are able to have their credit acknowledged due to gaps in attempts to exclude them, but how many women have been fully erased from history with <b>no</b> trace of their effort?

tyra does well at reporting facts, though there are some quips against men who have worked to erase women from history that are extremely satisfying. one that stands out is: “He was also known to be petty and jealous, and his so-called literary magazine BLAST has the same premise as a middle school mean girl clique’s burn book—it was a space to "blast" things Lewis didn't like.” tyra is sure to add a little bit of bite much needed in order to cool off from the maddening history lesson she is presenting us with.

each topic/story is really short but extremely informative

A book we desperately need. Loved everything about it, and I’ll be buying copies for a lot of my friends.

While good, this book was overwhelming- it was so full of facts and stories of women’s work overlooked that I was almost overstimulated. This isn’t necessarily a criticism - I should have expected it - it was just overwhelming. The amount of research that went into this is insane!

WOWOWOW. I loved this whole concept. I will 100% be buying this as a coffee table book. I love how each woman got like 3/4 pages and we are encouraged to go find out more if we want. Thank you!

This was a super interesting non-fiction read. The author covered a ton of topics under the umbrella of uncredited female labour and discoveries, and came at the topic from a lot of different angles. This made for a really interesting and well rounded book that I think could appeal to a lot of people. That being said of course there were some chapters that I found more interesting than others; I particularly enjoyed the literature focused sections.

"Uncredited: Women's Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work" by Allison Tyra is an excellent book. She names and credits literally hundreds of women who were not recognized or rewarded for their achievements, from art to medicine to space exploration and beyond. As an amateur scholar of women's history (i.e. I am not a student), I recognized some of these brilliant women; others I had unsurprisingly never heard of. Tyra's book is an epic of female experience: the struggles we face, the biases we must fight against, the acknowledgements we are denied. This book should be read by all, though there will be plenty of naysayers that will insist that "it didn't happen that way." (And we all know who will say things like that, don't we?)

Allison Tyra's book should be recognized as the very valuable work of history it is. It deserves a place in classrooms as a reference book and a history of women's experiences and accomplishments. Read this for the information, read it just because, or read it and allow yourself to fall into rabbit holes of related history. Whatever your reason, read this.

5⭐️

[a copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher from netgalley. thank you!]

super interesting look at women who have gone uncredited and discredited throughout history. covers a wide range of fields, including sport, journalism, business, historical events, film, & more.

This book was a fascinating look into the hundreds of women who have not received the proper or any credit for their accomplishments. The most interesting segments of the book were the ones that grouped women by how their contemporary males took credit or undermined their work. In some chapters there were also great connections made to current struggles that women still face in different sectors both due the repercussions of historic treatment and advances made in technology such as algorithms and AI that are trained to be biased against women. The middle of the book did drag in sections that were centered on accomplishments grouped by sector and felt a bit more list list like unlike the deeper dives into motivation and method found in other chapters.

A book about the history of invisible women brought to light? Yes, please. Allison Tyra's book is a brilliant collection of essays that brings the often-overlooked nature of women's history across decades and fields into the public eye. With a wealth of remarkable sources and stories of outstanding women, Tyra captivated me to the extent that I struggled to put the book down (which is definitely what you want) for university work.

Her matter-of-fact writing and evident passion allow women's history to shine through the pages. She gives equal attention to each chapter, presenting a history viewed on equal grounds rather than one field being displayed with greater prejudice; prejudice knows no bounds, only the limitations of those documenting history.

What’s more, I explored many of the sources from various chapters and found them as remarkable as Tyra, deserving as much attention and admiration.
Overall, Uncredited: Women's Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work, is an exceptional collection that serves not only as a testament to women's history but also as both a memorial and recognition of the women obscured by history. However, thanks to Tyra and the writers she acknowledged, they are not forgotten. I highly recommend this to everyone.
Thank you, NetGalley and Rising Action Publishing, for sending me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

First of all, Many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC granted to me. This is the kind of book that must be read by everyone. I've always thought I would like this one just from looking at the title, but it went better than expected! A lot of women had given contribuiton to several leves and areas in Society and were hidden by the male system. Altough it is way late and minimum, it works as a memorial and acknowçedgment to each of them from their work. Well Done!

This book felt extremely important in current times. It was long, but it never felt overwhelming. I was over enraged but never bored. I read a lot of women’s history so I didn’t expect to learn stories that I hadn’t heard before but I did!

"Uncredited" is both a triumph and a gut punch - a meticulously researched compendium that uncovers the staggering breadth of women's achievements across history, and exposes how systematically those accomplishments have been erased, stolen, or diminished. From scientists to artists, warriors to inventors, Allison Tyra weaves together over 600 stories that will have you alternating between inspiration and outrage. The clever organization into thematic chapters makes this substantial work surprisingly digestible, perfect for both deep dives and quick reads.

While the sheer volume of information can feel overwhelming at times, that's rather the point - the number of overlooked women and their contributions is meant to stagger us. This isn't just a collection of "fun facts" about women in history; it's a damning indictment of how historical narratives have been shaped to exclude half of humanity. For anyone who has ever wondered "where were all the women?" in their history books, here's your answer: they were here all along, just uncredited.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rising Action Publishing for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This enlightening history of women's erasure is as uplifting as it is enraging. Covering stories from hundreds of women in over 90 chapters, this is a necessarily long read. That said, the information is broken down cleverly by categories with each chapter being a bite sized summary of how women and their accomplishments have been removed from popular history. This makes it a perfect read for when you only have a few minutes between work, home and family (ironically, a core issue for many of these brilliant women), or when you want to spend an entire afternoon stoking your feminist rage. I could talk all day about all the amazing history I learned from this book, but I will save the fun for future readers. Just know, if dissing Christopher Columbus as a "genocidal A#&hole who couldn't even find India" is your jam, pick this book up immediately.