This month's display is dedicated to the struggle to achieve equality for women all over the nation:
President Jimmy Carter’s Message to the nation designating March 2-8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week:
“From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.
As Dr. Gerda Lerner has noted, “Women’s History is Women’s Right.” – It is an essential and indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision.”
I ask my fellow Americans to recognize this heritage with appropriate activities during National Women’s History Week, March 2-8, 1980.
I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality – – Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul.
Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people.
This goal can be achieved by ratifying the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that “Equality of Rights under the Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
Check out some materials we have on hand:
U. S. History As Women's History by Linda K. Kerber (Editor); Alice Kessler-Harris (Editor); Kathryn Kish Sklar (Editor)
Call Number: 305.409 U58
Publication Date: 1995
This outstanding collection of fifteen original essays represents innovative work by some of the most influential scholars in the field of women's history. Covering a broad sweep of history from colonial to contemporary times and ranging over the fields of legal, social, political, and cultural history, this book, according to its editors, 'intrudes into regions of the American historical narrative from which women have been excluded or in which gender relations were not thought to play a part.' State formation, power, and knowledge have not traditionally been understood as the subjects of women's history, but they are the themes that permeate this book. Individually and together, the essays explore how gender serves to legitimize particular constructions of power and knowledge and to meld these into accepted practice and state policy. They show how the field of women's history has moved from the discovery of women to an evaluation of social processes and institutions.
Unequal Sisters by Vicki L. Ruiz (Editor)
Call Number: 305.488 U566 2008
Publication Date: 2007
Unequal Sistershas become a beloved and classic reader in American Women's History. It provides an unparalleled resource for understanding women's history in the United States today. When it was first published in 1990, it revolutionized the field with its broad multicultural approach, and continued, through its next two editions, to emphasize feminist perspectives on race, ethnicity, region, and sexuality. This classic work is in its fourth edition, and has incorporated the feedback of end-users in the field, to make it the most user-friendly version to date.
Feminism Unfinished by Dorothy Sue Cobble; Linda Gordon; Astrid Henry
Call Number: 305.4209 C654f 2014
Publication Date: 2014
Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women's movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished traces the beginnings of this seminal American social movement to the 1920s, in the process creating an expanded, historical narrative that dramatically rewrites a century of American women's history. Also challenging the contemporary "lean-in," trickle-down feminist philosophy and asserting that women's histories all too often depoliticize politics, labor issues, and divergent economic circumstances, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry demonstrate that the post-Suffrage women's movement focused on exploitation of women in the workplace as well as on inherent sexual rights. The authors carefully revise our "wave" vision of feminism, which previously suggested that there were clear breaks and sharp divisions within these media-driven "waves." Showing how history books have obscured the notable activism by working-class and minority women in the past, Feminism Unfinished provides a much-needed corrective.
Women's Activism by Francisca De Haan (Editor); Margaret Allen (Editor); June Purvis (Editor); Krassimira Dasklova (Editor)
Call Number: 305.4209 W872555 2013
Publication Date: 2013
Women's Activismbrings together twelve innovative contributions from feminist historians from around the world to look at how women have always found ways to challenge or fight inequalities and hierarchies as individuals, in international women's organizations, as political leaders, and in global forums such as the United Nations. The book is divided into three parts. Part one, brings together four essays about organized women's activism across borders. The chapters in part two focus on the variety of women's activism and explore women's activism in different national and political contexts. And part three explores the changing relationships and inequalities among women. This book addresses women's internationalism and struggle for their rights in the international arena; it deals with racism and colonialism in Australia, India and Europe; women's movements and political activism in South Africa, Eastern Bengal (Bangladesh), the United Kingdom, Japan and France. Essential reading for anyone interested in women's history and the history of activism more generally.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
Call Number: 741.597 L598s 2015
Publication Date: 2015
Wonder Woman, created in 1941, on the brink of World War II, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, she has lasted the longest and commanded the most vast and wildly passionate following. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike others, she also has a secret history. In Jill Lepore's riveting work of historical detection, Wonder Woman's story provides the missing link in the history of the struggle for women's rights--a chain of events that begins with the women's suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ends with the troubled place of feminism a century later. This edition includes a new afterword with fresh revelations based on never before seen letters and photographs from the Marston family's papers.
Chronology of Women Worldwide by Lynne Brakeman
Call Number: 305.409 C557 1997 - Reference Area
Publication Date: 1996
This work focuses on the key international happenings throughout the ages, with particular emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. It includes women's achievements in specific areas such as the arts, transportation and science. Brief biographies of important individuals are also included.
Happy Hedgehog by
