In honor of Women's History Month, the California State Library and the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls have created a colorful online weekly calendar of women from California history who achieved success in science, technology, engineering or math - the STEM fields. These images and biographical materials are drawn from the California History Section's own collection with an emphasis on women in science and math professions, echoing the National Women's History Month effort to commemorate women in STEM professions who strode past barriers in pursuit of their dreams. For the third week in March, the calendar highlights a woman veteran for Women's Military History Week. Maggie Gee was a training pilot in World War II, serving as a Women's Air Force Service Pilot, known as the WASPs. Gee also spent 30 years as a research physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The online calendar can be viewed at http://www.library.ca.gov/calhist/calendar1.html
Also celebrating Women's History Month is a new exhibit in the State Library's first floor rotunda. "California Women in the War Effort" documents the role of California Women in the military during wartime, and also highlights women's efforts on the home front. Included in this exhibit are fascinating and often visually attractive magazine articles from the library's general collection as well as photographs, letters home, and assorted realia from the California History Section's special collections. Likewise on display are uniforms and posters on loan from the California State Military Museum.
Taking a different tack, the California History Section's featured book display for March is titled "Ferries and Bridges in California," and showcases books on bridges from the mighty steel triumphs crossing the Golden gate and San Francisco to the smaller drawbridges and covered wooden structures prevalent in California's rural areas. But before the construction of bridges, California's residents depended on ferries to cross the state's bodies of water. Larger boats were used on San Francisco Bay and San Diego Bay, but much simpler ferries served the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta where bridges did not exist. Also on display are books on the river steamers Delta King and Delta Queen, which were technically not ferries but plied the bay and rivers nonetheless.
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