History

Gender / Women's History

 
Womens suffrage demonstration in Paris on 5 July 1914 - Le Figaro.jpg
Women's Suffrage Demonstration
Paris July 5, 1914
Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain
 Women's History
  • American Women Making History and Culture 1963-82 - Collection of audio files: interviews, panel discussions, performance, news coverage, and other. Requires Real Audio.
  • Australian Women's Weekly - A monthly newspaper first published in 1933. Digital scans of the original publication. 
  • Civil War: Women & the Home FrontLink to Duke University's page on diaries and letters written during the Civil War. Materials from more than a dozen writers. 
  • Digital Public Library of America: Women - Images and text on women from the DPLA collections
  • Discovering American Women’s History Online - Access digital collections of letters, photos, diaries, artifacts, etc.
  • Loyalist Women in New Brunswick - Two collections of documents: The Winslow Letters (documents from the Winslow family - click one of their names to go to the list of 62 documents; and various resources in Five Loyalist Women.
  • Salem Witch Trials - A miscellaneous selection of documents, sermons, and transcripts. 
  • Studies in Scarlet - This Harvard collection - 'Marriage and Sexuality in the US & UK, 1815-1914' - contains more than 400 trial narratives of cases involving family violence, bigamy, seduction, breach of promise to marry, child custody, & sodomy, as well as trials for murder and rape.
  • Victorian Web: Gender Matters - Primary and secondary content on topics on the economy, politics, society, culture, religion, etc. as they relate to gender in Victorian Britain.
  • Victorian Women Writers Project - 200 full text works of about 60 women. Search by author or title, or compare keywords across the collection. Literature, political pamphlets, and histories from the second-half of the 19th century.
  • Voices of Feminism Oral History - Long interviews which include, "labor, peace, and anti-racism activists; artists and writers; lesbian rights advocates; grassroots anti-violence and anti-poverty organizers; and women of color reproductive justice leaders."
  • Women and Religion - A small collection of sources from the Internet Sacred Text Archive on feminism, women warriors, goddesses, and utopian fiction.
  • Women and the Holocaust - Tributes, reflections, personal testimonials of women under German National Socialism
  • Women in World History - History teaching site from George Mason University: choose the ‘Primary Sources” link and search by keyword, or choose a geographic region.
  • Women Working 1870-1930 - Manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and photographs. Focus is on women in the United States and their effect on the economy.
  • Women’s History Sourcebook - Fordham University collection, international in scope and covering the ancient world to the present.
  • Women’s Studies Resources - The “History” page at WSR is a collection of links to primary documents (but it also links to bibliographic lists, secondary sources, and some dead links).
  • Women's Travel Diaries - Over 100 diaries of British and American women who documented their oveseas experiences. Handwritten scans, most from during the 19th & 20th centuries.
  • Worchester Women's History Project - A small collection of documents on the first American National Woman's Rights Convention from 1850.

Activism/Feminism

  • American Jewess This site contains the digitized editions of the American Jewess magazine (1895-99), which was an English-language periodical aimed at the interests of American Jewish women. It discussed various topics like women's place in the synagogue, and whether women should ride bicycles. It also more broadly critiqued gender inequalities in Jewish communal life.
  • Digital Feminist Archives - 1960s to 1970s
  • Eizabeth Cady Stanton Papers - The papers of suffragist, reformer, and feminist theorist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)
  • Feminist Chronicles 1953-1993 Early documents from the American feminist movement are found under “Part III”
  • From Typist to Trailblazer - Declassified documents from the CIA on the “Evolving View of Women in the CIA’s Workforce”. Memos, letters, and official documents. Download the document, or peruse the "For More Information" link (above the CIA logo in mid-page).
  • The Pill (transcript) - PBS feature on birth control pills and contraception. Transcript is full text.
  • Rise Up! A Digital Archive of Feminist Activism - Consists of "feminist activism in Canada from the 1970s to the 1990s."
  • Sophie Smith Collection - This is the home page of the Women’s History Archives at Smith College. Use the “Digital Collections” tab to access images, exhibits, oral history transcripts, and media. 
  • Susan B. Anthony Papers - The papers of reformer and suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
  • Women of Protest Several hundred digitized photos of people and events related to the National Woman’s Party, part of the militant wing of the American suffragist movement. Pictures from 1875-1938.
  • Women’s Liberation Movement Print Culture - Manifestos, speeches, essays, and images from the American women’s movement in the 1960s & 70s.
  • Women's Suffrage: Pictures of Suffragists and their Activities
 
Le deuxième sexe.jpg  
 
Simone de Beauvoir 1908-1986 was a
French social & political theorist.
The Second Sex is her notable work
of feminist existentialism.
 
