When Norah O’Donnell takes the stage Wednesday morning at Fresno’s Saroyan Theatre, the audience can expect a passionate, high-energy talk about women’s contributions to American democracy and the challenges the nation faces in preserving it.

O’Donnell, a senior correspondent for CBS News and a “60 Minutes” contributing correspondent, is the co-author of “We the Women: The Hidden Heroes Who Shaped America.” Published in February, the book became a New York Times bestseller.

In an interview with GV Wire, O’Donnell said the book was inspired by how history has largely overlooked the vital roles that women have played in the first 250 years of the United States. She also drew inspiration from her grandmother, Mary Teresa Monaghan, who arrived at Ellis Island from Northern Ireland in 1930, with just $20 in her pocket.

After three years of research, she and co-author Kate Andersen Brower settled on 35 largely overlooked American women from 1776 to today. What do the 35 have in common? All fought for freedom, equality, and the nation’s founding ideals.

“We were focused on finding the Founding Mothers, which isn’t easy to do because it’s difficult to find stories about women,” O’Donnell said. “In the Revolutionary times, few women could read or write, and they had no legal rights. This really became about finding the hidden heroes and the more I learned, the more I realized how little I’d been taught about them.”

‘Deeply Emotional Experience’

During her research, O’Donnell came across Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She drafted the “Declaration of Sentiments,” presented at the nation’s first women’s rights convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.

The declaration’s second paragraph begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”

Said O’Donnell: “I cried when reading a lot of it. It was deeply emotional. But inspired by them, I found my voice, and gained a new perspective. They were pushing this country to live up to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and saying, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not living up to that.’ ”

The former “CBS Evening News” anchor is also a big fan of Mercy Otis Warren, whom she credits as the secret muse of the Bill of Rights. In her book, O’Donnell cites Warren as an example of a woman deliberately erased from the story of America’s founding. She points to John Adams, who wrote that history was “not the province of the ladies.”

More Unsung Heroes

Other women profiled by O’Donnell and Brower include:

• Mary Katharine Goddard: The printer who risked treason charges to print the first official copy of the Declaration of Independence that included the names of its signers, featuring her name at the bottom.
• Women of the Forten family: Philadelphia abolitionists and suffragists considered part of the city’s Black founders.
• Emily Warren Roebling: The woman who helped oversee construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
• Zitkála-Šá: A Native American writer and activist who fought for Native American citizenship rights.

Journalists Need to Ask Tough Questions

O’Donnell, who has decades of experience covering wars and asking tough questions of presidents, continues reporting for CBS News.

On Sunday, she reported for “60 Minutes” on the threats facing the Secret Service, including the potential use of attack drones. In that report, she described President Donald Trump as one of the most polarizing political figures in American history.

O’Donnell says the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of assembly and the right to petition the government are more important than ever.

“Truth and facts are under assault,” she said. “Journalist need to ask tough questions to power — respectful but tough questions.”

So, does O’Donnell consider herself a historian now?

“No way, historians are so amazing,” she said. “But I hope this book is a contribution to the historical record.”

(GV Wire is a media sponsor of San Joaquin Valley Town Hall.)