I’m Shirley Marshall: author, researcher and traveler. After a career in non-profit leadership, I shifted to my first love — sharing history.

My books focus on eye-witness stories, with thoughtful context to complete the picture. These first-hand accounts often provide an avenue to explore larger social and economic changes. Do they embrace change, fight for it? Do they fear it, struggling to keep the old way? Or do they just ignore changes, sit out the fight? These choices are fundamental to our shared story, our history.

As Angeles Peon, survivor of the Spanish Civil War, said: “What are we without memories?” As a society, when we forget our history we lose the truth of our world. Or as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot liked to say: “Old sins cast long shadows.”

My first books are a trilogy, featuring eye-witness stories from Elizabeth Kalb Green. They are a unique opportunity to explore major issues of the early 20th Century through one person’s experiences. A young woman who loved adventure, Elizabeth was a keen observer and prolific writer.

The first book is A Radical Suffragist, 2024, The History Press. Elizabeth worked and lived at the National Woman’s Party Headquarters in DC from 1918 – 1921. Her letters from the first five months reveal a young woman excited, scared and stepping up to the challenge of her “first Grand Adventure.”

The second book, California Cruising with Elizabeth, recounts the road-tripping she undertook with her mother. With a Model T nicknamed “Junior,” they spent three months among the redwoods and then six months in the desert outside Palm Springs. Her friendship with the local Agua Caliente people allowed her to use suffrage skills for a new cause.

The last book in the trilogy [due in2026] is Fighters, Writers & Ghosts: Peking at War. In 1925, Elizabeth sailed for China. She spent almost a year reporting back home on people and events in the city. Her letters combine personal and political as she recounts discussions with major players and local workers alike.