Image is from Wikimedia Commons:
Book cover is in the Public Domain
 
Classical and Medieval Eras
 
Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (1864-1922) is better
known by her pen name, Nellie Bly.  
Famous for her speed record-breaking trip
around the world in 72 days (1889),
this American feminist was also a notable journalist,
writer, inventor, and human rights activist
Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Photo by H.J. Myers. Public Domain
 

Primary Sources in Print: Antiquity

Print primary documents from the Greek and Roman world. Find them in the library:
 
Roman Household: a Sourcebook
HQ511 .R66 1991
 
Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: a Sourcebook
HQ1137.E3 W65 1998
 
File:Two women Musei Capitolini MAI23.jpg
 
"A woman and her maid"
Terracotta from ~450 BC Greece
 
Wikimedia Commons.
Photo credit Marie-Lan Nguyen 2009
No changes. CC License 
 
Women in Early Christianity 
BR195.W6 W66 2005
 
Women in the Classical World
HQ1127.W652 1994 
 
Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt 300 BC-AD800
TWU eBook
 
Women’s Life in Greece and Rome
HQ 1127.W653 1982
 
Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World: a Sourcebook  
BL 625.7.M34 2004

Primary Sources in Print: Middles Ages

Print primary documents from the Medieval period. Find them in the library:
 
Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages: a Medieval Sourcebook
HQ 1075.G418 2005
 
Joan of Arc: la Pucelle
DC103 .A187 2006
 
File:Paul Dubois-Joan of Arc.jpg
 
Paul Dubois' Joan of Arc (1873)
 
Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain
 
Joan of Arc: The Early Debate
DC104 .F73 2000
 
Language of Sex: Five Voices from Northern France Around 1200
HQ18.F8 B28 1994
 
Letters of the Rozmberk Sisters: Noblewomen of 15th C Bohemia
DB2049.R69 R69 2001
 
Love, Marriage, and Family in the Middle Ages: a Reader
HQ 513.L68 2001
 
Love, Sex, and Marriage in the Middle Ages: a Sourcebook
HQ 513.M35 2004
 
Medieval Family: the Pastons of Fifteenth-century England
DA240 .G54 1998
 
Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe 900-1200
D116 .V36 1999
 
Three Medieval Views of Women
PQ1327.D5 T47 1989
 
To Have and To Hold: Marrying and Its Documentation…400-1600
HQ503 .T6 2007
 
Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: a Sourcebook
PN682.W6 L37 1995
 
Women in England 1275-1525: Documentary Sources
DA170 .W655 1995
 
Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe: a Sourcebook
HQ1143 .W65 1993
 
 

Women - Primary Sources in Print: Early Modern

Print primary documents from the early modern period. Find them in the library:
 
Against Marriage: Correspondence of la Grande Mademoiselle 
DC130.M8 A4 2002
 
Autobiographical Writings by Early Quaker Women 
BX7793 .A88 2004
 
Cultural Identity of Seventeenth-century Woman: a Reader 
TWU eBook
 
Elizabeth I: Collected Works 
DA350 .A25 2000
 
Nobility and Excellence of Women 
HQ 1148.M2713 1999
 
Reading Early Modern Women: An Anthology of Texts…1550-1700 
PR1110.W6 R43 2004
 
Renaissance Woman: a Sourcebook 
HQ1149.G7 R46 1995
 
Short Chronicle: a Poor Clare’s Account of the Reformation
BR410 .J8713 2006
 
The Princess & the Philosopher: Letters: Elisabeth of the Palatine to René Descartes 
B1873 .N93 1999
 
 
[Cover]
 
 
 
Whether a Christian Woman Should be Educated 
BT704 .S3813 1998
 
Women & History: Voices of Early Modern England
HQ1593 .W54 1997
 
Women in Early Modern Germany: an Anthology of Popular Texts 
PT1121 .W66 2002
 
Women in England c. 1275-1525: Documentary Sources 
DA 170.W655 1995
 
Women, Property and the Letters of the Law in Early Modern England 
PR428.L37 W66 2004
 
Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875: an Anthology 
TWU ebook
 
Worth of Women
HQ 1148.F6513 1997
 
 

Primary Sources in Print: Modern

 Print primary documents from the modern period. Find them in the library:
 
Diary of Anna Baerg 1916-1924 
BX8143.B34 A3 1985
 
Florence Nightingale in Egypt and Greece: Her Diaries and Visions
TWU eBook
 
File:Florence Nightingale.png
 
Portrait of Florence Nightingale
by Evert Duyckinick 1873
   
Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain
 
Florence Nightingale’s Spiritual Journey:…and Journal Notes
RT37.N5 A2 2001
 
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
TWU eBook
 
Notes on Nursing (F Nightingale)
RT 40.N68 1946
 
Regina vs. Palmerston: a Correspondence… 1837-1865
DA552 .R4 1961
 
Sexual Equality
HQ 1154.S69 1994
 
Vindication of the Rights of Woman (M Woolstonecraft)
HQ 1596.W6 1975
 
Women in Public: Victorian Women’s Movement 1850-1900
HQ 1593 .W572 1979
 
Women in Revolutionary Paris 1789-1795: Selected Documents
HQ1616.W65 1979
 
Women’s Writing from the Low Countries 1880-2010: an Anthology
TWU ebook
 
Writings of Catherine Booth
BX 9709.B66 1986
 

Rosie the Riveter

 
Seventeen year-old Geraldine Doyle Hoff (1924-2010)
is thought to be the real-life inspiration behind the
American World War II-era "We Can Do It!" poster.

 File:We Can Do It!.jpg

Wikimedia photo made available online
courtesy of the Doyle family.
Wikimedia poster from the US National Archives.
No known copyright restrictions.
 
For more wartime posters see the University of North Texas Digital Library collection.
Also see a small collection from the National Archives.