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Women's History Month: Digital Resources

Join TCC and the libraries in recognizing the accomplishments and contributions of women in American history.

Digital Collection

Visit our Digital Collection for this topic OR click on the e-books in the slideshow below!

E-books

book cover image; a collage of 5 black and white photos of women

101 amazing women : extraordinary heroines throughout history

Throughout human history, countless women have made important contributions to society. Some have made scientific discoveries vital to modern-day life, whereas others have fought for human rights, shaped entire countries and broken down barriers. This fascinating book introduces the reader to over one hundred such figures, with each having made important contributions in fields such as politics, science, literature, business and warfare.

photo of activist, Alice Paul

Alice Paul

Alice Paul: Equality for Women shows the dominant and unwavering role Paul played in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, granting the vote to American women. The dramatic details of Paul's imprisonment and solitary confinement, hunger strike, and force-feeding at the hands of the U.S. government illustrate her fierce devotion to the cause she spent her life promoting.

photo of a large crowd assembled for a women's rights march

The American Women's Almanac

Celebrate the vital roles and vibrant experiences of women in America! The most complete and affordable single-volume reference on women's history available today,The American Women's Almanac: 500 Years of Vitality, Triumph and Excellence is a unique and valuable resource devoted to illustrating the moving and often lost history of women in America. It is a fascinating mix of biographies, little-known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements, and numerous photographs and illustrations.

book cover image; portraits of Sui Sin Far, Mary Hunter Austin, Zitkala-Sa, and Fannie Barrier Williams

Before They Could Vote

The life narratives in this collection are by ethnically diverse women of energy and ambition--some well known, some forgotten over generations--who confronted barriers of gender, class, race, and sexual difference as they pursued or adapted to adventurous new lives in a rapidly changing America. The engaging selections--from captivity narratives to letters, manifestos, criminal confessions, and childhood sketches--span a hundred years in which women increasingly asserted themselves publicly. Some rose to positions of prominence as writers, activists, and artists; some sought education or wrote to support themselves and their families; some transgressed social norms in search of new possibilities. Each woman's story is strikingly individual, yet the brief narratives in this anthology collectively chart bold new visions of women's agency.

book cover image; a sandy beach with rocks arranged in concentric circles

The Bold and the Brave: A History of Women in Science and Engineering

The Bold and the Brave investigates how women have striven throughout history to gain access to education and careers in science and engineering. Author Monique Frize, herself an engineer for over 40 years, introduces the reader to key concepts and debates that contextualize the obstacles women have faced and continue to face in the fields of science and engineering. She focuses on the history of women's education in mathematics and science through the ages, from antiquity to the Enlightenment. While opportunities for women were often purposely limited, she reveals how many women found ways to explore science outside of formal education. 

book cover image; solid red background with the title Current Issues in Women's History

Current Issues in Women's History

This lively collection of essays, originally published in 1989, illustrated recent developments in the area, with chapters by contributors from many different countries and disciplines. Asking new questions and using sources in a challenging way, the contributors reflect 1980s debates about politics and academic research in women's studies. They cover a wide range of topics, dealing for example with opportunities and obstacles for women within male-defined power-structures and institutions such as science, religious communities, and ancient Roman industry. They discuss feminists and feminist movements, analyze the utterances of women and men in medieval literature and in defamation cases, and give insights into the ways femaleness and femininity are given meaning. The essays on theory deal with such important issues as women's historiography, and androcentrism and ethnocentrism in history.

book cover image; green lights radiating outward in concentric circles from a central point

Encyclopedia of Women in American History

This illustrated encyclopedia examines the unique influence and contributions of women in every era of American history, from the colonial period to the present. It not only covers the issues that have had an impact on women, but also traces the influence of women's achievements on society as a whole. Divided into three chronologically arranged volumes, the set includes historical surveys and thematic essays on central issues and political changes affecting women's lives during each period. These are followed by A-Z entries on significant events and social movements, laws, court cases and more, as well as profiles of notable American women from all walks of life and all fields of endeavor. Primary sources and original documents are included throughout.

photograph of women walking together in a parade or march

Feminism: Perspectives, Stereotypes/Misperceptions and Social Implications

In this book the authors present current research in the study of feminism. Topics discussed in this compilation include the feminist focus on women and substance abuse treatment; the question of whether or not purely female societies can truly exist; women in elite positions within medicine; black women and their situation of discrimination and vulnerability in Brazil; the impact of migration on the reconfiguration of family dynamics; feminism and difference; theorizing African feminism; gender stereotypes and the effect on women's persistence in STEM fields; and an antidote for global feminist gaps as encoded in Sindiwe Magona's black south African autobiographies.

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Feminism and Politics

The essays in this latest volume in the Oxford Readings in Feminism series answer questions about gender and feminism in politics, demonstrating how feminism challenges both the theory and practice of politics and opens up new ways of thinking about political change. Anne Phillips brings together twenty outstanding articles dealing with various aspects of feminism and politics, covering political studies, political theory, interests and representation, identities and coalitions, equality and anti-discrimination, and citizenship.

photo of Katherine Johnson, NASA

Hidden No More: African American Women in STEM Careers

In recent years, the stories of black women in scientific and mathematical fields have finally emerged from the shadows of history to inspire new generations of Americans. Through engaging main text filled with quotes from prominent figures, readers understand how black women who pursued careers in science and math helped shape the history of the world and continue to shape its future. Eye-catching photographs make this complex and influential topic easily relatable, while informative sidebars provide a thorough investigation of powerful women in powerful careers.

book cover image; portrait of M. Carey Thomas and photo of the old library at Bryn Mawr College

Landmarks of American Women's History

Throughout history, women have often worked in informal ways and in modest conditions, frequently without monuments or grand examples of architecture preserved to commemorate their accomplishments. Landmarks of American Women's History describes the sites that represent a wide variety of women's experiences and accomplishments. Page Putnam Miller tells an engaging story of the accomplishments and the lasting influence of women on American history.

book cover image; photo of a woman's face shown in side profile

The No-Nonsense Guide to Women's Rights

Has the battle for women's rights been won? Not when women still make up 70 percent of the world's poor. This guide examines the advances that have been made and looks beneath the surface to find out what the reality is for women all around the world. It shows how, in this "post-feminist" age, women's rights are still very much an issue. 

