Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month. This year’s theme, according to the National Women's History Project, is Celebrating Women of Character, Courage, and Commitment which honors the extraordinary and often unrecognized determination and tenacity of women. To learn more visit the National Women's History Project at www.nwhp.org.

Here are a few titles available at the Community Library that can help you learn more about the women's rights movement and women in American history:

Her Story: A Timeline of Women Who Changed America by Charlotte S. Waisman & Jill Tietjen. Did you know that a female microbiologist discovered the bacterium responsible for undulant fever, which then led to the pasteurization of milk? Or that a female mathematician's work laid the foundation for abstract algebra? Her Story is an illustrated timeline highlighting these varied and often unrecognized contributions of American women. 

The Rise of the New Woman: The Women's Movement in America, 1875-1930 by Jean V. Matthews chronicles the changing fortunes and transformations of the organized suffrage movement, from its dismal period of declining numbers and campaign failures to its final victory in the Nineteenth Amendment that brought women the vote. In an engaging narrative, she recaptures the personalities and ideas that characterized the movement in these years, drawing deft portraits and analyzing the intellectual currents - in politics, the economy, sexuality, and social thoughts - that competed for women's commitment. 

Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States by Eleanor Flexner & Ellen Fitzpatrick details the struggle for women's voting rights, one of the great social movements in American history.

The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Women's Rights in America by Debran Rowland examines the legal status and rights of women in the United States throughout history covering the period from the 1600's to the early 1900s in the first section, then examining developments in the 20th century in a long second section. Final sections look at the politics of female adolescence and violence and women, mainly as contemporary issues but with some historical considerations.