Gender & Women's Studies Subject Guide
Historical Document Collections
12 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users 
- Open Access
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Over 150,000 pages of published and unpublished diaries and letters by over 1,300 women in the US and Canada from the colonial period to 1950. All ethnic groups, ages, classes, and geographical regions are included. Users can search by keyword, time period, place, marital status, nationality, and other variables.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000: Scholar's Edition
A collection of full text books, pamphlets, articles, documents and images of American women's reform movements over the last 400 years including special subjects such as African-American Women and the Equal Rights Debate in the 1920s. Includes the bibliographic dictionary Notable American Women 1907-1950.
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Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement: An On-line Archival Collection
Sponsored by Duke University, this site documents various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States, and focus 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.
Duke University Special Collections
Several archival and manuscript collections have been digitized and made available for research.
When complete, this resource will contain approximately 100,000 pages of prose, poetry and drama by women writers from Mexico, Central, and South America from the colonial period to the present. Currently there are about 4200 pages of prose and poetry available. Drama will be added next.
Over 1,500 plays by 330 playwrights, with detailed information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. 30% of the plays have not been published before. Also included: selected playbills, production photographs, and other ephemera related to the plays.
Primary Sources of the Women's Movement, 1960 to present: Publications on the Status of Women
Since 1961, local, state, and federal commissions have been collecting a wealth of information documenting conditions in the lives of American women. When completed, this digital collection will contain reports on the status of women from each of the 50 U.S. states, along with associated pamphlets, posters, and ephemera.
Victorian Women Writers Project
Produced by Indiana University, this site offers online transcribed texts of anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books, and volumes of poetry and verse drama written by British women writers of the nineteenth century. Access by author's name with links to specific titles.
Votes for Women's Suffrage, 1850-1920
Contains archival photographs from the Library of Congress' American Memory Collection.
Prepared by the Archives for Research on Women and Gender Project at the University of Texas, San Antonio Library, this guide lists archives, libraries and other repositiories that have collections of primary source materials by and about women. Provides a geographic index to repositories.
Women and Social Movements, 1600-2000: Scholar's Edition: Women's Commissions
When complete, this collection will contain 75,000 pages of materials documenting women's issues over more than four decades in all fifty states and U.S. territories. This includes the 1963 final reports of the President's Commission on the Status of Women and reports from the many state and local commissions since then.
Hosted by Harvard University, this collection centers on the role of women in the United States economy from 1800 to 1930. It provides access to online historical, manuscript and visual resources selected from the collections of Harvard University's library and museum collections. You can browse the collection or use the search box to find primary documents on your topic.
Librarian's Comment: Including the following collections of interest to women's studies:
* African-American Women
* Civil War Women
* Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement: An On-line Archival Collection