Women's History & Gender Studies
Also refer to USC Libraries' Gender Studies Research Guide
- American Memory - Women's History (7 Collections)This Library of Congress collection provides free and open access to a wide range of primary source material documenting American history and culture, including text, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
- Archives of Sexuality & Gender This link opens in a new windowThe Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas.
- Discovering American Women's History OnlineProvides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. Collections range from Abigail Franks' letters to her son from the 1730s and 1740s (Center for Jewish History) to Katrina Thomas' photographs of ethnic weddings from the late 20th century.
- Documents from the Women's Liberation MovementThis Duke University collection documents various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States, focusing specifically on the radical origins of this movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Items range from radical theoretical writings to humorous plays to the minutes of an actual grassroots group
- Everyday Life and Women in America Online, c.1820-1920 This link opens in a new windowLogin required This collection documents in compelling detail the social and cultural forces that shaped the everyday lives of men and women in America from 1800 to 1920, addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home life, health and popular pastimes
- Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs This link opens in a new windowLogin required Contains more than 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, dating from 1543-1945. The anti-feminist case is presented as well as the pro-feminist; the broad scope of the collection allows scholars to trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of one country's movement on those of the others.
- Hearth Home Economics ArchiveDates covered: 1850-1950
This Cornell University site is an electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines, published between 1850 and 1950 and selected by scholars for their historical importance
- Homophile Movement: Papers of Donald Stewart Lucas, 1941-1976 This link opens in a new window"Homophile Movement" refers to organizations and political strategies employed by the GLBT community prior to the era of confrontational activism of the 1970s.
- LGBT Thought and Culture This link opens in a new windowLGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting the key works and archival documentation of LGBT political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day. The collection contains 150,000 pages of rare archival content, including seminal texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and ephemera.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowLogin required This database includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters written from Colonial times to 1950
- Sophia Smith Collection Women's History ArchivesDigital collections of interest include oral history collections; The Power of Women's Voices; exhibits on the history of the YWCA; exploring women's history through family papers; and Agents of Social Change: New Resources on 20th-Century Women's Activism
- Women and Social Movements Library This link opens in a new windowLogin required Includes books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's activism in public life.
- Women's History SourcebookThis Fordham University site provides access to key primary source documents related to women's history
- Women Working, 1800-1930This Harvard University Open Collections Program collection explores 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
Legal & Legislative History
- Brown v. Board of Education Digital ArchiveThis archive, developed by the University of Michigan Library, contains documents and images concerning Supreme Court cases; busing and school integration efforts in northern urban areas; school integration in the Ann Arbor Public School District; and recent resegregation trends in American schools
- The Dred Scott Case Collection1846-1855
The records displayed in this exhibit document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant records of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court. The original Dred Scott case file is located in the Office of the St. Louis Circuit Clerk.
This collection is an expanded and updated version of the original Dred Scott Case Collection. The collection, was expanded from eighty-five to one hundred and eleven documents, over 400 pages of text. In addition, the collection is now a full-text, searchable resource that represents the full case history of the Dred Scott Case. - Famous Trials of the 20th CenturyCompiled by Douglas O. Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, this resource provides primary source and other materials concerning some of the 20th Century's key trials.
- Nexis Uni (formerly LEXIS/NEXIS Academic) This link opens in a new windowLogin required Full text of state and federal legislation and laws. Also contains business, financial, medical, biographical, government and domestic and international newspaper resources.
- The Oyez ProjectA multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States, its justices, and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955.
- Proquest Congressional This link opens in a new windowLogin required
Includes hearings (testimony), committee prints, reports, documents, and full text of bills and public laws; provides full-text access to the U.S. Statutes at Large from 1789 to the present. The U.S. Statutes at Large is a chronological compilation of federal laws, joint and concurrent resolutions, presidential proclamations, reorganization plans, and constitutional amendments.
- Slaves & the Courts, 1740-1860Library of Congress, American Memory Project.
Contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. The documents, most from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance.
