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Free Books about Women’s History PDF – Women in History PDF

Free Books about Women's History PDF - Women in History

Free books about women’s history. Women in history pdf. Collections, suggested titles, vintage books, and audiobooks, all free online.


Book Collections about Women’s History

Women’s History Books PDF – Collection

Free women’s history books pdf at the Internet Archive. Be patient as the page loads. Some books: Women in World History (many volumes), History of Women in Aviation, 100 Women Who Shaped World History, 300 Notable Women Passed By, Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History, Medieval Women: a social history of women in England 450-1500, Images of Women in the History of Philosophy, many more books on Women in History.

Books on U.S. Women’s History – Collection – Free Books about Women’s History PDF

Free online pdf books on Women in United States History. Some books: Women in American History: a bibliography, History of Women and Business in the U.S., History of Women in the U.S. (several volumes), History of Women in Congress, Women and Slavery in the U.S., American Women Sculptors, An Economic History of American Women, many more books on Women in American History.

Collection on Woman Suffrage

30 Items

A free online collection compiled by a researcher at HathiTrust on the history of woman suffrage in America. Publication dates range from the 1850s to the 1980s.

More Collections of Free Books on Women’s History

Suggested Books on Women in History

A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation – Free Books about Women’s History PDF

Allgor, Catherine
Holt 2006

“An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, groundbreaking portrait of the early days of the republic – and the birth of modern politics. Within a few years [of her arrival in Washington in 1812], she had mastered both the social and political intricacies of the city, and by her death in 1849 was the most celebrated person in Washington… Catherine Allgor reveals that while Dolley’s gender prevented her from openly playing politics, those very constraints of womanhood allowed her to construct an American democratic ruling style, and to achieve her husband’s political goals. And the way that she did so – by emphasizing cooperation over coercion, building bridges instead of bunkers – has left us with not only an important story about our past but a model for a modern form of politics.” -Publisher.

See the Menu at the top of every page for Directories of Free Online Fiction and NonFiction Books, Magazines, and more, on 400 pages like this at Century Past

Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government

Allgor, Catherine
University of Virginia 2000

“When Thomas Jefferson moved his Republican administration into the new capital city in 1801, one of his first acts was to abolish any formal receptions, except on specific holidays. However, without the face-to-face relationships and networks created in society, the American experiment in government could not function. Into this conundrum stepped women like Dolley Madison and Louisa Catherine Adams, women of political families who used the unofficial, social sphere to cement the relationships that politics needed to work.” -Publisher.

Centuries of Childhood

Aries, Philippe
1962

“The theme of this extraordinary book is the emergence of the modern conception of family life and the modern image of the nature of children. The discovery of childhood as a distinct phase of life, M. Aries shows, is a recent event. Until the end of the Middle Ages, the child was, almost as soon as he was weaned, regarded as a small adult, who mingled, competed, worked and played with mature adults. Only gradually did parents begin to encourage the separation of adults and children, and a new family attitude, oriented around the child and his education, appeared.” – Book jacket.

See our free articles on women’s history

A History of Private Life, Vol 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Volume 4

Aries, Philippe and Georges Duby
Belknap Press 1987

Vol 1: ‘From Pagan Rome to Byzantium’, Paul Veyne, editor — Vol 2. ‘Revelations of the Medieval World’, Georges Duby, editor — Vol 3. ‘Passions of the Renaissance’, Roger Chartier, editor — Vol 4. ‘From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War’, Michelle Perrot, editor. There is also a fifth volume, covering WWI to the 1990s, that was not found online.
“First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series, this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens and slaves–from concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception, techniques of childbirth, homosexuality, religion, the meaning of virtue, and the separation of private and public spaces.” -Publisher description of Vol 1.

The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages – Free Books about Women’s History PDF

Atkinson, Clarissa W.
Cornell University 1991

“After tracing the roots of medieval ideologies of motherhood in early Christianity, the author reconstructs the physiological assumptions underlying medieval notions about women’s bodies and reproduction. She then describes the development of “spiritual motherhood” both as a concept emerging out of monastic ideologies in the early Middle Ages and as a reality in the lives of certain remarkable women” -Book jacket.

