National Women's History Month
The 2013 theme for the National Women's History Month is “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” honors generations of women who throughout American history have used their intelligence, imagination, and tenacity to make extraordinary contributions to the STEM fields. Access more links by clicking on the websites below, and by clicking on the above tab Women in STEM.
- National Women's History MonthThe first steps toward celebrating women's history came in February 1980 when President Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th 1980 as National Women's History Week. By 1986, 14 states had already declared March as Women's History Month; this momentum was used to lobby Congress to declare March as National Women's History Month, and finally, in 1987, Congress declared March as National Women's History Month in perpetuity, with a special Presidential Proclamation issued each year to honor the achievements of American women.
- Women's History MonthCompilation of federal government resources celebrating Women's History Month, observed in March. Features exhibitions, biographies, articles and stories, lesson plans, plus additional material about women's history.
- Infoplease Women's History MonthInfoplease.com celebrates Women's History Month and International Women's Day (March 8) by featuring articles on the women's history movement and on women's current status in politics, business, and the arts, plus biographies of famous women, and statistics about women. Also note in the Biography section are biographies of Women Educators.
- Women's History from About.comMost of the basic information on women's history appears on About.com; topics include: Biographies of Famous Women, Women's History by Place, and Time; Women's History in Pictures, Women's History Books, and Women's History Month.
International Women's Day
"The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum" is the 2013 theme of the internationalwomensday.com website, while the United Nations 2013 theme is :
"A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women." International Women's Day is celebrated around the world on March 8. Events occur throughout March to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women. Organisations, governments, and women's groups choose different themes each year to reflect global and local gender issues.
Premium eResources
Use these resources, including the ebooks in the right column, in the library as a guest or from any internet connection with your library card.
March is Women’s History Month, and the 2013 theme “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” recognizes the pioneering efforts of women in these fields. We are featuring seven pioneering women who are visionaries and role models in the STEM fields. To find more information on these STEM pioneers, please look at our excellent eBooks, Celebrating Women in American History, which is part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages, both of which are part of the Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL).
Hattie Elizabeth Alexander (1901-1968) Pediatrician and Microbiologist who conducted pioneering research on bacterial influenza meningitis and developed an anti-influenza serum.
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)-First woman doctor in modern times.
Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898-1979)---Best known for her invention of non-reflecting glass, became the 1st woman research scientist hired by General Electric laboratories.
Rita R. Colwell (1934-)-Served as the first woman Director of the National Science Foundation from 1998-2004.
Dian Fossey (1932-1985)--A controversial primatologist who waged an unrelenting battle to save the mountain gorillas of central Africa.
Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992)--Pioneered computer technology for military and business applications and was a primary inventor of the COBOL computer language.
Flossie Wong-Staal (1946-)-Virologist and Molecular Biologist who was the first person to clone and complete the genetic mapping of HIV, which made it possible to develop tests for HIV.
Books
In 1963, Betty Friedan unleashed a storm of controversy with her bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique. Nearly half a century later, many women still recall where they were when they first read it.
In A Strange Stirring, historian Stephanie Coontz examines the dawn of the 1960s, when the sexual revolution had barely begun, newspapers advertised for “perky, attractive gal typists,” but married women were told to stay home, and husbands controlled almost every aspect of family life. Based on exhaustive research and interviews, and challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Friedan, A Strange Stirring illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn’t reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.
In A Strange Stirring, historian Stephanie Coontz examines the dawn of the 1960s, when the sexual revolution had barely begun, newspapers advertised for “perky, attractive gal typists,” but married women were told to stay home, and husbands controlled almost every aspect of family life. Based on exhaustive research and interviews, and challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Friedan, A Strange Stirring illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn’t reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.
Collects the stories of extraordinary heroes and ideal role models for girls, including Marie Curie, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Sally Ride, to name just a few famous women scientists.
Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers compelling, commonsense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential. She recounts her own decisions, mistakes, and daily struggles to make the right choices for herself, her career, and her family. She provides practical advice on negotiation techniques, mentorship, and building a satisfying career, urging women to set boundaries and to abandon the myth of “having it all.” She also describes specific steps women can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment and demonstrates how men can benefit by supporting women in the workplace and at home.
She loved the ocean, writing three books about it, but it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship with the natural world. Rachel Carson began work on Silent Spring in the late 1950s, when a vast array of synthetic pesticides were being used, chief among them DDT. Effective against crop pests as well as insects that transmitted human diseases like typhus and malaria, DDT had at first seemed safe; as its use expanded, alarming reports came to light of damage to fish, birds, and other wildlife. Silent Spring was an indictment of DDT and its effects, which were lasting, widespread, and lethal. Published in 1962, Silent Spring alarmed the public and forced the government to take action. The book awakened the world to the contamination of the environment and eventually led to the establishment of the EPA and to the banning of DDT and other related pesticides.
