In 1987, Congress declared March Women’s History Month. The month also includes Women’s History Day on March 8. According to the Library of Congress, in “commemorat[es] and encourag[es] the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.”
If you’re interested in reading about women’s history and our roles in society, check out some of these books, currently on display at AJPL through March:
Self-Help and Parenting Young Women
Brave Girls: Raising Young Women With Passion and Purpose to Become Powerful Leaders by Stacey Radin
Magical Girl’s Guide to Life: Find Your Inner Power, Fight Everyday Evil & Save the Day With Self-Care by Jacque Aye
More Than Enough: Claiming Space For Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) by Elaine Welteroth
What Girls Need: How to Raise Bold, Courageous, and Resilient Women by Marisa Porges
Women in History
Amazing Girls of Arizona: True Stories of Young Pioneers by Jan Cleere
A Black Women’s History of the United States by Dania Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans
Citizen Woman: An Illustrated History of the Women’s Movement by Jane Gerhard and Dan Tucker
The Firsts: The Inside Story of the Women Reshaping Congress by Jennifer Steinhauer
Frontier Women: “Civilizing” the West? 1840-1880 by Julie Roy Jeffrey
Game On!: How Women’s Basketball Took Seattle by Storm by Jayda Evans
Hellraisers and Trailblazers: The Real Women of the Wild West by Jana Bommersbach and Bob Boze Bell
I Dwell in Possibility: Women Build a Nation, 1600-1920 by Donna M. Lucey
My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir by Katherine Johnson
No Stopping Us Now: The Adventures of Older Women in American History by Gail Collins
Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls: Women, Music, and Fame by Lisa Robinson
Pistol Packin’ Madams: True Stories of Notorious Women of the Old West by Chris Enss
Power Hungry: Women of the Black Panther Party and Freedom Summer and Their Fight to Feed a Movement by Suzanne Cope
A Private War: Marie Colvin and Other Tales of Heroes, Scoundrels, and Renegades by Marie Brenner
Reckless: The Outrageous Lives of Nine Kick-Ass Women by Gloria Mattioni
She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
Strong Women: 15 Biographies of Influential Women History Overlooked by Kari Koeppel
Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote by Ellen Carol Dubois
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins
Women in Literature
A Bookshelf of Our Own: Books That Changed Women’s Lives by Deborah G. Felder
She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy
Walking the Twilight: Women Writers of the Southwest (Volume I and Volume II) by Kathryn Wilder
Women’s Social History and Essays
And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I was Ready by Meaghan O’Connell
Dear Ijeawele, or, A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World by Eve Ensler
Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America by Helen Thorpe
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen: The Emotional Lives of Black Women by Inger Burnett-Zeigler
Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya L. Chemaly
Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild by Deborah Siegel
Skate Like a Girl by Carolina Amell
We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere by Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel
What My Mother Gave Me: 31 Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most edited by Elizabeth Benedict
Wise Talk, Wild Women by Gwen Mazer, with portraits by Christine Alicino
Womanish Black Girls: Women Resisting the Contradictions of Silence and Voice edited by Dianne Smith, Loyce Caruthers, and Shaunda Fowler
You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, and Other Mixed Messages by Carina Chocano