Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women's history from an international perspective. She has photographed some 15,000 slides and created 100 slideshows on female power and heritages transhistorically. For nearly 40 years, Max has presented hundreds of slide talks at universities, community centers, bookstores, schools, libraries, prisons, galleries, festivals and conferences around North America. Her work bridges the gap between academia and grassroots education. It foregrounds indigenous women passed over by standard histories and highlights female spheres of power retained even in patriarchal societies.
Max is known for her expertise on ancient female iconography in world archaeology, goddess traditions, and women shamans. She has also done extensive research on mother-right cultures and the origins of domination. Her critique of Cynthia Eller's The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory (2000) has been influential in opening up space for consideration of egalitarian matrilineages. (“Knocking Down Straw Dolls" (2000) republished in Feminist Theology 13.2 (2005), Sage Publications, UK) The Women's Power DVD has been screened in the US, Britain, Netherlands, Italy, and Australia. Max is now completing a multi-volume sourcebook on women in European folk religion and the witch hunts.