History

Digitized collections of memoirs and letters of three women, two of whom were slaves and one who was the daughter of former slaves.

This exhibit marks the opening for research of eight collections of 20th century women activists: the papers of Constance Baker Motley, Dorothy Kenyon, Mary Kaufman, Frances Fox Piven, Jessie Lloyd O'Connor, and Gloria Steinem and the records of the Women's Action Alliance and the National Congress of Neighborhood Women. These new resources highlight women's part in the multiple struggles for social change that span the century including labor, socialism, civil liberties, peace, racial justice, urban reform, welfare rights, and women's rights. They illuminate connections between reform movements, as well as the interplay of race, ethnicity, class, and gender within them. Processing of these collections was made possible in part by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This web site grew out of research for a dissertation entitled “All For Love: Gender and Class and the Woman’s Dime Novel in Nineteenth-Century America” which examines the genre of women’s dime novel writing and its role in changing gender and class formations. This project hopes to overcome the history of oversight to both the form and its readers by providing information about the novels themselves, the authors, the readers, and nineteenth century public reaction.

The Archives of Women's Political Communication is an online archives launched in 2007 by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University devoted entirely to women's political speech. The archives houses the speeches and campaign advertising of U.S. women senators and representatives, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, governors and lieutenant governors, and first and second ladies; international women leaders, including presidents and prime ministers; and recipients of the Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics at Iowa State University. It also features the speeches of historically significant women, social activists and women who have used their position of celebrity to advocate for political causes.

Three Civil War Women's digitized collections from Duke University:
Rose O'Neal Greenhow Papers
Alice Williamson Diary
Sarah E. Thompson Papers

College Women is a searchable portal of diaries, letters, scrapbooks and photographs from the archives of a select group of the earliest women’s colleges in the United States, the Seven Sisters. This site aggregates content from partner sites and illuminates connections between the experiences of women students, with the goal of supporting new studies in topics such as political reform and women’s rights, sexuality and body image, religion, race and class, as well as major domestic and international events.

This biographical resource site on Elizabeth Murray provides an exploration of important themes for a Colonial American Woman in early American history, with an online collection of documents and images, as well as curriculum materials for history courses at the elementary through university levels. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has provided generous support for this project.

Emma Goldman (1869–1940) stands as a major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism. An influential and well-known anarchist of her day, Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women's equality and independence, and union organization. Her criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919. For the rest of her life until her death in 1940, she continued to participate in the social and political movements of her age, from the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War.

This resource provides the progression of the U.S. feminist movement from 1953-1993. Part III includes links to primary source documents.

A collection of 400+ speeches from influential women, dating from 1848-present.

In Her Own Right is a project executed by members of the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL), with funding from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) and the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). This collection contains digitized items from the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Bryn Mawr College Special Collections, and Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections that illuminate women's efforts to assert their rights and work for the rights of others in a variety of spheres in the century leading up to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Visit http://inherownright.org to view additional collections from other PACSCL libraries.

Over 10,000 digitized documents and photographs documenting Rosa Park's family, life, and work from 1866-2006.

A scholarly resource for the study of women's religious communities from 400 to 1600 CE

Schlesinger Library has a large collection of resources for research on the history of women in America. It has a robust digitization program that makes manuscript collections, books, periodicals, and photographs available to researchers across the globe. In the past ten years, the Library has digitized 1,140,672 pages of material. From the papers of public intellectual Charlotte Perkins Gilman to the research files of feminist artist Judy Chicago (in process), the library’s digital collections span two centuries of women’s history.

Few titles sum up an era and a movement like Spare Rib. The magazine was an active part of the emerging women's liberation movement. It challenged the stereotyping and exploitation of women in what was the first national magazine of its kind. It supported collective, realistic solutions to the hurdles women faced and reached out to women from all backgrounds. Spare Rib became the debating chamber of feminism in the UK. The full archive of 239 magazines from 1972-1993 provides a valuable insight into women's lives and this period of feminist activity.

Manifestos, speeches, essays, and other materials documenting various aspects of the Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.

Diaries written by British and American women who documented their travels to places around the globe, including India, the West Indies, countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as around the United States.

Pacifica Radio/UC Berkeley Social Activism Sound Recording Project is a static webpage, however, the recordings are still available for those interested in researching radio recordings include interviews, panel discussions, literary and musical performances, news coverage, and other programing broadcast between the mid-1950s and the 1980s

Women Working, 1800–1930 is a digital exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, workplace regulations, home life, costs of living, commerce, recreation, health and hygiene, and social issues are among the issues documented in this online research collection from Harvard University. The collection includes digitized diaries, memiors, institutional records, and manuscripts.