Recommended Reading for Women's History Month

Women's History Month takes place during the month of March. During this month we celebrate the women who have impacted society and changed the way we view the world today. Would we have an understanding of slavery and the fight against it if it wasn't for Harriet Beecher Stowe writing Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852? Would we understand the suffrage movement if it wasn't for Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton speaking out so women could have the right to vote?

These are just a few women who have fought, spoken out, taken action and impacted the lives of women for generations so that women today could be free and independent. For Women's History Month take a trip to your local library or book store and find one of these books which will educate and enlighten you about the women who have had an impact on your life and the world around you.

Recommended Books for Women's History Month

33 Things Every Girl Should Know About Women's History: From Suffragettes to Skirt Lengths and the E.R.A- edited by Tonya Bolden is a book that every girl should own. It is filled with 33 chapters filled with letters, poetry, essays, photographs and biographies of women who have shaped the world in a scrap book like layout.

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or Life Among the Lowly by Harriet Beecher Stowe follows the story of Uncle Tom, a slave who is traded at the start of the novel and Eliza, a slave who runs away with her son. The story delves into the lives of these slaves being sold or traded to different masters or mistresses, empty promises, betrayals and an overwhelming abundance of hope.

Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words by Lynn Sherr is an inspirational collection of speeches, letters and correspondences by Susan B. Anthony a leader in the women's suffrage movement. Everything is covered in this book including Anthony's anger at Fredrick Douglas, her thoughts on being jailed for illegally voting and her stance on slavery, domestic violence, and the legal rights of married women.

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich discusses the lives of very prominent women through out history, Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Virginia Woolf before taking us on a ride back through time to ancient history then back to the present. Michael Dirda of The Washington Post reviewed the book and sums it up nicely, "history isn't simply what happened in the past; it is what later generations choose to remember. And we do need to remember how it was."

Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions By Women is written by Catherine Thimmesh and illustrated by Melissa Sweet and targets young readers. In this book you get a glimpse at important women who invented items that would change the world. Did you know that a young girl, age 10, named Becky Schroeder was the youngest female to receive a U.S. Patent for Glo-sheet Paper? Or that Liquid Paper also known as White-Out was invented by a woman?

"I am prepared to sacrifice every so-called privilege I possess in order to have a few rights."
-Inez Milholland, Suffragist 1909