- U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs 1832-1978 This link opens in a new windowLogin required Historical records and briefs of the U.S. Supreme Court
Immigrants & Immigration
- Archives of Irish AmericaA repository of primary research materials at New York University that aims to increase understanding of the Irish migration experience and the distillation of American Irish ethnicity over the past century.
- Immigration to the US, 1789-1930An online collection of selected historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression. Includes more than 410,000 pages, 100 individually cataloged maps, and 7,800 photographs.
- Immigrations, Migrations and Refugees: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996 This link opens in a new windowTranslated and English-language radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals, government documents and books providing global insight on immigration in the mid-to-late 20th century
- North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This link opens in a new windowNorth American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories provides a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada. With more than 100,000 pages of personal narratives, including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories, the collection provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines. Much of the material is previously unpublished. Several thousand pages of Ellis Island Oral History interviews, indexed and searchable for the first time, are included, along with thousands of political cartoons. Never before have scholars been able to search these documents easily and find answers to complex questions with just a few clicks.
- ProQuest History Vault: Immigration: Records of the INS, 1880-1930 This link opens in a new windowThe files in this primary source collection cover Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930, and European immigration.
Labor History
- The Bracero History ArchiveMakes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964. Millions of Mexican agricultural workers crossed the border under the program to work in more than half of the U.S. states.
- Hagley Digital ArchivesProvides online access to a growing selection of items from the library's collections of images, documents, and publications related to the history of business, technology, and society.
- Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights ProjectsIncludes 12 projects that bring together nearly one hundred video oral history interviews and several thousand photographs, documents, and digitized newspaper articles.
- The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History ProjectThe civil rights movements in Seattle started well before the celebrated struggles in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, and they relied not just on African American activists but also on Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Jews, Latinos, and Native Americans. They also depended upon the support of some elements of the region's labor movement. From the 1910s through the 1970s, labor and civil rights were linked in complicated ways, with some unions and radical organizations providing critical support to struggles for racial justice, while others stood in the way.
- Women Working, 1800-1930This Harvard University Open Collections Program collection explores 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
Statistics & Data
- Roper Center Public Opinion Archives (with iPOLL) This link opens in a new windowLogin required
An archive of public opinion survey data from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), Gallup, Los Angeles Times Polls, exit polls and others.
Allows users to search survey questions or download data.
Userguide: http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/pdf/iPOLL_Basic_Search_Pocket_Guide.pdf - Polling the Nations This link opens in a new windowLogin required
Database of over 500,000 questions from more than 14,000 public opinion polls and surveys covering the United States and 100 other countries going back to 1986. Can search for questions by keyword, topic, or other specification and quickly pull-up top-line percentage distributions. - ProQuest Statistical Insight This link opens in a new windowLogin required
Indexes printed federal, state, international statistical publications, and selected business and professional publications containing statistics.
- World Values SurveyThe WVS in collaboration with EVS (European Values Study) carried out representative national surveys in 97 societies containing almost 90 percent of the world's population from 1981 to 2008. These surveys show changes in what people believe in and what they want out of life in relation to the environment, work, family, politics and society, religion and morale, and national identity.
Use the “Online Data Analysis” option to view findings.
Social Movements
- Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movement This link opens in a new windowDisability in the Modern World includes 150,000 pages of primary sources, supporting materials, and archives, along with 125 hours of video
- Mapping American Social MovementsThis University of Washington project produces and displays free interactive maps showing the historical geography of dozens of social movements that have influenced American life and politics since the late 19th century, including radical movements, civil rights movements, labor movements, women's movements, and more.
- Women and Social Movements Library This link opens in a new windowOrganized around the history of women in social movements between 1600 and the present,
American Presidents & Government
- American Presidency Project This link opens in a new windowA website developed by the University of California-Santa Barbara. It is the only online resource that has consolidated, coded, and organized into a single searchable database the following content:
• The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Washington - Taft (1789-1913)
• The Public Papers of the Presidents Hoover to G.W. Bush (1929-2006) & Obama (2009)
• The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents: Carter - G.W. Bush (1977-2009)
• The Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents: Obama (2009-2012)
In addition this collection also contains thousands of other documents such as party platforms, candidates' remarks, Statements of Administration Policy, documents released by the Office of the Press Secretary, and election debates.
