Women’s History Month Resources

March is Women’s History Month, a time to commemorate the significant role women played in shaping American history. The Gilder Lehrman Institute has numerous essays, primary sources, lesson plans, videos, and more on American women’s history. Explore a selection of resoures below, and click here to view a full list of resources:

Colonial America
Early Contacts: Native American and European Women in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries [Essay]
“If Ever Two Were One”: Anne Bradstreet’s “To My Dear and Loving Husband” [Essay]
The Age of Homespun: Family Labor in the Colonial Economy [Video]
Arguments for Educating Women, 1735 [Primary Source]

The American Revolution
The Righteous Revolution of Mercy Otis Warren [Essay]
Women and Wagoners: Camp Followers in the American War for Independence [Essay]
Phillis Wheatley on tyranny and slavery, 1772 [Primary Source]
Lucy Knox on the home front during the American Revolution, 1777 [Primary Source]
The impact of the Revolution on women and African Americans [Primary Source]

The Early Republic
The Legal Status of Women, 1776–1830 [Essay]
The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the Stage for Women’s Suffrage [Essay]
Lowell Mill Girls and the factory system, 1840 [Primary Source]
Lydia Maria Child and women’s rights, 1843 [Primary Source]

Abolition and the Civil War
“Rachel Weeping for her Children”: Black Women & the Abolition of Slavery [Essay]
Women and the Home Front: New Civil War Scholarship [Essay]
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom [Video]
The service of Medal of Honor recipient Dr. Mary Walker, 1874 [Primary Source]
The women’s rights movement after the Civil War, 1866 [Primary Source]
Writing the History of African American Slave Women [Lesson Plan]

The Industrial and Progressive Eras
Susan B. Anthony on suffrage and equal rights, 1901 [Primary Source]
Women’s suffrage poster, 1915 [Primary Source]
The struggle for women’s rights, 1888 [Primary Source]
Women’s Suffrage by Year and State/Territory [Infographic]
Gender and Jim Crow: 1896–1920 [Video]

The Great Depression and World War II
Women and the Great Depression [Essay]
Eleanor Roosevelt as First Lady [Essay]
The World War II Home Front [Essay]
Cadet Nurse Corps, 1943 [Primary Source]

1945 to the Present
The Impact of Title IX [Essay]
Women and the Music Industry in the 1970s [Essay]
Betty Ford: A New Kind of First Lady [Essay]
Sandra Day O’Connor: A Life in Action [Essay]
Title IX [Lesson Plan]

Free History U Courses for High School Students

Black Women’s History, Kellie Carter Jackson, Wellesley College
Conflict and Reform: The United States, 1877-1920, Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
The American Revolution, Carol Berkin, Baruch College and the City University of New York
The History of American Protest, John Stauffer, Harvard University
Women and Politics in 20th-Century America, Linda Gordon, New York University

Updated 03/21/2024