"Until Marie Tharp's ground-breaking work in the 1950s, the floor of the ocean was a mystery. In a time when women in the scientific community were routinely dismissed, Marie's work changed our understanding of the earth's geologic evolution. While her partner, Bruce Heezen, went on expeditions to collect soundings, Marie turned this data into beautiful and controversial maps that laid the groundwork for proving the theory of continental drift. Marie's maps for the first time showed that the continents were moving, and had always been moving. Her maps have been called some of "the most remarkable achievements in modern cartography" and yet no one knows her name. Brilliant young writer Hali Felt captures the romance of scientific discovery, and brings to vivid life this pioneering scientist who changed the way we view the earth.
Feminists opened up thousands of doors in the 1960s and 1970s, but decades later, are U.S. women where they thought they'd be? The answer is a resounding no. Of course there have been gains; women now make up almost 60% of college undergraduates and half of all medical and law students. They have entered the workforce in record numbers, making the two-wage-earner family the norm. But combining a career and family turned out to be more complicated than expected. While women changed, social structures surrounding work and family remained static. Affordable and high-quality child care, and equal pay for equal work remain elusive for the vast majority of working women. In fact, the U.S. has fallen far behind other parts of the world on the gender-equity front, lagging behind more than seventy countries in the percentage of women holding elected federal offices, and only 5% of Fortune 500 companies are led by women. Looking back over five decades of advocacy, she analyzes where progress stalled, looks at the successes of other countries, and charts the course for the next feminist revolution--one that mobilizes women, and men, to call for the kind of government and workplace policies that can improve the lives of women and strengthen families.
Ebooks, DVDs, and Audio Books
Presents a diverse and panoramic view of women and their accomplishments in American history by bringing their achievements to light and helping them gain the recognition they deserve.
Contains more than 20,000 brief biographical entries on women, including thousands of entries on non-U.S. figures.
Explores the lives of women in American society. Includes information on women's demographic trends, educational achievements, employment, financial status, parental responsibilities, political roles, victimization, and health issues.
Locating information on women is difficult and the editors have done a great job assembling and publishing existing information on individual women from many nations both living and dead. Since sometimes only birth, marriage, children, and death dates are known, the 10,000 articles vary in length according to the subject.
The autobiography of a Somalian nomad circumcised at 3, sold in marriage at 13, fled from Africa a while later to become finally an American supermodel and is now at the age of 38, the UN spokeswoman against circumcision.
Women's History Websites
- Discovering American Women's History OnlineThis database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. These diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to interviews with women engineers from the 1970s.
- Famous Firsts in American Women's HistoryThis compilation from History.com includes such Famous Firsts as the First Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls; First Woman to Win the Pulitzer Prize (Edith Wharton, 1921); First Female Member of the President's Cabinet (Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, 1933); First Woman on the Supreme Court (Sandra Day O'Connor, 1981), First female Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright, 1997), and many more.
- Internet Women's History SourcebookContains full text of a wide range of primary source materials as well as secondary texts related to women in ancient history, early European history, modern European history, Latin America, United States, Asia, Afria, and Australia.
- New Jersey Women's HistoryThis website was created by the Women's Project of New Jersey (WPNJ) to be a resource for students, teachers, and anyone who wants to learn more about the history of women in New Jersey. Of particular note for 2012, since the topic is Women's Education--Women's Empowerment, is the section on education which contains biographies of women educators in New Jersey, as well as key events.
- Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-BeingTo support the Council on Women and Girls, the Office of Management and Budget and the Economics and Statistics Administration worked together to create this report, which for the first time pulls together information from across the Federal statistical agencies on how women are faring in the United States today and how
these trends have changed over time. This report provides a statistical snapshot of women in America, as of March 2011, in five key areas: demographic and family changes, education, employment, health, and violence. - Women in World HistoryFairly comprehensive site on the history of women. The site includes reviews of Web pages, curriculua, primary sources etc.
- Women Watch: UN Information and Resources on Gender EqualityWomenwatch is the gateway to information and resources on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women in the United Nations system. The portal contains a directory of resources on selected topics including the critical areas of concern of statistics and indicators, gender mainstreaming and online clearinghouses on themes currently on the United Nations global agenda, such as climate change.
- Women's Rights ActivistsThis listing, from Biography.com, provides biographies of both present and past women's rights advocates, plus biographies of women in many other areas.
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