Women's History Resources: Welcome!

Welcome to the Pfau Library's resource guide for Women's History Month.

Here you will find a collection of books, films, and websites to expand your understanding of women's history in the United States. The library has more than 850,000 books and thousands of films, so this is a very small subset of what can be accessed through the library. For this reason, you will see a link on each page that says, "Show me more books on this topic," which will take you to the library catalog and many more titles to choose from. 

The books and films collected here can only be borrowed or viewed by students, staff, and faculty of CSUSB who have Coyote credentials. If you are not affiliated with the university, look for the link on every page that says, "Buy one of these books." This link opens the search page for Abe Books, where you can purchase most of these books used. This is a nice way to develop your own collection at a reasonable cost.

Origins of Women's History Month

Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.”

In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 (see the document in the box to the right) which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month.

Since 1995, Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.”

--Women's History Month at the Library of Congress