LibGuides: Women's History: Books and eBooks

Women's History

A selection of titles available in the Main Collection for 22-day check-out.

America's Jewish Women by Pamela Nadell
Call Number: HQ1172 .N33 2019

ISBN: 9780393651232

"History of how Jewish women maintained their identity and influenced social activism as they wrote themselves into American history." (Publisher's description)
America's Women: Four hundred years of dolls, drudges, helpmates, and heroines by Gail Collins
Call Number: HQ1410 .C588 2003

ISBN: 0060185104

Features women from colonial times to the 1960s.
The American Women's Almanac: 500 Years of Making History by Deborah G. Felder
Call Number: HQ1410 .F43 2020

ISBN: 9781578596362

A mix of biographies, little-known historical facts, essays on significant legislation and movements, and numerous photographs.
American Women's Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776-1965 by Susan Ware (Editor)
Call Number: JK1896 .A54 2020

ISBN: 9781598536645

Includes 100 primary source writings from important figures in the women's suffrage movement.
Because of Sex: One law, ten cases, and fifty years that changed American women's lives at work by Gillian Thomas
Call Number: KF3467 .T56 2016

ISBN: 9781137280053

A look at the effects of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry; Kali Nicole Gross
Call Number: E185.86 .B475 2020 and ebook

ISBN: 9780807033555

A history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women
Dead Feminists by Chandler O'Leary; Jessica Spring; Jill Lepore (Foreword by)
Call Number: HQ1123 .O44 2016

ISBN: 9781632170576

Illustrated profiles of 27 women including Eleanor Roosevelt, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Rachel Carson.
Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America by Charlotte S. Waisman; Jill S. Tietjen; Madeleine Albright (Foreword by)
Call Number: HQ1410 .W354 2008

ISBN: 9780061246517

Illustrated timeline of American women's contributions since the 1500s.
Lighting the Way by Karenna Gore Schiff
Call Number: CT3260 .S35 2005

ISBN: 9781401352189

Biographies of nine, female social reformers from the 20th century.
Making Waves: The 50 greatest women in radio and television by American Women in Radio and Television Staff; Jean Zevnik (Editor); American Women In Radio & TV
Call Number: PN1991.4.A2 M35 2001

ISBN: 0740714015
The Roots of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women by Nancy F. Cott
Call Number: HQ1410.C68

ISBN: 0525473289

Publication Date: 1972

This document collection spans the colonial era to the nineteenth century "and focuses on six dominant themes: women's work, the power of gender, the physical body, women's collective efforts, diversity and conflict among women, and women's relation to state authority." (Amazon)
The Sex of Class by Dorothy Sue Cobble (Editor)
Call Number: HD6079.2.U5 S49 2007 and ebook

ISBN: 0801462487

Examines "how the sex of workers matters in understanding the jobs they do, the problems they face at work, and the new labor movements they are creating." (Publisher's description)
Sisters: the lives of America's suffragists by Jean H. Baker
Call Number: JK1896 .B35 2006

ISBN: 0809087030

Biography of Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, and Alice Paul.
When Everything Changed: the amazing journey of American women, from 1960 to the present by Gail Collins
Call Number: HQ1421 .C64 2009

ISBN: 9780316059541

Reviews changes for American women in politics, fashion, economics, sex, families and work over the past five decades.
Women's Roles in Eighteenth-Century America by Merril D. Smith
Call Number: HQ1416 .S627 2010

ISBN: 9780313355523

Looks at women in family, law, work, travel, war, religion, education and the arts.
Women's Roles in Nineteenth-Century America by Tiffany K. Wayne
Call Number: HQ1418 .W39 2007

ISBN: 0313335478

Looks at women in the family, work, religion, education and the professions, politics and reform, slavery and the Civil War, the West and literature and the arts.
Women's Roles in Seventeenth-century America by Merril D. Smith (Editor)
Call Number: HQ1416 .S63 2008 and ebook

ISBN: 0313087067

An examination of the lives of white immigrant, black slave, and Native American women in Colonial America.
Women's Roles in Twentieth-Century America by Martha May
Call Number: HQ1426 .M393 2009

ISBN: 9780313340154

Women and work, family, popular culture, the arts, education, government, law and religion.
The Women's Suffrage Movement by Sally Roesch Wagner (Editor, Introduction by); Gloria Steinem (Foreword by)
Call Number: JK1896 .W46 2019

ISBN: 9780143132431

An anthology of historical writings by suffragists.

Women's Studies Classics

A selection of titles available in the Main Collection or as eBooks.

