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Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person-to-person.
~Mother Teresa

The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.
~Aung San Suu Kyi — Human Rights Leader for Burma/1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Use these lesson plans (created by educators for educators) to explore women's history in America with your students in your classroom:

Ladies, Contraband, and Spies - (Grades 10-11) Students view the perspectives of slave women, plantation mistresses, female spies, and Union women during the Civil War. Students investigate the many roles women played during the Civil War.

Voices for Votes: Suffrage Strategies - (Grades 4-6) Students create original documents encouraging citizens to vote in current elections. This lesson is devoted entirely to the issue of women’s suffrage, both historically and in today’s society.

Women, Their Rights, and Nothing Else - (Grades 9-12) Students create timelines and papers that explore the long route women traveled to receive the right to vote. Students use a variety of primary sources to investigate women’s route to suffrage.

Women Struggle and Triumph - (Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12,) Students synthesize information from journals, letters, narratives and other primary sources and write impressions of 19th century women in the Northeast, Southeast or West who helped shape United States history.

Suffragists and Their Tactics - (Grades 9-12,) Students use primary sources to explore strategies and challenges of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.

Stand Up and Sing - (Grades 7-12) Students analyze issues related to industrialization and reform by exploring sheet music and creating original songs. Students may choose to focus on the strides made by women during the Progressive Era.

Is there a title (or two) that you always read to (or with) your students when teaching about women's history? Are there invaluable reference books that you use when working with this theme? Staff from The Library of Congress have generously donated favorite titles for the Her Story theme. We hope you will contribute your favorite titles to our growing bibliography!

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Create your own collaborative lesson plans using material related to this month's theme assembled from The Learning Page Collection Connections:

By Popular Demand: "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920 - (Summary and Teaching Resources) This selection of 38 pictures, related to the campaign for woman suffrage in the United States, include portraits, photographs of suffrage parades, picketing suffragists, and an anti-suffrage display as well as cartoons commenting on the movement.

Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921 - (Summary and Teaching Resources) This online collection contains 167 items from the larger National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, including texts from the beginning of the movement for women's right to vote.

American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women’s History and Culture in the United States - (Summary Only)

Zora Neale Hurston Plays, The - (Summary Only)

Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party - (Summary and Teaching Resources)

Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911 - (Summary and Teaching Resources) Between 1897 and 1911 Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter, Anne Fitzhugh Miller, filled seven large scrapbooks with ephemera and memorabilia related to their work with women

Hannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress, The - (Summary Only) This collection documents the life and activities of the noted author, educator and political philosopher. Included in this collection is her correspondence, drafts of books and articles, lectures and speeches.

By Popular Demand: Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present - (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection includes portraits of 37 of the first ladies in formal and informal settings.

These terms may be useful when searching for items related to this theme in the American Memory collections.