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The Reader's Companion to U. S. Women's History

The most inclusive book to date on U.S. women's collective history! A landmark work, The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History, gathers together more than 400 articles to offer a diverse, rich, and often neglected panorama of the nation's past. Written by more than 300 contributors, drawn from various areas of expertise, these narrative and interpretive entries "effectively cover five centuries of women's experiences" (Bloomsbury Review).

red flowers growing out of a crack in concrete

Reshaping Women's History: Voices of Nontraditional Women Historians

Award-winning women scholars from nontraditional backgrounds have often negotiated an academic track that leads through figurative--and sometimes literal--minefields. Their life stories offer inspiration, but also describe heartrending struggles and daunting obstacles. Reshaping Women's History presents autobiographical essays by eighteen accomplished scholar-activists who persevered through poverty or abuse, medical malpractice or family disownment, civil war or genocide.

Justice Ginsburg's iconic white lace collar

Ruth Bader Ginsburg : Pursuing Equality

"The first full life--private; public; legal; philosophical--of the 107th Supreme Court Justice, one of the most profound and profoundly transformative legal minds of our time; a book fifteen years in work, written with the cooperation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself and based on many interviews with the Justice, her husband, her children, her friends, and associates. In this large, comprehensive, revelatory biography, Jane De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg's passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, her meticulous jurisprudence: her desire to make We the People more united and our union more perfect. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs--her Jewish background.

book cover image shows part of a painting by Thomas Eakins depicting a woman in a blue dress holding sheet music

Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement

In a quiet town of Seneca Falls, New York, over the course of two days in July, 1848, a small group of women and men, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, held a convention that would launch the woman's rights movement and change the course of history. The implications of that remarkable convention would be felt around the world and indeed are still being felt today. In Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Woman's Rights Movement, the latest contribution to Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments in American History series, Sally McMillen unpacks, for the first time, the full significance of that revolutionary convention and the enormous changes it produced. The book covers 50 years of women's activism, from 1840-1890, focusing on four extraordinary figures--Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony. 

illustration of Black Americans standing in line at a voting location

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power -- and how it transformed America. In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women's movement did not win the vote for most black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own. In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons.

Several political buttons on a red background

We Will Be Heard: Women's Struggles for Political Power in the United States

In We Will Be Heard, noted political scientist Jo Freeman chronicles the struggles of women in the United States for political power. Most of their stories are little-known, but Freeman's compelling portrait of women working for change reminds us that women have never been silent in the political affairs of the nation. From J. Ellen Foster's address to the 1892 Republican Convention to Nancy Pelosi's 2007 election as the first female Speaker of the House, women have worked to influence politics at every level. Well before most could vote, women campaigned for candidates and lobbied to shape public policy. Men welcomed their work, but not their ideas. Even with equal suffrage women faced many barriers to full political participation.

floral tapestry in which the form of a woman can be seen

Women's History

This fifth volume of the History of the Prairie West Series contains a broad range of articles spanning the 1870s to the present and examines the mostly unexplored place of women in the history of the Canada's Prairie Provinces. From "Spinsters Need Not Apply" to "Negotiating Sex: Gender in the Ukrainian Bloc Settlement," women's roles in politics, law, agriculture, labour, and journalism are explored to reveal a complex portrait of women struggling to find safety, have careers, raise children, and be themselves in an often harsh environment. Launched in 2008, the History of the Prairie West Series is comprised of the very best historical articles previously published in the scholarly journal Prairie Forum.

book cover image with two photos; one of a women's rights march, the other of women voting

Women's Rights

At the dawn of the 21st century, women still have as many difficult and complex issues to deal with as ever before. From affirmative action and service in active combat, to educational rights and reproductive rights, to sexual harassment and religious leadership roles, women continue to face challenges on a daily basis. "Women's Rights" examines this history and the current status of women's rights in the United States and abroad, namely Denmark, China, Afghanistan, and Kenya. This intriguing volume highlights the means by which women challenge their respective situations and cause change within their countries. With access to global communication means such as the Internet, many of these movements can now look to each other as a source for what to do or avoid to implement positive change.

book cover image with the international symbol for women

Women and the Vote: A World History

Before 1893 no woman anywhere in the world had the vote in a national election. A hundred years later almost all countries had enfranchised women, and it was a sign of backwardness not to have done so.This is the story of how this momentous change came about. The first genuinely global history of women and the vote, it takes the story of women in politics from the earliest times to the present day, revealing startling new connections across time and national boundaries - from Europe and NorthAmerica to Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Muslim world post-9/11.A story of individuals as well as of wider movements, it includes the often dramatic life-stories of women's suffrage pioneers from across the world, painting vivid biographical portraits of everyone from Susan B. Anthony and the Pankhursts to hitherto lesser-known activists in China,

The Women of Summer

Althea

The Fight for Women's Rights

Video Series