Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.” In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, presidents have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.” These proclamations celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields.
This libguide is a collaborative endeavor of the Hay Library and Western's DEI Committee.
(This LibGuide is by no means an exhaustive list of resources, but we do endeavor to keep this list of materials updated.)
Select the individual's name to view their works available in the Hay Library or online. Select the individual's picture to view their biography information.
The life experiences of Maya Angelou--author, poet, actress, singer, dancer, playwright, director, producer--became the cornerstone of her most acclaimed work, a multivolume autobiography that traces the foundations of her identity as a twentieth-century American Black woman.
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was a writer of short stories and novels in which comedy, grotesquerie, and violence were united with a profound moral and theological vision.
Eudora Welty (born 1909) is considered one of the most important authors of the twentieth century. Although the majority of her stories were set in the American South and reflected the region's language and culture, critics agreed that Welty's treatment of universal themes and her wide-ranging artistic influences clearly transcended regional boundaries. She was the first living writer to have a commemoration of works published by the Library of America
Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was best known for her intricately woven novels, which focus on intimate relationships, especially between men and women, set against the backdrop of African American culture. She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for her fifth novel, Beloved, the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, and a 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom. She released her eleventh novel, God Help the Child, in 2015. In 2016, she was awarded the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction.
Ayn Rand (1905-1982) began to form her philosophy of rational self interest, which she called "objectivism," at an early age. This view became the basis for her immensely popular writings, which included The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
Jhumpa Lahiri surprised the literary world in 2000 when she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her very first full-length effort, a collection of short stories titled Interpreter of Maladies. The eloquent language, mature observations, and delicate insights belied her newcomer status.
Science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin (born 1929) created fantastic worlds in which the author's strong-willed, feminist protagonists have increasingly taken center stage. An understanding of both anthropology and varied cultures informed the highly acclaimed science fiction writing of Ursula K. Le Guin
Butler--the most recognized black woman writer in the genre--became one of sci-fi's leading lights with a career that included publishing the Patternmaster series, the Xenogenesis Trilogy, the celebrated historical fantasy Kindred, and the highly praised dystopian saga The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents, among other works.
Select the individual's name to view works about them that are available in the Hay Library or online. Select the individual's picture to view their biography information.
In 1960 a dean at Harvard Law School recommended one of his star pupils, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to serve as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Though Frankfurter, like others familiar with Ginsburg, acknowledged her impeccable academic credentials, he confessed that he was not ready to hire a woman. This was neither the first nor the last instance where Ginsburg was defined by her gender rather than her formidable intellect. But the rejections galvanized in Ginsburg a fighting spirit to right the wrongs that women suffered so routinely in American society. Thus, much as lawyer and former Justice Thurgood Marshall had converted the prejudice he faced as a black into the engine fueling his crusade to topple institutional racism, so did Ginsburg act on the lessons she had learned from her life. As the legal architect of the modern women's movement, Ginsburg, more than any other person, exposed a body of discriminatory laws anathema to the spirit and letter of the United States Constitution.
Sharice Davids is a Native American attorney and politician and a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation. She is the first openly gay member of Congress to represent Kansas, as well as the first openly gay Native American to ever serve in the U.S. Congress. Davids is also a former mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter who competed both as an amateur and a professional for several years before finally leaving the sport to further her legal and political careers.
The American aviator Amelia Mary Earhart Putnam (1897-1937) remains the world's best-known woman pilot long after her mysterious disappearance during a round-the-world flight in 1937.
A first-generation American, Sonia Sotomayor became the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court. Joining the court in 2009, she played a key role in upholding Obamacare in 2015. She was known for being outspoken yet thoughtful as she continued to serve her second decade on the court in the 2020s.
Grace Hopper, who rose through navy ranks to become a rear admiral at age eighty-two, is best known for her contribution to the design and development of the COBOL programming language for business applications. Her professional life spanned the growth of modern computer science, from her work as a young navy lieutenant programming an early calculating machine to her creation of sophisticated software for microcomputers. She was an influential force and a legendary figure in the development of programming languages. In 1991, President George H. W. Bush presented her with the National Medal of Technology "for her pioneering accomplishments" in the field of data processing.
