Women’s History Month is an annual observance held in the United States during the month of March, which celebrates the contributions and achievements of women throughout American history. Let’s take a look at some wonderful titles Jacksonville Public Library has to offer to celebrate these amazing women!
NOTE: There are so many influential women in our world that this list could go on and on and on, so if there is someone you feel should put on the list, feel free to email Adult Services Librarian Ali Jones at ajones@jaxpl.org and she will add your suggestion to the blog entry!
The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore
1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Threatened by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and outspokenness, her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her and makes a plan to put her back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum. The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they’ve been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line – conveniently labeled “crazy” so their voices are ignored. No one is willing to fight for their freedom, and disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose.
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton
Harriet Tubman escaped a life of slavery only to return south, at her own peril, time and again, to lead more than 300 fugitive slaves through the Underground Railroad to safety and freedom. After the Civil War, Tubman raised money to clothe and educate newly freed African-American children and established a home for and indigent African-Americans.
Clara Barton: Professional Angel by Elizabeth Brown Pryor
Clara Barton lived a lifetime of tireless service to others. During the American Civil War, she became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield,” delivering supplies and caring for the sick and wounded. After the war, Barton organized a campaign to locate missing soldiers. Her enduring legacy was the 1881 founding of the American Red Cross, an organization whose name became synonymous with disaster preparedness, response and relief.
A Useful Woman: The Early Life of Jane Addams by Gioia Diliberto
In 1889, Jane Addams, along with Ellen Gates Starr, founded Hull House in Chicago – one of the nation’s first settlement houses. It served as a community center for the poor and its success helped lead to the creation of hundreds of similar organizations in communities across the country. An active reformer throughout her career, Addams was a leader in the women’s suffrage and pacifist movements. She was the first American woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize, in 1931.
Helen Keller: A Life by Dorothy Herrmann
Helen Keller couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, and, at first, couldn’t speak. Three decades after her death in 1968, she has become a symbol of the indomitable human spirit, and she remains a legendary figure. With her zest for life and learning–and her strength and courage–she was able to transcend her severe disabilities. In a society fearful of limitation and mortality, she is an enduring icon, a woman who, by her inspiring example, made disability seem less horrifying. William Gibson’s play The Miracle Worker, which portrayed Helen Keller’s childhood relationship with her teacher Annie Sullivan, was so compelling that most people are only familiar with this early part of Helen’s life. But the real Helen Keller did grow up, and her adult life was more problematic than her inspiring childhood. The existence she shared with the complicated, half-blind Annie Sullivan was turbulent–with its intrigues, doomed marriages and love affairs, and battles against physical and mental infirmity, as well as the constant struggles to earn a living. Dorothy Herrmann’s biography of Helen Keller takes us through Helen’s long, eventful life, a life that would have crushed a woman less stoic and adaptable–and less protected. She was either venerated as a saint or damned as a fraud. And one of the most persistent controversies surrounding her had to do with her relationship to the fiercely devoted Annie, through whom she largely expressed herself. All is discussed in this incredible book.
Lighting the Way: Nine Women who Changed Modern America by Karenna Gore Schiff
This bestselling narrative tells the fascinating stories of nine influential women, who each in her own way, tackled inequity and advocated change throughout the turbulent twentieth century. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who was born a slave and fought against lynching; Mother Jones, an Irish immigrant who organized coal miners and campaigned against child labor; Alice Hamilton, who pushed for regulation of industrial toxins; Frances Perkins, who developed key New Deal legislation; Virginia Durr, who fought the poll tax and segregation; Septima Clark, who helped to register black voters; Dolores Huerta, who organized farm workers; Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias, an activist for reproductive rights; and Gretchen Buchenholz, one of the nations leading child advocates.
A beloved culinary historian’s short take on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking: what they ate and how their attitudes toward food offer surprising new insights into their lives. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people’s attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table.
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala’s miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oprah: A Biography by Kitty Kelley
Based on three years of research and reporting as well as 850 interviews with sources, many of whom have never before spoken for publication, Oprah is the first comprehensive biography of one of the most influential, powerful, and admired public figures of our time. Anyone who is a fan of Oprah Winfrey or who has followed her extraordinary life and career will be fascinated and newly informed by the closely observed, detailed, and well-rounded portrait of her provided by Kitty Kelley’s exhaustively researched book. Readers will come away with a greater appreciation of who Oprah really is beyond her public persona and a fuller understanding of her important place in American cultural history.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron De Hart
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.
The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem by Carolyn Heilbrun
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Breaking in: The Rise of Sonia Sotomayor and the Politics of Justice by Joan Biskupic
From a leading judicial biographer comes the untold story of Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Supreme Court justice. To become the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor went against the odds. Her historic appointment in 2009–made by President Obama, whose own 2008 victory appeared improbable–flowed from cultural and political changes in America that helped lift up this daughter of a Puerto Rican nurse and a factory worker. Sotomayor saw opportunities and, with street smarts and savvy, she seized them.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II: Platinum Jubilee Celebration 70 Years: 1952-2022 by Brian Hoey
This book celebrates the highlights and challenges of the Queen’s reign over the past seven decades by recalling Princess Elizabeth’s childhood and the war years; including accounts of the accession and coronation when she was still a young woman; detailing each decade of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, focusing on both her working life and her family; describing in detail a typical working day for the sovereign; providing a special focus on the enduring contribution Her Majesty has made to life in the UK and the Commonwealth, as well as her enviable reputation worldwide; and offering a true celebration in honor of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Taylor Swift: Music Superstar by Jeff Burlingame
Singer, songwriter, Grammy winner. Although it may seem like Taylor Swift became a superstar overnight, she really started singing and writing songs when she was eleven. She kept doing what she thought was right until her big break, and she’s now a household name. This fun-to-read book offers reluctant readers juicy quotes, personal stories, and accessible features such as a timeline and glossary.
No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg
Named Time’s “Person of the Year” in 2019 (the youngest ever), this 18-year-old has put her years to good use in getting world leaders to take action against climate change. At 15, Thunburg spent her school days outside the Swedish Parliament calling for action, which in turn sparked a protest around the world that came to be known as “Fridays for Future,” where students weekly went on strike to make a difference. She continues the act today and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize both in 2019 and 2020.
Susan B. Anthony Slept Here: A Guide to American Women’s Landmarks by Lynn Sherr
A witty and informative illustrated guide to over 1000 historic landmarks commemorating the words and deeds of American heroines from Anne Hutchinson to Christa McAuliffe.
She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women who Lived Her Songs by Sarah Smarsh
Explores how the music of Dolly Parton and other prominent women country artists has both reflected and validated the harsh realities of rural working-class American women. Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Smarsh witnessed firsthand the vulnerabilities and strengths of women in working poverty. Meanwhile, country songs by female artists played in the background, telling powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving. Country music was a language among women– and no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton. Here Smarsh explores the overlooked contributions to social progress by such women as exemplified by Dolly Parton’s life and art. She shows how Parton’s song offer a springboard to examining the intersections of gender, class, and culture.
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