Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith
Women’s History Month: A Pathfinder
(You can download a pdf version here.)
Introduction:
This is a pathfinder for Women’s History Month (the month of March in the United
States). It can help lead you to resources about Women’s History. Women’s History, as
you might imagine, is a gigantic topic. It can include the entire history of women in the
world or in the United States. You will want to narrow this topic into an area that
interests you. One of the topics you might investigate is how women got the right to vote.
Other topics could be the history of women in sports, or in science, or in writing or the
arts.
You might even want to select one particular woman and learn about her life. Remember: if you have a dream in life, and you can find one person who has
accomplished a similar dream, then you can follow their example and reach your own
dream.
Getting Started:
Below is a list of some of the Dewey Decimal Classification Numbers for Women’s
History. Look for these numbers on the spines of the books in the library. Also included
is a list of keyword terms you can enter in a library catalog or search engine as you begin
your research.
Dewey Decimal Classification Numbers:
Women’s History 305.4
Women’s Rights 324.6
Women Inventors 609.2
Women in Sports 796
Collective Biography 920.7
Biography -- B
Keyword Terms for Searches:
When searching online or in an online catalog, a keyword search may be simpler. Try
some of the following keywords:
Women’s history
Women’s history month
Women’s history timeline
Women’s rights
Women’s suffrage
Women and vote
Seneca Falls
Feminism
American Equal Rights Association (AERA)
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
National Organization for Women (NOW)
The following is a list of women who have made substantial contributions to American
Society and the world at large. It is, by no means, a complete list of the many women
who were influential in making substantial records or strides towards equality for women.
Abigail Adams
Maya Angelou
Susan B. Anthony
Joan of Arc
Elizabeth Blackwell
Rachel Carson
Mary Cassatt
Marie Curie
Emily Dickinson
Amelia Earhart
Queen Elizabeth I
Betty Friedan
Billie Holiday
Frida Kahlo
Helen Keller
Lucretia Mott
Georgia O’Keefe
Florence Nightingale
Rosa Parks
Rosie the Riveter
Eleanor Roosevelt
Sacagawea
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Gloria Steinem
Harriet Beacher Stowe
Mother Theresa
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Alice Walker
Databases:
Léman Manhattan: Grolier Online, Proquest, EBSCO & Questia
Internet Sources:
Women’s History (Library of Congress—American Memory)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/womhm.html
Women’s History (Biography.com)
http://www.biography.com/womens-history/index.jsp
American Women’s History: A Research Guide
(A list of resources created by Ken Middleton, a reference librarian at Middle Tennessee
State University)
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women.html
Women’s History Month (Library of Congress, National Archives, and all)
http://womenshistorymonth.gov/
Women’s History Month (Infoplease)
http://www.infoplease.com/womens-history-month/
Celebrate Women’s History Month
(Resources from the New York Times)
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/teaching-topics/celebrate-womens-history-month/
Women’s History Month (History Channel)
http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history-month
Women’s History Month (Time for Kids)
http://www.timeforkids.com/minisite/womens-history-month
National Women’s History Museum (includes Online Exhibits and Resources)
http://www.nwhm.org/
Girl Museum: Blog
http://girlmuseum.blogspot.com
Places Where Women Made History (National Park Service)
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/pwwmh/
Women Who Changed History (Scholastic)
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/women/
300 Women Who Changed the World (Encyclopedia Brittanica)
http://search.eb.com/women
Women of Influence (Fact Monster/Pearson Education)
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0768438.html
Jewish Women’s Archive
http://jwa.org/
One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview (Library of Congress)
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html
Alice Paul’s Fight for Suffrage (PBS Kids Go)
http://pbskids.org/wayback/civilrights/features_suffrage.html
The First Ladies (The White House)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/first-ladies
Eleanor Roosevelt: American Experience (PBS)
(Companion site to the film)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/index.html
Women in Congress (U.S. House of Representatives)
http://womenincongress.house.gov/
Women Soldiers of the Civil War (National Archives)
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/spring/women-in-the-civil-war-1.html
Nobel Prize Awarded Women
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html
Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity (American Institute of Physics)
http://www.aip.org/history/curie/
Biographies of Women Mathematicians (Agnes Scott College)
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/women.htm
100 Greatest Female Athletes (Sports Illustrated)
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/siforwomen/top_100/1/
Clara Database of Women Artists (National Museum of Women in the Arts)
http://clara.nmwa.org/index.php?g=search&action=home
Georgia O’Keefe Museum
http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/biography.html
Emily Dickinson Museum
http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/timeline
Women’s History I.Q. Quiz
http://www.nwhp.org/resourcecenter/historyquiz.php
Women in World History
http://www.nwhp.org/resourcecenter/linkshistory.php
Look for these nonfiction books in the Léman Manhattan library:
World Book Encyclopedia (See article on “Women’s Movement” and individual
biographies)
Bausum, Ann. With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote
Blumenthal, Karen. Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, the law that changed the future of
girls in America
Bolden, Tonya. 33 Things Every Girl Should Know About Women’s History: From
Suffragettes to Skirt Lengths to the E.R.A.
Fradin, Dennis Brindell and Fradin, Judith Bloom. Fight On: Mary Church Terrell’s
Battle For Integration
Freedman, Russell. The Voice That Changed A Nation: Marian Anderson and the
Struggle for Equal Rights
Miller, Brandon Marie. Good Women of a Well-Blessed Land: Women’s Lives in
Colonial America
Stone, Tanya Lee. Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared
Thimmesh, Catherine. Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by
Women
Weller, Sheila. Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon – and the Journey
of a Generation
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own
Other websites where you will find useful information:
New York Public Library
http://www.nypl.org/
Brooklyn Public Library
http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/
Queens Library
http://www.queenslibrary.org/index.aspx
This Pathfinder was created by Greg Holch, with the guidance of Laura Bishop, as part of
an internship at the Léman Manhattan Preparatory School, for LIS690 at the Palmer
School of Library and Information Science/Long Island University, Spring 2011. Links were last checked February 2012.