Books
Women in Science Resources
There are a multitude of books on women in science, so many that we could not list them all. Below is a select list of books about women in science. This list does not include biographies of individual women – there are too many! – but rather books about groups of women.
A note to UMass/5 Colleges readers: Most of these books are available in the 5 Colleges Libraries (click on the links to go to the library catalog record to check location and availability). To find books about individual women, do a Subject search for their name [last name, first name] in the 5 Colleges Library Catalog. https://fcaw.library.umass.edu
Books
Bernardi, Gabriella. The Unforgotten Sisters: Female Astronomers and Scientists before Caroline Herschel (Springer Praxis, 2016)
Breton, Mary Joy. Women Pioneers of the Environment (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000553054&doc_library=FCL01
Brown, Jeannette E. African American Women Chemists (Oxford University Press, 2011)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=011960503&doc_library=FCL01
Bruck, Mary. Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy: Stars and Satellites (Dordrecht: Springer, 2009)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=011146494&doc_library=FCL01
Byers, Nina and Gary Williams, eds., Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=004300614&doc_library=FCL01
Cantu, Norma E. Paths to Discovery: Autobiographies from Chicanas with Careers in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (UCLA, 2011)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=015103897&doc_library=FCL01
Case, Bettye Anne and Anne M. Leggett, eds., Complexities: Women in Mathematics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000841373&doc_library=FCL01
Creese, Mary R. S. Ladies in the Laboratory?: American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=001273665&doc_library=FCL01
Creese, Mary R. S. Ladies in the Laboratory II: West European Women in Science, 1800-1900 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=001365741&doc_library=FCL01
Creese, Mary R. S. Ladies in the Laboratory III: South African, Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian Women in Science, Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=011160909&doc_library=FCL01
Creese, Mary R. S. Ladies in the Laboratory IV: Imperial Russia’s Women in Science, 1800-1900 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2015)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014497705&doc_library=FCL01
Des Jardins, Julie. The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2010)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=011084328&doc_library=FCL01 (print)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=013881291&doc_library=FCL01 (e-book)
Gianquitto, Tina. “Good Observers of Nature”: American Women and the Scientific Study of the Natural World, 1820-1885 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2007)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=004970609&doc_library=FCL01 (print)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=013879845&doc_library=FCL01 (e-book)
Green, Judy. Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD’s (Providence: American Mathematical Society, 2009)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=010479289&doc_library=FCL01
Hargittai, Magdolna. Women Scientists: Reflections, Challenges, and Breaking Boundaries (Oxford University Press, 2015):
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014596895&doc_library=FCL01
Hinkle Amber S. and Jody A. Kocsis, eds., Successful Women in Chemistry: Corporate America’s Contributions to Science (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 2005)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=004322496&doc_library=FCL01 (print)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014887326&doc_library=FCL01 (e-book)
Holt, Nathalia. Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, From Missiles to the Moon to Mars (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2016)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=015008701&doc_library=FCL01
Howes, Ruth H. After the War: Women in Physics in the United States (Bristol: IOP Publishing, 2015)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014959460&doc_library=FCL01 (e-book)
Howes, Ruth H. and Caroline C. Herzenberg, Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000581458&doc_library=FCL01
Ideal, Emma and Rhiannon Meharchand, Blazing the Trail: Essays by Leading Women in Science (2013)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014828049&doc_library=FCL01
Ignatofsky, Rachel. Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World (New York: Ten Speed Press, 2016)
Jordan, Diann. Sisters in Science: Conversations with Black Women Scientists on Race, Gender and Their Passion for Science (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2006)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000718213&doc_library=FCL01
Kiernan, Denise. The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II (Touchstone, 2013)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014719238&doc_library=FCL01
Koblitz, Ann Hibner. Science, Women, and Revolution in Russia (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 2000)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002117620&doc_library=FCL01
Musil, Robert K. Rachel Carson and Her Sisters: Extraordinary Women Who Have Shaped America’s Environment (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2014)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014149110&doc_library=FCL01 (print)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014815450&doc_library=FCL01 (e-book)
Noyce, Pendred E. Magnificent Minds: 16 Pioneering Women in Science and Medicine (Boston: Tumblehome Learning, Inc., 2015)
Noyce, Pendred E. Remarkable Minds: 17 More Pioneering Women in Science and Medicine (Boston: Tumblehome Learning, Inc., 2015)
Rayner-Canham, Marelene F. and Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham, A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity (Philadephia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002040835&doc_library=FCL01 (print)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014787149&doc_library=FCL01 (e-book)
Rayner-Canham, Marelene F. and Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham, Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000547401&doc_library=FCL01
Rayner-Canham, Marelene F. and Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham, Chemistry was Their Life: Pioneer British Women Chemists, 1880-1949 (London: Imperial College Press, 2008)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=010503095&doc_library=FCL01
Reynolds, Moira Davison. American Women Scientists: 23 Inspiring Biographies, 1900-2000 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000572733&doc_library=FCL01
Ristaino, Jean Beagle. Pioneering Women in Plant Pathology (St. Paul: APS Press, 2008)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=004949557&doc_library=FCL01
Rossiter, Margaret W. Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=003237781&doc_library=FCL01
Rossiter, Margaret W. Women Scientists in America: Before Affirmative Action, 1940-1972 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000492844&doc_library=FCL01
Rossiter, Margaret W. Women Scientists in America: Forging a New World Since 1972 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=012373235&doc_library=FCL01
Sheffield, Suzanne Le-May. Revealing New Worlds: Three Victorian Women Naturalists (London: Routledge, 2001)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000627833&doc_library=FCL01
Shetterly, Margot Lee. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (New York: William Morrow, 2016)
Swaby, Rachel. Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – and the World (New York: Broadway Books, 2015)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=014609147&doc_library=FCL01
van der Does, Louise Q. and Rita J. Simon, Renaissance Women in Science (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=002081549&doc_library=FCL01
Warren, Wini. Black Women Scientists in the United States (Indiana University Press, 2000)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000579207&doc_library=FCL01
Wasserman, Elga. The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2000)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000592531&doc_library=FCL01 (print)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=004020258&doc_library=FCL01 (e-book)
Williams, Kathleen Broome. Improbable Warriors: Women Scientists and the U.S. Navy in World War II (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001)
https://fcaw.library.umass.edu/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000626986&doc_library=FCL01