Women’s Work; The First 20,000 Years

Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times

Barber, Elizabeth Wayland
Norton 1994

“New discoveries about the textile arts reveal women’s unexpectedly influential role in ancient societies. Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women… Elizabeth Wayland Barber has drawn from data gathered by the most sophisticated new archaeological methods–methods she herself helped to fashion. In a “brilliantly original book” (Katha Pollitt, Washington Post Book World), she argues that women were a powerful economic force in the ancient world, with their own industry: fabric.” -Publisher.

Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt

Capel, Anne K.
Hudson Hills 1996

“Masterpieces or Egyptian art dating from 3000 to 300 B.C. have been brought together from great American museum and private collections to illuminate the role of women in ancient Egyptian society. This magnificent volume explores the full spectrum of women’s lives and pursuits through three millennia of history. Separate essays cover ” Women’s Work: Some Occupations of Nonroyal Women as Depicted in Ancient Egyptian Art”; “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are On Earth: Status and Roles of Women in Egyptian Culture” and “The Legal Status of Women in Ancient Egypt”… But the dazzling centerpiece of ‘Mistress of the House’ is devoted to more than one hundred objects assembled for the accompanying exhibition.” -Book jacket.

See our Ancient European History PDF

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Chang, Jung
Flamingo 1993

The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author.
An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.

Lady of the Two Lands: Five Queens of Ancient Egypt

Cottrell, Leonard
Bobbs-Merrill 1967

This volume covers what little is known about the personal lives of the five queens (Hashepsowe, Tiye, Nefertiti, Ankhesnamun, Nefertari), and shows the detective process by which information has been extracted from objects recovered by archaeologists. The author also presents “animated portraits of the women who served them, dressed their hair, sang songs, baked bread, poured wine. One cannot help but make a more direct identification with these lively ladies than with the “prim matrons of Rome or the marble goddesses of Greece””. -Book jacket.

Encyclopedia of Women’s History in America – Free Books about Women’s History PDF

Cullen-DuPont, Kathryn
Facts on File 2000

The Encyclopedia of Women’s History in America recounts in accurate detail the events, movements, court cases, documents and important figures that make up women’s history in America. From a biography of colonial poet Anne Bradstreet to a discussion of the “glass ceiling,” this engagingly written resource provides sound, reliable information on virtually every aspect of the experiences and achievements of women in the United States. Over 500 entries comprise this authoritative and comprehensive encyclopedia.

Women of the Renaissance

Dean, Ruth and Melissa Thomson
2005

Women of the Renaissance brings to life the daily work and notable achievements of early modern women in their roles as wives and mothers, caregivers, workers, religious leaders, queens, rebels, pirates, scholars, writers and artists.

The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest: the Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France

Duby, Georges
Pantheon 1983

“This ambitious study sets out to discover what marriage meant in the daily lives of the nobles of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. Through entertaining anecdotes, family dramas, and striking quotations, Duby succeeds in bringing his subjects to life, making us feel as if we understand the motives and conflicts of those who inhabited the distant past.” -Publisher.

Articles Collection – Biography

History of Women in the West, Vol 2: Silences of the Middle Ages

Duby, Georges and Michelle Perrot, eds.
Belknap 1992

Contents: Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, editor. Writing the history of women / G. Duby, M. Perrot ; Including women / C. Klapisch-Zuber ; The clerical gaze / J. Dalarun ; The nature of women / C. Thomasset ; The protected woman / C. Casagrande ; The good wife / S. Vecchio ; Regulating women’s fashion / D.O. Hughes ; Women from the fifth to the tenth century / S.F. Wemple ; The feudal order / P. L’Hermitage-Leclercq ; The courtly model / G. Duby ; Life in the Late Middle Ages / C. Opitz ; The world of women / F. Piponnier ; The imagined woman / C. Frugoni ; Literary and mystical voices / D. Regnier-Bohler — Affidavits and confessions / G. Duby.

Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War

Faust, Drew Gilpin
Univ. of North Carolina 1996

When Confederate men marched off to battle, white women across the South confronted unaccustomed and unsought responsibilities: directing farms and plantations, providing for families, and supervising increasingly restive slaves. As southern women struggled “to do a man’s business”, they found themselves compelled to reconsider their most fundamental assumptions about their identities and about the larger meaning of womanhood. Drew Faust offers a compelling picture of the more than half-million women who belonged to the slaveholding families of the Confederacy during this period of acute crisis. According to Faust, the most privileged of southern women experienced the destruction of war as both a social and a personal upheaval: the prerogatives of whiteness and the protections of ladyhood began to dissolve as the Confederacy weakened and crumbled. Faust draws on the eloquent diaries, letters, essays, memoirs, fiction, and poetry of more than 500 of the Confederacy’s elite women to show that with the disintegration of slavery and the disappearance of prewar prosperity, every part of these women’s lives became vexed and uncertain.

A Century of Women: The Most Influential Events in Twentieth-century Women’s History

Felder, Deborah G.
Carol 1999

A Century of Women chronicles those events that have revolutionized womanhood and, hence, society as a whole in the past one hundred years. Rights and privileges perceived as inalienable today, like the right to vote, sexual freedom, job opportunity, and security provided by laws that prohibit discrimination and sexual harassment, would never have been possible without the effort of women whose saga of determination is told in this book Highlighted here are the lives and works of such groundbreaking women as Amelia Earheart, Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman in Congress, Gloria Steinem, co-founder and publisher of Ms. Magazine; and Sally Ride, the first woman astronaut. The struggles of these women and others like them to remove gender obstacles and transform ideals fueled the continual quest for rights and freedom around the world in the twenty-first century. A Century of Women also celebrates events that forever changed history, such as the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote; the founding of the National Council of Negro Women in 1935; the inception of the National Organization for Women in 1966; and the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. A thoughtful and provocative retrospective of twentieth-century events that have shaped women’s culture and history.

Women in Popular Culture: A Reference Guide

Fishburn, Katherine
Greenwood 1982

Histories of women in popular culture — Women in popular literature — Women in magazines and magazine fiction — Women in film — Women in television — Women in advertising, fashion, sports, and comics — Theories of women in popular culture.

Families in Former Times: Kinship, Household, and Sexuality – Free Books about Women’s History PDF

Flandrin, Jean-Louis
1979

In this book, the author provides a detailed analysis of kinship, household and family relations in early modern France. He discusses the strength of kinship and family ties, the structure of households, the rights and duties of husband and wife, their authority over their children, the role of the family in education, the position of servants within the family, the attitudes and sentiments of different family members towards each other and the differences between noble and peasant families. He also deals with the changes in the patterns of sexual life that occurred in this period and investigates the beginnings of birth control in the late eighteenth century, and the possibilities or abortion and divorce. Professor Flandrin uses primarily documentary evidence from early modern France, but also draws comparisons with England in the same period, and with the medieval and modern family. His book provides a fascinating account of the intimate life of men and women in past society, and shows how that society has exerted a lasting influence on the behaviour of our contemporaries.

American Home Life, 1880-1930: A Social History of Spaces and Services

Foy, Jessica H. and Schlereth, Thomas J, eds.
Univ. of Tennessee 1992

Essay collection. “The book’s contributors study transformations in services (such as home utilities of power, heat, light, water, and waste removal) in servicing (for example, the impact of home appliances such as gas and electric ranges, washing machines, and refrigerators), and in serving (changes in domestic servants’ duties, hours of work, racial and ethnic backgrounds). In blending intellectual and home history, these essays both examine and exemplify the perennial American enthusiasm for, as well as anxiety about, the meaning of modernity”. Publisher.

Caesar’s Wives: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire

Freisenbruch, Annelise
Free Press 2010

“In scandals and power struggles obscured by time and legend, the wives, mistresses, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the Caesars have been popularly characterized as heartless murderers, shameless adulteresses, and conniving politicians in the high dramas of the Roman court. Yet little has been known about who they really were and their true roles in the history-making schemes of imperial Rome’s ruling Caesars; indeed, how they figured in the rise, decline, and fall of the empire. Now, in ‘Caesars Wives’, Annelise Freisenbruch pulls back the veil on these fascinating women in Rome’s power circles, giving them the chance to speak for themselves for the first time. With impeccable scholarship and arresting storytelling, Freisenbruch brings their personalities vividly to life, from notorious Livia and scandalous Julia to Christian Helena.” -Publisher.

