Women's Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920, granting women the right to vote. Ninety-seven years later we celebrate this right—and call attention to the continued efforts to strengthen women's rights and increase equality in America and around the world, by suffragists and feminists like these.


Compiled by:
Amber M.
Bad Feminist: Essays

Roxane Gay
Adult Nonfiction - 814.6 Gay

Even though she loves pink, feels nostalgic about the Sweet Valley High series, and lets degrading rap lyrics blast from her car stereo, Gay is passionately committed to feminist  issues, such as equal opportunity and pay and reproductive freedom. Writing about race, politics, gender, feminism, privilege, and popular media, she highlights how deeply misogyny is embedded in our culture, the careless language used to discuss sexual violence (seen in news reports of sexual assault), Hollywood’s tokenistic treatment of race, the trivialization of literature written by women, and the many ways American society fails women and African-Americans. —Publishers Weekly


Dead Feminists: Historic Heroines in Living Color

Chandler O'Leary
Adult Nonfiction - 305.42 Ole

Interweaves intricate broadside art with archival photographs and ephemera. This book brings feminist history to life, profiling 27 unforgettable forebears of the modern women’s movement such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rachel Carson, and more. Across eras and industries, passions and geographies, this collection of diverse, progressive, and perseverant women faced what looked like insurmountable odds—and yet, still, they persisted.


Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women's Movements

Dorothy Sue Cobble
Adult Nonfiction - 305.4209 Cob

Traces the origins of the feminist movement to the 1920s and follows the post-Suffrage movements, which exposed the exploitation of women in the workplace and fought for sexual rights and freedoms. —Novelist


March of the Suffragettes: Rosalie Gardiner Jones and the March for Voting Rights

Zachary Michael Jack
Adult Nonfiction - 324.623 Jac

In 1912, a well-educated woman from an established New York family led a 175-mile march from New York City to the state capitol in Albany with the goal of handing the governor a petition urging him to support voting rights for women. They refused to be dissuaded by family members, unruly bystanders, the lack of food, and the cold weather. Their dedication to the cause was as strong as their friendship for one another, and this combination catapulted them to success. —School Library Journal


Remembering Inez: The Last Campaign of Inez Milholland, Suffrage Martyr

edited by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.
Adult Nonfiction - 921 Milholland Rem

New York suffragist Inez Milholland journeyed west in October 1916 to harness the new political power of the western women voters by passing the 19th Amendment enfranchising all women. Remembering Inez recalls Inez's final campaign and pays tribute to her importance as a symbol and inspiration to generations of women.


Sally Heathcote, Suffragette

Mary M Talbot
Graphic Novels - Talbot

The story of Sally Heathcote, a maid who joined the women's suffrage movement during the changing political climate of early-twentieth-century Edwardian England. Sally becomes involved in some of the movement's more dangerous activities—including burning down Labor Party leader David Lloyd-George’s house, and enduring forced feeding when she goes on a hunger strike in prison.


Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists

Jean H. Baker
Adult Nonfiction - 324.623 Ba

A lively overview  of the period between the 1840s and the 1920s that saw numerous victories for women's rights. Essays with a perfect blend of personal narrative and historical analysis, exploring the lives of Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard and Alice Paul.


This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa
Adult Nonfiction - 810.8092 Thi

A classic anthology of feminist writings, this collection is centered around the experiences of women of color and underscores the need for intersectionality in modern feminism. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as co-editor Cherríe Moraga writes, “the complex confluence of identities—race, class, gender, and sexuality—systemic to women of color oppression and liberation.”


The Unfinished Revolution: Voices from the Global Fight for Women's Rights
Adult Nonfiction - 305.42 Unf

Around the world, women and girls are trafficked into forced labor and sex slavery, trapped in conflict zones where rape is a weapon of war, prevented from attending school, and kept from making deeply personal choices in their private lives, such as whom and when to marry. More than 30 writers—Nobel Prize laureates, leading activists, top policymakers, and former victims—have contributed to this anthology.—Amazon


Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope: Voices from the Women's March

Artisan Books, publisher
Adult Nonfiction - 305.42 Why

One January 17, 2017, millions of people gathered worldwide for the Women's March. A collection of 500 inspiring, uplifting, clever, and creative signs from across the United States and around the world.