Ain't I a Woman by bell hooks
Call Number: E185.86.H62

ISBN: 9781138821514

Publication Date: 1981

"Examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within the recent women's movement, and black women's involvement with feminism."-- Publisher's description.
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Call Number: HQ1219.W65 1991

ISBN: 9780060512187

Examines "the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of 'the flawless beauty.'" (Amazon)
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
Call Number: HQ1206.G77 1972

ISBN: 9780061579530

Originally published in 1970, this "examination of the oppression of women in contemporary society is both an important historical record of where we've been and a shockingly relevant treatise on what still remains to be achieved."
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan; Anna Quindlen (Foreword by)
Call Number: HQ1426 .F844 2001

ISBN: 0393322572

Originally published in 1963, it "captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto." (Amazon)
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
Call Number: HQ1208 .B352 2010

ISBN: 9780307265562

"Exploration of the psychological, sexual and social roles of women and their historical and contemporary situation in Western culture at the middle of the twentieth century." (Publisher description)
This Bridge Called My Back: writings by radical women of color by Gloria Anzaldúa (Editor); Cherríe Moraga (Editor)
Call Number: PS509 .F44 T5 2015

ISBN: 9781438454382

Originally published in 1981, this collection of personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art explores “the complex confluence of identities -- race, class, gender, and sexuality." (Cherríe Moraga)
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft; Eileen Hunt Botting (Editor)
Call Number: ebook

ISBN: 0300207042

Originally published in 1792, this was the first book to present women's rights as an issue of universal human rights.

Women's Literature

A selection of titles available in the Main Collection or as eBooks.

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin; Sandra M. Gilbert (Contribution by)
Call Number: PS1294.C63 A6 1984

ISBN: 9780140390223

The Awakening was published in 1899: a "daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the straitened confines of her domestic situation." (Amazon)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Call Number: PS3566.L27 B4 1996

ISBN: 9780060174903

"A realistic and emotional novel about a woman battling mental illness and societal pressures." (Amazon)
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Call Number: PS3563.O8749 B55 1994

ISBN: 0452273056

A black girl prays every day for the blond hair and blue eyes she believes will allow her to fit in.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand; Leonard Peikoff (Afterword by)
Call Number: PS3535.A547 F6 1993

ISBN: 0451175123

The novel that led the way to Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Call Number: PR9199.3 .A8 H3 1998

ISBN: 038549081X

A dystopian novel set in a New England of the future where a new government leads to limited, prescribed roles for women.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Call Number: PS3553.I78 H68 2009

ISBN: 9780679734772

"The story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become." (Amazon)
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
Call Number: PS3551.L845 H66 2010

ISBN: 9781565129757

"In the 1960s, political tension forces the García family away from Santo Domingo and towards the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice" (Publisher's description)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Call Number: PS3551.N464 Z466 1995

ISBN: 0345514408

"Captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right." (Amazon)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Call Number: PS1017 .L5 2013

ISBN: 9780674059719

Follows "the March sisters as they overcome their burdens and journey toward maturity and adulthood." (Publisher's description)
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather; Marilee Lindemann (Editor)
Call Number: ebook

ISBN: 0191587354

The story of a self-reliant immigrant woman's determination to save the family's farm.
Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck
Call Number: PS3503.U198 P38

ISBN: 1453263500

"At forty, Madame Wu is beautiful and much respected as the wife of one of China’s oldest upper-class houses. Her birthday wish is to find a young concubine for her husband and to move to separate quarters, starting a new chapter of her life." (Publisher's description)
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf; Mary Gordon (Foreword by)
Call Number: PR6045.O72 Z474 1989

ISBN: 0156787334

Woolf imagines a woman, sister to Shakespeare and equally talented, who never writes a word and dies by her own hand, without ever sharing her genius.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Mary Helen Washington (Foreword by)
Call Number: PS3515.U789 T639 1990

ISBN: 0060916508

"When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams." (Amazon)
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler; Jacqueline Woodson (Foreword by)
Call Number: PS3555 .N75 V3 2018

ISBN: 9780399180095

"Gives voice to a chorus of lusty, outrageous, poignant, and thoroughly human stories, guaranteeing that no one who reads it will ever look at a woman's body, or think of sex, in quite the same way again." (Publisher)
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Call Number: CT275 .K5764 A33 1989 and ebook

ISBN: 9780679721888

This blend of autobiography and mythology is an innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities -- immigrant, female, Chinese, American.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Call Number: ebook

ISBN: 177541647X

Published in 1892, this short story, illustrates "attitudes in the 19th century toward women's health, both physical and mental." (Amazon)