Women in the Middle Ages

Gies, Frances and Gies, Joseph
Crowell 1978

Medieval history is often written as a series of battles and territorial shifts. But the essential contributions of women during this period have been too often relegated to the dustbin of history. In Women in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies reclaim this lost history, in a lively historical survey that charts the evolution of women’s roles throughout the period, and profiles eight individual women in depth. We learn of Hildegarde of Bingen, an abbess who was a noted composer and founded two monasteries; of Eleanor de Montfort, a 13th century Princess of Wales who was captured by Edward I and held as a political prisoner for three years; and women of somewhat more modest means, such as the spouse of an Italian merchant, and a peasant’s wife.
Drawing upon their various stories, talented historians Frances and Joseph Gies—whose books were used by George R.R. Martin in his research for Game of Thrones—offer a kaleidoscopic view of the lives of women throughout this tumultuous period.

Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers

Green, Miranda J.
Braziller 1996

“Celtic goddesses presided over war, nature, animals, healing and fertility. Considerable recent interest has been focused on the role of goddesses in ancient societies, though not always with a clear eye on the actual source material. This book, written by one of the leading scholars of Celtic myth and religion, examines the significance of the female in Celtic belief and ritual as expressed in surviving archaeological remains and written sources.” -Publisher.

Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe, ed.

Hanawalt, Barbara
1986

Peasant women’s work in the context of marriage. Peasant women’s contribution to the home economy in late Medieval England / Barbara A. Hanawalt — The village ale-wife : women and brewing in fourteenth-century England / Judith M. Bennett — Slaves and domestic servants. To town to serve : urban domestic slavery in Medieval Ragusa / Susan Mosher Stuard — Women servants in Florence during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries / Christiane Klapisch-Zuber — Occupations related to female biology : wet nurses and midwives. Municipal wet nurses in fifteenth-century Montpellier / Leah L. Otis — Early modern midwifery : a case study / Merry E. Wiesner — Urban women in work and business. Women in business in Medieval Montpellier / Kathryn L. Reyerson — Women’s work in a market town : Exeter in the late fourteenth century / Maryanne Kowaleski — Is there a decline in women’s economic position in the sixteenth century? Women in the crafts in sixteenth-century Lyon / Natalie Zemon Davis — Women, the family economy, and the structures of market production in cities of Northern Europe during the late Middle Ages / Martha C. Howell.

Feminism: Opposing Viewpoints – Free Books about Women’s History PDF

Hurley, Jennifer A.
Greenhaven 2001

“This collection of 25 short essays addresses the status of women in America, the differing views of the goals of feminism, and how it has affected our society, and includes the debate over whether or not the movement is obsolete.” SLJ

Contents: Women are the victims of sexism / Andrea C. Poe — Women are not the victims of sexism / Christina Hoff Sommers — Women face discrimination in the workplace / Ida L. Castro — Claims that women face discrimination in the workplace are exaggerated / Elizabeth Fox-Genovese — Violence against women is a serious problem / Ann Jones — Feminists have overstated the problem of violence against women / Rene Denfeld — Women are harmed by societal standards of beauty / Germaine Greer — Women are not harmed by societal standards of beauty / Karen Lehrman — Feminism has expanded women’s choices / Elinor Burkett — Feminism has limited women’s choices / Danielle Crittenden — The sexual revolution has harmed women / F. Carolyn Graglia — Feminism has caused the breakdown of the family / Leslie Anne Carbone — Feminism supports the family / Phyllis Chesler — The feminist movement is dead / Ginia Bellafante — The feminist movement is not dead / Part I: Marcia Ann Gillespie, Part II: Carolyn Waldron — Feminism has abandoned its original principles / Charles Krauthammer — Feminism has not abandoned its original principles / Susan Faludi — Feminists should support abortion rights / Anne Roiphe — Feminists should oppose abortion / Maureen Jones-Ryan — Feminists should work to restrict pornography / Diana Russell, interviewed by Ann E. Menasche — Feminists should work to protect pornography / Wendy McElroy — Feminists should seek international rights for women / Jennie Ruby and Karla Mantilla — Feminists should not seek international rights for women / Paul Craig Roberts — Women’s less than full equality under the U.S. Constitution / Patricia Ireland — Women would not benefit from changes to the U.S. Constitution / Concerned Women for America.

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