Susan B. Anthony was known as the "Napoleon of feminism" in recognition of her tireless efforts on behalf of women's rights. She died March 13, 1906, in Rochester, New York. Anthony has remained an important feminist figure throughout the modern era.
Ladda "Tammy" Duckworth was severely wounded in Iraq in 2004 during her service as a U.S. Army National Guard pilot. Despite the loss of both legs and a shattered arm, she found the strength and perseverance to run for Congress in 2006. Her bid was unsuccessful, but close enough to ensure she tried again. Duckworth's political victory came in November 2012, when she defeated Republican candidate Joe Walsh to win Illinois's 8th Congressional District. Duckworth then ran for the Senate in 2016 and won, becoming one of the first Asian American women to serve as a senator.
Call number: 305.42 B380W 2017
In Women & Power, she traces the origins of this misogyny to its ancient roots, examining the pitfalls of gender and the ways that history has mistreated strong women since time immemorial. As far back as Homer’s Odyssey, Beard shows, women have been prohibited from leadership roles in civic life, public speech being defined as inherently male. From Medusa to Philomela (whose tongue was cut out), from Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren (who was told to sit down), Beard draws illuminating parallels between our cultural assumptions about women’s relationship to power―and how powerful women provide a necessary example for all women who must resist being vacuumed into a male template. With personal reflections on her own online experiences with sexism, Beard asks: If women aren’t perceived to be within the structure of power, isn’t it power itself we need to redefine? And how many more centuries should we be expected to wait?
Call number: 364.1555 K672A 2016
Whatever the number, domestic violence victims remain far too many for a preventable crime. More and more victims of intimate partner violence are reaching out to police, prosecutors and judges only to be sorely disappointed, even betrayed. While laws and programs have multiplied over the last few decades to address domestic violence, the country is getting safer for almost everyone except for women who have, or have had, abusive male intimate partners. Andrew R. Klein and Jessica L. Klein look at the criminal justice response to domestic violence across America today, ranging from police to prosecutors and courtrooms across the nation. Abetting Batterers reveals the troubling pattern of inattention and incompetence that compromises the safety of women and encourages their male abusers to continue their abuse and violence. Although criminal justice system agencies vary among cities, towns and counties within the same state they all too often relegate domestic violence to the backburners of the system, dismissing victims and ignoring even the most serious and chronic abusers. The variation reveals the real problem in preventing intimate partner violence lies in these agencies’ commitment and will, rather than their ability to do the job.The authors unveil what is working in regard to protecting victims of domestic violence and holding their abusers accountable, and they suggest strategies for ensuring that what is being done right can be replicated and become the law and practice across the nation. The wide variation in how intimate partner violence is handled by similar jurisdictions demonstrates the real problem in preventing it lies in these agencies’ commitment, rather than ability to do the job. This book proves to be invaluable in understanding what is and is not being done in the reality of domestic violence in America.
Call number: 071.3082 L976F 2006
The first study of the role of the newspaperwoman in American literary culture at the turn of the twentieth century, this book recaptures the imaginative exchange between real-life reporters like Nellie Bly and Ida B. Wells and fictional characters like Henrietta Stackpole, the lady-correspondent in Henry James's Portrait of a Lady. It chronicles the exploits of a neglected group of American women writers and uncovers an alternative reporter-novelist tradition that runs counter to the more familiar story of gritty realism generated in male-dominated newsrooms.
Taking up actual newspaper accounts written by women, fictional portrayals of female journalists, and the work of reporters-turned-novelists such as Willa Cather and Djuna Barnes, Jean Marie Lutes finds in women's journalism a rich and complex source for modern American fiction. Female journalists, cast as both standard-bearers and scapegoats of an emergent mass culture, created fictions of themselves that far outlasted the fleeting news value of the stories they covered.
