It’s Women’s History Month! Read, Watch, Learn
In 1987, the U.S. Congress declared March to be National Women’s History Month. Coordinated by the National Women’s History Alliance, this annual celebration seeks to recognize “the diverse and significant historical accomplishments of women.”
This year’s theme is Valiant Women of the Vote: Refusing to be Silenced in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.
Want to read about women’s suffrage? Historian Susan Ware recommends these five books:
1. The Myth of Seneca Falls by Lisa Tetrault (e-book or print book at Falvey)
2. The Concise History of Woman Suffrage by Mari Jo Buhle & Paul Buhle (order via Interlibrary Loan)
3. All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900 by Martha S. Jones (e-book or print book at Falvey)
4. The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss (order via Interlibrary Loan)
5. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexander Keyssar (e-book or print book at Falvey)
Are you doing research on a gender-related topic? Falvey has you covered! We have everything you need: journals, books, search engines for finding resources, and databases containing primary source materials to answer all of your gender and women’s studies questions! Visit the our Subject Guide on Gender & Women’s Studies, and be sure to check out these resources:
We subscribe to all of the top journals in the field, including:
Great interdisciplinary databases to help you find journal articles, books, news, and more:
GenderWatch includes indexing, abstracts, and full text of scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and reports in many disciplines on topics relevant to gender studies. This database is particularly strong in its coverage of dissertations and non-mainstream magazines and newspapers.
Gender Studies Database provides indexing and abstracts for academic and professional journals, conference papers, books, book chapters, government reports, discussion and working papers, theses & dissertations and other sources. GSD combines Women’s Studies International and Men’s Studies databases with the coverage of sexual diversity issues, and is very strong in its coverage of health sciences journals as well as other academic journals.
Primary sources and historical documents:
Source: Digital Transgender Archive
Digital Transgender Archive (Free to all users)
This resource provides “an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world” related to transgender history. The project is based at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and is searchable and browsable by map, institution, collection, topic, and genre. The contents of the collection focus on materials created before 2000.
Source: Adam Matthew Digital
Gender: Identity and Social Change
This database provides access to primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Offers sources for the study of women’s suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics. Falvey licenses this resource from Adam Matthew Digital.
The Gerritsen Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs
The Gerritsen Collection features digital copies of more than 4000 books and pamphlets and complete runs of more than 200 periodicals related to women’s history in general and the movement for women’s rights in particular. It includes materials addressing both the pro-feminist and anti-feminist case, as well as other materials that provide an objective look at the condition of women in a given time of place. Its coverage is international, and extends from the middle of the 15th century to the middle of the 20th century. Each of the books, pamphlets, and periodical titles has its own listing in Falvey’s library catalog.
E-Book Collections:
Duke Gender Studies e-book Collection
The Duke Gender Studies e-book collection includes “essential titles and field-defining scholarship in queer theory, gay and lesbian studies, transgender studies, feminist theory, and women’s studies.” This collection is comprised of more than 500 titles published between 1990 and the present. Each book is fully downloadable and printable (chapter by chapter), and is accessible by an unlimited number of VU community members at once.
Offers digital copies of writings by early modern women (1500-1700). The name of the collection, derived from the Latin word for “lost,” alludes to the ephemeral nature of women’s writings which were rarely published and widely shared. Genres represented in the collection range from poetry and religious writings to letters, recipes, and account books. Includes manuscript descriptions with partial transcriptions and detailed annotations where available. The collection is part of the Perdita Project. The manuscripts are held by libraries and archives in the US and UK. Includes pdf files for all manuscripts. Licensed from Adam Matthew Digital.
Film and Video:
Academic Video Online, or AVON, offers more than 70,000 films and documentary TV episodes from distributors including PBS, the BBC, Bullfrog Films, Ro*Co Films, California Newsreel, and many others. Most films include searchable full text transcripts. Here are some subcollections focused on women’s history:
– Women’s and Gender Studies Video Online
– Women’s History Month: Celebrating Artists Who are Women
Data and statistics:
Source: WomanStats Project
WomanStats Project (Free to all users)
The WomanStats Project is the most comprehensive compilation of information on the status of women in the world with qualitative and quantitative information on over 260 indicators of women’s status in 174 countries. To view the data, you first need to create a free account.
Women, Peace and Security Index (Free to all users)
Statista is a user-friendly data portal offering tables, graphs, reports, and more on over 80,000 topics from more than 18,000 sources. Women- and gender-related data points covered include information on health, employment and career, consumer behavior, women’s portrayal in media, political behavior, demographics, and public opinion.
For help with your research in Gender and Women’s Studies, please contact the GWS Librarian Jutta Seibert.
Susan Turkel, MA, MLS is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.
Newspapers are essential primary source documents, presenting commentary on political, social, and economic events as well as photographs, cartoons, and advertisements.
Ethnic Newswatch
Susan Turkel, MA, MLS, is a Social Sciences Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.
