March is Women’s History Month and since more than half of our students do just happen to be and/or identify as women – It's time to fête these females! To celebrate just how diverse women are...we thought we’d share some fun and fascinating stories for inspiration from the Online Library collections.
This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Harris, B. J. (2018). English Aristocratic Women and the Fabric of Piety, 1450-1550.Amsterdam University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv5rf72s
This book reveals the York and early Tudor aristocratic women, who were the driving force behind the birth of the renaissance in Britain. Transforming not only churches but all sorts of and other favourite religious institutions including tombs, stained-glass windows, chantry chapels, altars and even alms-houses. They provided everything from architecture, sculpture, stained glass, engraving, textiles and even plate ornaments.
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Allen, J.M. & Cohen, J.H. 2023, Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press, Lever Press
Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press on JSTOR
“My passion for knowing about women’s history prompted me to begin a publishing company and press devoted to researching and printing images and stories about unsung heroines” Jocelyn Cohen on what started as a postcard project and wound up becoming a grassroots campaign for all women.
Many of those unknown women artists you might recognize today include Diane Arbus, Isabella Duncan, Artemesia Gentileschi, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, and George Elliot, composer Margaret Bonds and many more inspiring influential women.
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Hanawalt, B. 1986, Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe, Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe on JSTOR
From Ale Wives to Gold Spinners, this book seeks to uncover and share the undiscovered mysteries of what medieval women did for work.
White, D.G. 2009;2008;2014;, Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower, 1;1st; edn, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Link
Moving, vulnerable and deeply intimate, seventeen different Black Women Historians share their stories of unexpected challenges and the actions they independently took to address and stop racism and sexism on college campuses.
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Patessio, M. & Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan) 2020;2011;, Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan : The Development of the Feminist Movement, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan: The Development of the Feminist Movement on JSTOR
A fascinating read on an underrated era! Just after the notorious Edo period made famous by Shogun and the Samurai and in paralleled timing with their suffragette sisters of the West, Patessio’s book follows the journey of Japanese women in the Meiji period as women begin to enter the public domain, gaining access to further education and eventually becoming active in politics.
NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Fox, K. 2011, Maori and Aboriginal Women in the Public Eye : Representing Difference, 1950–2000, 1st edn, ANU Press, Canberra.
Māori and Aboriginal Women in the Public Eye: Representing Difference, 1950-2000 on JSTOR
This trove is a 20th century encyclopaedia of modern Maori and Aboriginal women of achievement. Karen Fox’s easy and inspiring read spans from the birth of Princess Te Puea all the way to Cathy Freedman’s run for Olympic gold in 2000 with nods to the Opera Diva Kiri Te Kanawa and of course, the ‘Maori mother of the nation’ Whina Cooper.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Langbauer, L. 1990, Women and Romance: The Consolations of Gender in the English Novel, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
Women and Romance: The Consolations of Gender in the English Novel on JSTOR
Not for the light of heart, this book may have started life as an exercise in radical feminist confirmation bias…but don’t knock it till you try it. While chapter titles like “Streetwalkers and Home Bodies” and “Recycling Patriarchy’s Garbage” might smack of angry click bait, the truth is these authors love literature and keep finding patterns of projected romance that continue in the linguistics of the publishing machine today.. A great book for any ascendant young writer or editor wanting to make the most of their work by taking a critical eye to the world where they live.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Diehl, J. 1990, Women Poets and the American Sublime, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Women Poets and the American Sublime on JSTOR
Sublime is not a word that springs to mind for anyone, who has walked the wintry wind tunnels of darkness across that cavernously cold campus called Amherst College… but Emily Dickinson has a strangely seductive way of engaging audiences with her almost alien and singularly spinster life. Readers will also find new and verbose insights into the works of Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop and culminating in that other Massachusetts moody maven, Sylvia Plath.
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Looser, D. 2008, Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750-1850, 1st edn, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Project MUSE - Women Writers and Old Age in Great Britain, 1750–1850 (jhu.edu)
This groundbreaking study explores the later lives and late-life writings of more than two dozen British women authors in the eighteenth century.
"International women day in Egypt" by Al Jazeera English is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Badran, M. & American Council of Learned Societies 2001;1996;1994;1995;, Feminists, Islam, and nation: gender and the making of modern Egypt, 1st edn, Princeton University Press, Princeton.Link
This book follows feminism’s role in the building of the Egypt of today and tomorrow. Marked with historic accuracy and branded in stories of bravery and belief, this is not a book to be missed by any scholar of modern day Middle Eastern history.
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Forster, A. 2017;2016;, Women in the Silent Cinema : Histories of Fame and Fate, 1st edn, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.
Women in the Silent Cinema: Histories of Fame and Fate on JSTOR
Annette Föster proves herself the true expert on the silent sirens of the silver screen. With all her work taken from primary sources, viewers get a rare glimpse into the lives of Adriënne Solser, Musidora, and Nell Shipman. As their lives change with the moving movie industry, so does the world around them.
"Women at Paris sidewalk cafe" by Signe Karin is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Benstock, S. 1976, Women of the Left Bank: Paris, 1900-1940, 1st edn, University of Texas Press, Austin.Link
This book is a critically acclaimed best seller because you can’t put it down. Author, Shari Benstock manages to collect and collate the stories of over two dozen women artists, writers, bohemians and even art collectors (Gertrude Stein). It is a who’s who of bohemian and brazen babes of the modernist movement. If you like the Artsy Life or Paris or Bohemians or just fab Influencers, this book reveals all for readers to delight in dissecting.
Enjoy and Happy Women’s History Month!