Women's History Month display at SOLL

 

Women’s history month has a long past, beginning with roots in the first International Women’s Day in 1911. This began as a celebration of honoring working women, and for many countries is a day to either celebrate suffrage or to protest continued gender-based discrimination. In the late 1970s, schools in Sonoma, California began doing a week-long observation to address the lack of women's history in the curriculum. This practice spread to other schools and colleges, President Jimmy Carter enacted a National Women's History Week in 1980. Because the dates of this women's history week varied every year, a national effort was made by women's organizations to lobby for a full month with set calendar dates. President Ronald Reagan signed the first National Women's History Month in 1987.

In recognition of this month, here is a selection of books we have in the State of Oregon Law Library on women and the law.

 

Pictured left to right: Marian Towne the first woman elected to the Oregon House of Representatives; Katherine Clarke was appointed to the state Senate; Fern Hobbs  was Secretary to Governor Oswald West and charged with cleaning up the lawless town of Copperfield, Oregon.[1]

 

Oregon Women’s Legal history

Images of Oregon women by Ellen Nichols

Muller v Oregon by Nancy Woloch

Oregon legislation for women in industry by Sister Miriam Theresa 

Report of the Oregon Supreme Court/Oregon State Bar Task Force on Gender Fairness.

The sex code of Oregon: a compilation of Oregon statutes pertaining to sex compiled by Kathleen Beaufait

Stettler v O’Hara by Louis Brandeis

With Grit and By Grace by Betty Roberts

Women in Oregon: poverty, employment and assets by Jessica Bull 

Women's history mural in Portland, Oregon[2]

General Law

Breaking down barriers: a legal guide to Title IX by the National Women’s Law Center

A commentary on the effect of the Equal rights amendment on state laws and institutions by Anne K. Bingaman

Fifty years after the Equal Pay Act: assessing the past, taking stock of the future 

Hearing before the Committee on Woman Suffrage, February 21, 1894

The hidden malpractice: how American medicine treats women as patients and professionals by Gena Corea

The sexual barrier: legal, medical, economic, and social aspects of sex discrimination by Marija Matich Hughes

Proceedings of the National Conference on Gender Bias in the Courts edited by Dixie K. Knoebel

Women and the law: the unfinished revolution by Leo Kanowitz

Women in the courts edited by Winifred L. Hepperle and Laura Crites

Women's Suffrage by Constitutional Amendment by Henry St. George Tucker

 

Famous cases

The law for a woman: real cases and what happened by Ellen Switzer

Report of the d’Hauteville case

 

To search for additional books in our catalog, go to advanced search, select subject and search by categories such as equal rights, women suffrage, or "women legal status."

 

Image Credits

[1]  Unknown author, March 2, 1915, Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. Wikimedia Commons open access, last accessed March 5, 2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Early_women_in_public_service_in_Oregon.png

[2] Women Making History in Portland mural by Robin Corbo. Image credit: Photogaph by Tony Webster, 2015. Wikimedia Commons open access, last accessed March 5, 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Women_Making_History_in_Portland_Mural_(19539479563).jpg 

[3] Image credit: photographed in 1921 by Ralph Russell Doubleday. Flickr open access, last accessed March 5, 2020 https://www.flickr.com/photos/tico_manudo_postcards/10484623646