- Presidential Recordings ProgramBetween 1940 and 1973, six American presidents (Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon) secretly recorded just under 5,000 hours of their meetings and telephone conversations. Through a combination of historical research and annotated transcripts the Miller Center at the University of Virginia has made these tapes accessible to the public.
- Public Papers of the Presidents of the United StatesContains material that was compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. It includes volumes covering the administrations of Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. As subsequent volumes are published, they will be added online.
- Collected Works of Abraham LincolnSearchable full-text edition of the 1953 publication, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Includes speeches, correspondence, and more, compiled by the Abraham Lincoln Association.
- Eleanor Roosevelt Papers ProjectProvides access to her writings, including columns, correspondence, articles, speeches, and more.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and MuseumThis institution, part of the National Archives and Records Administration, provides a gateway to many resources about FDR, the New Deal, and more.
- Lincoln/NetThis Northern Illinois University site presents primary source materials from Lincoln's Illinois years (1830-1861) and other resources for study of antebellum Illinois
- Papers of George Washington Digital Edition This link opens in a new windowLogin required (from Rotunda/University of Virginia Press) This collection encompasses five separate series and the complete diaries, providing access to the complete Papers released through 2007 in one online publication. You may search on full text and by date, author, or recipient across all volumes and series. The indexing of the individual print volumes is combined here into a single master index, and all internal document cross-references are linked.
- The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799 - posted by the University of Virginia E-Text Center
- American State Papers, 1789-1838 This link opens in a new windowLogin required Search or browse these legislative and executive documents, many originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in 1817
- National Security ArchiveAn independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States.
- Proquest Congressional This link opens in a new windowLogin required Contains the full-text of published and unpublished hearings from 1776-present, including statues proclamations, treaties, oral statements, committee questions and discussion, as well as texts of related reports, statistical analyses, correspondence, exhibits and more
- U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994 This link opens in a new windowLogin required a full-text database of key publications of the United States Congress, including documents on the activities of the committees of the House and the Senate (journals, reports, and documents); publications of the executive departments for education, public health, and agriculture, as well as maps and color plates
Slavery, Abolition & Race Relations
- African Americans and the End of Slavery in MassachusettsIncludes historical manuscripts and rare published works from the late 17th century through the abolition of slavery
- Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African DiasporaThis website is a digital archive for hundreds of historical images, paintings, lithographs, and photographs illustrating enslaved Africans and their descendants before c. 1900. (Formerly known as The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas : a Visual Record)
- The Avalon Project, Documents Concerning SlaveryPrimary sources compiled by Yale Law School
- Black Abolitionist ArchiveFrom the 1820s to the Civil War, close to 300 black abolitionists who were involved in the antislavery movement. This University of Detroit Mercy collection provides access to over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period
- Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new windowThis collection searches a unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
Over 15,000 items are available for searching.
- Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938Contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. (from the Library of Congress) These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.
- Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery & JusticeDigitized documents from a report on Brown University's historical relationship to slavery and the slave trade
- Documenting the American South: North American Slave NarrativesThis digital initiative, by the University Library at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, provides access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture.
- The Dred Scott Case CollectionThe records displayed in this exhibit document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant records of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court. This collection was expanded from 85 - 111 documents, over 400 pages of text. (Click on the last link on the page "The Revised Dred Scott Case Collection").
- Freedmen and Southern Society ProjectThis project of the University of Maryland draws on materials from the National Archives of the United States to document people's movement from slavery to emancipation.
- Freedom on the Move: A database of Fugitives from North American SlaveryThe goal is to compile all North American slave runaway ads and make them available for statistical, geographical, textual, and other forms of analysis.
- Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing an Unknown PastThis collection of 25,000 digitized items are from the Historical Center at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, the Louisiana Division of the New Orleans Public Library, The Historic New Orleans Collection, and Tulane University’s Louisiana Research Collection.
- Georgetown Slavery ArchiveA repository of materials relating to the Maryland Jesuits, Georgetown University, and slavery.
