My Top 3 Books on Women's History

The books that sparked and nurtured an obsession

When I was in high school, I distinctly remember staying after class to ask my beloved history teacher, Mr. Spahn, “where are the women?” We had been learning about the French Revolution for weeks. He probably mentioned that hungry women led the the furious mob to Versailles that forced the royal family back to Paris, but I don’t think we learned about the rebel girl gangs of Paris or Olympe de Gouges, who demanded equality for women and died for it. He told me to read up on Germaine de Staël, the writer, salon-hostess and political influencer.

I’m not sure where my interest in women and history came from, and how it was strong enough even then to stay after class and interrogate my teacher. Maybe I got it because my mom was always dragging me to art museums with glorious portraits of women of yore and what I called “women finding themselves movies” which were so often “period pieces” that were slow moving (at least to ten year old me), but had fabulous outfits.

The instinct was within me..Art and movies showed me there was a world to explore. And books were the magic portal that let me do that. So, it being women’s history month (Are we still allowed to say that?), here are my top three books on women’s history, especially for beginners but, I think, of interest to anyone.

America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines by Gail Collins.

This one is fast-paced overview of American history, quilting together the stories women and how they shaped America, from before the revolution to the present (2007, when it was published). It doesn’t go too deep into any particular topic or woman, but it gives the impression that women were present, living their lives, doing their thing, and making the world turn, right along with the men every step of the way. This is where I first learned about the women’s suffrage movement; it’s just passages here and there but the one about the final showdown in Tennessee always made me weepy with big feelings. It’s what prompted me to look more deeply into the Suffs.

This book, more than any other, sparked my love of women’s history. I guess you could say it changed my life  ;-)

Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker.

This was the second book on the Suffs that I ever read and the one I credit with sparking my obsession (going on eight years now). I am currently rereading it and can confirm now why I love it so much: it’s an almost gossipy romp through the private lives of revolutionary women, looking at everything from their intimate relationships to their political philosophies. Knowing these women in this way makes the rest of Suffrage history come alive.

Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men by Katrine Marcal.

I have not been able to stop thinking about this book since I read it over a year ago. It’s not a straight up history book; it delves deeply into a few areas—like why it took so long to put wheels on a suitcase, or why women were driving electric cars in the early 1900s and why they stopped—and considers how gender bias has shaped our world. Like the best history books, this one invites us to think about history and women and women’s history in a new way. It gives us an understanding of the past that also provides a new way of looking at the present and ideas for better future.

Honorable mention: The Women’s History of the Modern World: How Radicals, Rebels and Everywomen Revolutionized the Last 200 Years by Rosalind Miles (which is where I only just learned about Olympe de Gouges and the girl gangs).

What are some of your favorite books about women’s history? Let’s start a list!