Call number: 305.4209 D550H 2016
The complete, authoritative, and up to date history of American feminism-intersectionality, sex-positivity Updated and expanded, the second edition of A History of U.S. Feminisms is an introductory text that will be used as supplementary material for first-year women's studies students or as a brush-up text for more advanced students. Covering the first, second, and third waves of feminism, A History of U.S. Feminisms will provide historical context of all the major events and figures from the late nineteenth century through today. The chapters cover: first-wave feminism, a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which focused primarily on gaining women's suffrage; second-wave feminism, which started in the '60s and lasted through the '80s and emphasized the connection between the personal and the political; and third-wave feminism, which started in the early '90s and is best exemplified by its focus on diversity, intersectionality, queer theory, and sex-positivity.
Call number: 507.1073 G443G 2014
A volume in Research on Women and Education (RWE) Series Editors Beverly Irby, Sam Houston State University and Janice Koch, Hofstra University Encouraging the participation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) remains as vital today as it was in the 1970s. ... hence, the sub-title: "A Never Ending Story." This volume is about ongoing advocacy on behalf of the future workforce in fields that lie on the cutting edge of society's future. Acknowledging that deeply embedded beliefs about social and academic entitlement take generations to overcome, the editors of this volume forge forward in the knowledge that these chapters will resonate with readers and that those in positions of access will learn more about how to provide opportunities for girls and women that propel them into STEM fields. This volume will give the reader insight into what works and what does not work for providing the message to girls and women that indeed STEM fields are for them in this second decade of the 21st century. Contributions to this volume will connect to readers at all levels of STEM education and workforce participation. Courses that address teaching and learning in STEM fields as well as courses in women's studies and the sociology of education will be enhanced by accessing this volume. Further, students and scholars in STEM fields will identify with the success stories related in some of these chapters and find inspiration in the ways their own journeys are reflected by this volume.
Call number: 324.623 W434W 2018
Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation. They all converge in a boiling hot summer for a vicious face-off replete with dirty tricks, betrayals and bribes, bigotry, Jack Daniel's, and the Bible. Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.
Call number: 813.6 ER27N 2021
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
Discover the stories of twelve women who "heard the call" to settle the west and who came from all points of the globe to begin their journey. As a slave, Clara watched as her husband and children were sold, only to be reunited with her youngest daughter, as a free woman, six decades later. As a young girl, Charlotte hid her gender to escape a life of poverty and became the greatest stagecoach driver that ever lived. As a Native American, Gertrude fought to give her people a voice and to educate leaders about the ways and importance of her culture.
In 1961, Sarah M. Broom's mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant-the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah's father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah's birth, the Yellow House would become Ivory Mae's thirteenth and most unruly child. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom's The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America's most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother's struggle against a house's entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina. The Yellow House expands the map of New Orleans to include the stories of its lesser known natives, guided deftly by one of its native daughters, to demonstrate how enduring drives of clan, pride, and familial love resist and defy erasure. Located in the gap between the "Big Easy" of tourist guides and the New Orleans in which Broom was raised, The Yellow House is a brilliant memoir of place, class, race, the seeping rot of inequality, and the internalized shame that often follows. It is a transformative, deeply moving story from an unparalleled new voice of startling clarity, authority, and power.
A 2021 NAACP Image Award Nominee: Outstanding Literary Work - Non-Fiction.
Honorable Mention for the 2021 Organization of American Historians Darlene Clark Hine Award. A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are - and have always been - instrumental in shaping our country.
In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.
A commemoration of the brave yet largely forgotten women who served in America's War of Independence. Every schoolchild knows about Paul Reveres 20-mile ride to warn that the British were coming. Far fewer know that 16-year-old Sybil Ludington rode twice as far on her horse Star in order to help her father, Colonel Ludington, muster his scattered troops to fight a marauding enemy. Few know about Martha Bratton, who blew up a supply of gunpowder to keep it from approaching British troops and boldly claimed, It was I who did it! Susan Casey gives Ludington, Bratton, and 18 other remarkable girls and women the spotlight they deserve in this lively collection of biographical profiles. These women took action in many ways, as spies, soldiers, nurses, water carriers, fundraisers, writers, couriers, and more. Women Heroes of the American Revolution brings a fresh new perspective to their stories resulting from interviews with historians and with descendants of participants of the Revolution and features ample excerpts from primary source documents. Also included are contextualizing sidebars, images, source notes, and a bibliography, making this an invaluable resource for any students or history buffs bookshelf.
