Women's and Gender Studies 

The USC Libraries provide many primary resources through print and electronic collections. Below is a very selective list of some of our primary collections, which are available online.

History Resource Center.
This is a library of documents encompassing American History - the African American Experience; The American Revolution; the Asian-American Experience; Civil Rights; The Civil War; The Cold War; The Constitution and Supreme Court; The Great Depression and the New Deal; The Hispanic-American Experience; The Immigrant Experience; The Native American Experience; Westward Expansion; Women in America; World War I and the Jazz Age; The Vietnam Era. Each key topic encompasses hundreds of carefully selected, rare documents, pictures, and archival audio and video - while essays, headnotes, and captions by scholars set the sources in context.

Defining Gender 1450-1910.
This project brings together approximately 60,000 images of original manuscript and printed material, including a strong core of documents from the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Ephemeral material such as ballads, cartoons and pamphlets is featured alongside diaries, advice literature, medical journals, conduct books and periodicals. Structured into the following five sections: Conduct and Politeness; Domesticity and the Family; Consumption and Leisure; Education and Sensibility; and The Body.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Electronic text of 150,000 English language publications from 1701-1800. Individual publications in ECCO are also listed in HOMER.

Empire Online, 1492-1969.
This offers original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field. Topics covered: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969.

Everyday Life and Women in America Online, c.1820-1900.
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.

GenderWatch.
A repository of full text materials related to gender studies; emphasis particularly in the social sciences and gender theories. Includes many small publications.

The Gerritsen Collection, 1543-1945.
This is a great source for the study of women's history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and fifteen languages. Researchers can trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of one country's movement on those of the others.

Godey's Ladys Book (1830-1880).
In 1830, in Philadelphia, Louis Antoine Godey (1804-1878) commenced the publication of Godey's Ladys Book which he designed specifically to attract the growing audience of American women. The magazine was intended to entertain, inform, and educate the women of America. In addition to extensive fashion descriptions and plates, the early issues included biographical sketches, articles about mineralogy, handcrafts, female costume, the dance, equestrienne procedures, health & hygiene, recipes & remedies, etc.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries.
This collection provides access to the immediate experiences of 1,325 women through over 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.

Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700. Early Modern Women's Manuscript Catalogue.
The Perdita Project, established in January 1997 by Nottingham Trent University, purchased a microfilm collection of about 400 manuscripts compiled by women in the British Isles. These manuscripts, now lodged at Warwick University, were compiled during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and consist of poetry, religious writing, autobiographical material, cookery and medical recipes, and accounts.

Victorian Women Writers Project.
The goal of this Indiana University project is to produce highly accurate transcriptions of works by British women writers of the 19th century.The works include anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books, and volumes of poetry and verse drama.

Women and Social Movements in the United States.
This collection brings together books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women’s activism in public life.