- In Motion: The African-American Migration ExperienceThis Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture site provides timelines and primary and secondary source materials on topics ranging from the Transatlantic Slave Trade to the Western Migration to Caribbean and Haitian Immigration
- ProQuest History Vault: Slavery and the Law This link opens in a new windowDocuments in Series I: Petitions to State Legislatures, 1777-1867 include primary source materials digitized from the state archives of Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
- ProQuest History Vault: Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Parts 1 & 2 This link opens in a new windowPrimary sources included are from the papers (business and financial records, diaries, letterbooks, correspondence, etc.) of dozens (both prominent and average) slaveholding families from plantations in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia.
- Race Relations in America This link opens in a new windowBased at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict.
- Records of Slave Ship Movement Between Africa and the Americas, 1817-1843This site provides access to the raw data and documentation which contains information on slave ship movement between Africa and the Americas from 1817-1843. Specifically, the data file contains information on the ship's port of arrival, date of arrival, type of vessel, tonnage, master's name, number of guns, number of crew, national flag, number of slaves, port of departure, number of days of voyage, and mortality.
- Runaway Slaves in Britain: Bondage, Freedom and Race in the Eighteenth CenturyThe sources for this project are advertisements placed in eighteenth-century English and Scottish. newspapers by slave-owners. The project will also locate and make available related newspaper, legal and other materials.
- Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth CenturiesProvides access to raw data and documentation which contains information on slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
- The Slave NarrativePart of Washington State University's Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events site, this collection features informational resources as well as primary source material
- Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window28 min video tutorial => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwbrp6Pwvf0
This portal for slavery and abolition studies brings together documents and collections from dozens of libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Close attention is given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today. It also includes significant coverage of US court records from the local, regional and Supreme Court level. - Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new windowWe have access to Part II-IV: (2) Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, (3)The Institution of Slavery (1492-1888), (4) The Age of Emancipation. Provided by Gale-Cengage.
- Slaves & the Courts, 1740-1860Contains over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. The documents, most from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance.
- Texas Slavery ProjectExamines the expansion of slavery in the borderlands between the United States and Mexico in the years between 1837 and 1845. Based at the Virginia Center for Digital History, the project provides dynamic maps that plot the flows of slavery throughout Texas and a population search engine. Also includes primary sources such as personal letters, newspaper articles, constitutions and legal documents
- Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade DatabaseThis database, sponsored by a number of research institutions, provides information on around 35,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries
- Uncle Tom's Cabin and American CultureThis University of Virginia site explores the effects of this work on American culture
- The Understanding Slavery initiative (USI)A national learning project which supports the teaching and learning of transatlantic slavery and its legacies using museum and heritage collections. Six museums across the UK have worked in partnership to share expertise, develop resources, training opportunities and school sessions.
- Voices from Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their StoriesFrom the Library of Congress, American Memory Project. Almost 7 hours of recorded interviews took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. 23 interviewees, born between 1823 and the early 1860s, discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom.
Arts, Literature & Entertainment
- Performing Arts in America 1875 -1923A free web site from the NYPL
- Black Drama (Third Edition) This link opens in a new windowContains approximately 1,462 plays by 233 playwrights, with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. Close to 600 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors.
- Contemporary World Drama This link opens in a new windowContemporary World Drama examines the richness and diversity of contemporary theatre and drama from a global context, bringing together new work from established and up-and-coming contemporary playwrights from around the world, including recently produced world premieres and previously unpublished works from every continent. At completion, the collection will include 1,000 contemporary plays, from 2000 to present day.
- North American Indian Drama This link opens in a new windowNorth American Indian Drama brings together 250+ full-text plays representing the stories and creative energies of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the twentieth century. Many of the plays are previously unpublished or hard to find, and they represent a wealth of dramatic material that is often overlooked or inaccessible. Together, the plays demonstrate Native theater’s diversity of tribal traditions and approaches to drama—melding conventional dramatic form with ancient storytelling and ritual performance elements, experimenting with traditional ideas of time and narrative, or challenging Western dramatic structure.