Our Mission

Hi! My name is Lauren Dain. I am an undergraduate student at Northwestern University studying history and political science. I also love to run. After I finished my first marathon in 2022, I became fascinated with learning more about the marathon, its history, and culture. That is what led me to start the Women’s Marathon History Project in 2024, a blog dedicated to unpacking topics in women’s marathon history and learning more about the marathon through an oral archive of female marathoners’ stories. 

Here is a bit about my journey to starting this blog: 

Upon my initial research, it was clear that in running, women faced intense discrimination and restriction. Up to the 1980s, many believed that if a woman were to exert herself by running, her uterus would fall out. I initially became enraged by reading articles where race directors use these false scientific statements to justify excluding women from running, but then I discovered the women who were fighting these stereotypes and breaking barriers in the sport. 

Women’s long-distance running has a rich and complicated history that is often distilled into a few stories that are memorialized and written about annually before a major race. There are classic women’s marathoning stories for a reason. Kathrine Switzer bravely ran her first Boston marathon that day in 1967, where she faced harassment and discrimination all just for running. Then, she made it her life’s mission to create safe and welcoming spaces for women runners. However, there are so many other stories to highlight as well, like Marilyn Bevans, the first African American woman to win a marathon in 1975, or Arlene Pieper, who had the first recorded U.S. woman’s marathon race in 1959. There are also many women from around the United States who never appear in the media but also have unique and meaningful stories to share about their marathon journeys. 

I began this project by researching early female marathoning pioneers, such as Switzer, Bevans, and others. I also started interviewing women of all running levels to learn about their marathon journeys. The Women’s Marathon History Project aims to capture as many female marathoners’ stories as possible because, without them, we are losing essential perspectives into the culture, purpose, and importance of the marathon in the United States. 

Women’s marathon history is a great example of the successes and limitations of second-wave feminism, the effect of Title IX, and the continued discrimination that women, especially women of color, face to be viewed equally in a society that, in many ways, has been built and maintained by men. Here at the Women’s Marathon History Project, I will examine how women’s marathon history intersects all these topics and strive to create a welcoming community for all runners.