Mar 1, 2026 12:00pm to Mar 30, 2026 10:00pm
Online

CSUN University Library celebrates Women's History Month this March. Please check out our selection of books available online that celebrates Women's History.

An in-person book display will also be available during March in the Library's lobby, be sure to take a look at our selection and take a book home with you.

Log into OneSearch to get online access or request through Interlibrary Loan.

Online copies of these books may be limited through the CSUN University Library, if it is unavailable you can check the Los Angeles Public Library or other local libraries near you for online access, or visit in person for physical copies.

Los Angeles Public Library

This Is What America Looks Like : My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman by Ilhan Omar and Rebecca Paley

Ilhan Omar's career is a collection of historic firsts: she is the first refugee, the first Somali-American and one of the first two Muslim women to serve in the United States Congress. Against a xenophobic and divisive administration, she has risen to global fame as a powerful voice in the Democratic Party's new progressive chorus of congresswomen of colour. This Is What America Looks Like is a tale of the aspirations, disappointments, successes and surprises in the life of an immigrant and Muslim in the US today. This is Omar's story told on her own terms: from a childhood in Mogadishu and four long years at a Kenyan refugee camp, to her arrival in America - penniless and speaking only Somali - and her triumphant election to the US House of Representatives.In the face of merciless slander and constant attacks from opponents in both parties, Omar continues to speak up for her beliefs. Courageous, hopeful and defiant, her memoir is marked by her irrepressible spirit, even in the darkest of times.

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Being Heumann : An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith E. Heumann and Kristen Joiner

One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human. A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn’t built for all of us and of one woman’s activism — from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington — Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann’s lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society... Candid, intimate, and irreverent, Judy Heumann’s memoir about resistance to exclusion invites readers to imagine and make real a world in which we all belong.

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Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class by Aimee Loiselle

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources—union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories—Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and its labor activism.

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Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement by Wendy L. Rouse

Over one hundred years ago, women organized to fight for a federal suffrage amendment. But many suffragists were fighting for much more than the vote. The suffrage movement included individuals who represented a wide range of genders and sexualities. It also included a variety of queer relationships. But, suffrage leaders concerned with presenting a respectable public image concealed the queerness of the suffrage movement... This book explores how queer women led the suffrage movement while challenging heteronormative concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. This book also highlights the alliances that queer suffragists built and the innovative strategies they developed to protect and preserve their most intimate relationships - relationships that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement.

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Indigenous Activism : Profiles of Native Women in Contemporary America by Clifford E. Trafzer, Donna L. Akers, Amanda K. Wixon; Editors

Indigenous Activism profiles eighteen American Indian women of the twentieth century who distinguished themselves through their political activism. Authors analyze the colorful careers of selected Indigenous women of North America during the last century, including Ramona Bennet, Mary Crow Dog, Ada Deer, LaDonna Harris, Wilma Mankiller, Alyce Spotted Bear, Irene Toledo, Marie Potts, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Harriette Shelton Dover, Lucy Covington, Dolly Smith Cusker Akers, Leslie Marmon Silko, Bea Medicine, and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn.

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The Gentle Subversive : Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement by Mark H. Lytle

Traces the path by which renowned scientist Rachel Carson came to write "Silent Spring", subsequently founding the environmental movement. This book presents the story of Carson's life and recognises that her work and studies incite major debates over the conflict of corporate interests versus environmental consciousness.

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The Golden Voice of Mussolini and Roosevelt : Radio Journalist Lisa Sergio by Sandro Gerbi

Ambitious, large black flamboyant eyes, radio journalist Lisa Sergio – so far unknown to the wide public – did anything she could to build a personal myth, boasting nonexistent beaux gestes against fascism and Mata Hari plots.” (Simonetta Fiori, il Venerdì di Repubblica, Rome, Italy) On the evening of May 9, 1936, a slim, elegant woman stood in Rome’s Piazza Venezia and – in perfect English – broadcast Mussolini’s famous speech on the conquest of Ethiopia. Her name was Lisa Sergio (1905–1989), her nickname “the golden voice” of Mussolini. A Florentine journalist, with American parents, she was fired from her job at the Propaganda Ministry the following summer, most likely for gossiping about a brief affair with her boss, Mussolini’s son in law, Galeazzo Ciano. Aided by Nobel-winning Guglielmo Marconi, she established herself in the US and resumed broadcasting, now as a liberal commentator, surrounding herself with a network of luminaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt.

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To Be an Actress : Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World by Yiman Wang

Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theater, radio, and American television. Born in Los Angeles, yet with her US citizenship scrutinized due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong--a defiant misfit--innovated nuanced performances to subvert the racism and sexism that beset her life and career. In this critical study of Wong's cross-media and transnational career, Yiman Wang marshals extraordinary archival research and a multifocal approach to illuminate a lifelong labor of performance. Viewing Wong as a performer and worker, not just a star, To Be an Actress adopts a feminist decolonial perspective to speculatively meet her as an interlocutor while inviting a reconsideration of racialized, gendered, and migratory labor as the bedrock of the entertainment industries.

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Assistive Services

Requests for accommodation services (e.g. sign language interpreters or transcribers) must be made at least five (5) business days in advance. Please email library.event@csun.edu in advance of the event.

Mar 1, 2022 7:45am to Mar 30, 2022 10:45pm
University Library - Various Locations

Women's History Book Display

Stop by the Learning Commons on the main floor of the library to pick up a new work in women's history. Activists, artists, poets, and spies are among the women at the heart of these fascinating stories. All of these books are available to check out at the Guest Services desk in the lobby.

Women's History Virtual Book Display

In honor of Women’s History Month, we invite you to explore this virtual book display that celebrates the contributions and achievements of many accomplished women. Included in the display are eBooks from the University Library collection that highlight the journey of women from various fields, and backgrounds. These works commemorate the vital role women have played and showcase the importance of their contributions throughout our history. All of the books within this display are electronically available through the University Library and require logging-in with a CSUN User ID and password.

View our Virtual Book Display

Women's History Month Media Wall Slideshow

Come check out our Media Wall Slideshow featuring women's art from the ARTStor database available through the Library. Located on the Main Floor, East Wing of the Library in the ASRS Viewing Room. See map of the Main Floor.

Women’s History in the Stacks

March is Women’s History Month in the United States, and Special Collections & Archives holds a number of collections created by women and women’s groups. In honor of women’s history we will highlight an amazing group of women whose history lives on here in the archives: the Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA).

Read the Peek in the Stacks Article

Assistive Services

Requests for accommodation services (e.g. sign language interpreters or transcribers) must be made at least five (5) business days in advance. Please email library.event@csun.edu in advance of the event.