Making Discoveries: One 3-Minute Video at a Time

April 3, 2012 PBS Wisconsin Leave a Comment

If you’re connected to Facebook, chances are you’ve come across this iconic image of a woman being pushed from a race course. Click on it… (after reading this post of course). It leads to a brief NPR story about Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to enter the Boston Marathon.

I was happy to see PBS had already packaged Switzer’s story into a beautifully edited 3-minute film. After a bit of searching around pbs.org, I found 9 additional profiles in a series called Makers: Women Who Make America. Each story is just as awesome as Switzer’s. There’s profiles of famous “Makers” like Sandra Day O’Connor and Carol Burnett, but also lesser-knowns like Linda Alvarado, a trailblazer in the male-dominated construction business. And my favorite short features Marissa Mayer one of the top “geeks,” or engineers, at Google who has created many of the search giant’s popular features. Oh, and she’s a 1993 graduate of Wisconsin’s own Wausau High.

A full documentary is in production for 2013, but there’s no reason you can’t find a little inspiration for the rest of your work day by taking a few minutes to watch a few of these powerful stories now. Visit the Makers site to watch all of the shorts.

Watch Marissa Mayer on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.

Wisconsin Public Television Documentary Carol Burnett PBS Wisconsin Public Television