Women in Science and Technology: Confronting Inequalities comprehensively explores women's status in the Science and Technology (S&T) domain by rigorously analysing and interpreting extensive recent information on major areas such as engineering, medicine, physical sciences, biosciences and mathematics. The book forcefully demonstrates that gender-based differences and expectations play the determining role in limiting women's participation in S&T. These exist in various forms, from making subject choices in school and opting for specific disciplines in college to embracing specific career avenues such as scientific research. This book shows how the construction of gendered identities is perpetuated through a masculine culture in the informal environment of elite educational institutes and in major S&T workplaces such as academia and research laboratories, which serve together to exclude women from peer groups and opportunities for advancement. The book makes substantive recommendations for policy measures on college admissions, improvement of institutional and organizational environments, and recruitment and capacity building for women in S&T. It calls for substantially reducing the myriad societal and familial barriers through cooperation and understanding.
thoroughly entertaining and darkly humorous roundup of history's notorious but often forgotten female con artists and their bold, outrageous scams—by the acclaimed author of Lady Killers.
From Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey to Frank Abagnale and Charles Ponzi, audacious scams and charismatic scammers continue to intrigue us as a culture. As Tori Telfer reveals in Confident Women, the art of the con has a long and venerable tradition, and its female practitioners are some of the best—or worst.
In the 1700s in Paris, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy scammed the royal jewelers out of a necklace made from six hundred and forty-seven diamonds by pretending she was best friends with Queen Marie Antoinette.
In the mid-1800s, sisters Kate and Maggie Fox began pretending they could speak to spirits and accidentally started a religious movement that was soon crawling with female con artists. A gal calling herself Loreta Janeta Velasquez claimed to be a soldier and convinced people she worked for the Confederacy—or the Union, depending on who she was talking to. Meanwhile, Cassie Chadwick was forging paperwork and getting banks to loan her upwards of $40,000 by telling people she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter.
In the 1900s, a 40something woman named Margaret Lydia Burton embezzled money all over the country and stole upwards of forty prized show dogs, while a few decades later, a teenager named Roxie Ann Rice scammed the entire NFL. And since the death of the Romanovs, women claiming to be Anastasia have been selling their stories to magazines. What about today? Spoiler alert: these “artists” are still conning.
Confident Women asks the provocative question: Where does chutzpah intersect with a uniquely female pathology—and how were these notorious women able to so spectacularly dupe and swindle their victims?
Asian American Feminisms and Women of Color Politics brings together groundbreaking essays that speak to the relationship between Asian American feminisms, feminist of color work, and transnational feminist scholarship. This collection, featuring work by both senior and rising scholars, considers topics including the politics of visibility, histories of Asian American participation in women of color political formations, accountability for Asian American settler complicities and cross-racial solidarities, and Asian American community-based strategies against state violence as shaped by and tied to women of color feminisms. Asian American Feminisms and Women of Color Politics provides a deep conceptual intervention into the theoretical underpinnings of Asian American studies; ethnic studies; women's, gender, and sexual studies; as well as cultural studies in general.
Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, Books 1-2 is packed with 200 bedtime stories about the lives of extraordinary women from the past and present, from Elizabeth I to Beyoncé. Painters, scientists, dancers, chefs, astronauts, jazz singers, pharaohs, boxers, writers, political leaders...from every corner of the globe! Each short biography is written in the style of a fairy tale, filling listeners with wonder and with a burning curiosity to know more about each hero.
Women's History Solitaire
Learn more about women from history by playing these two Solitaire games.
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