LibGuides: History: Primary Sources by Era or Topic: Women's history

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Women's history: Primary Source Collections

The full text of letters and diary entries, often from works that have been previously published as books containing collections of letters or diaries. Use the Browse indexes to find works about specific historical or life events.

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1860-1865
Published memoirs, letters and diaries written about and during the Civil War.
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1500-1900.
Searchable collection of women's letters and diaries.
Medieval Family Life This link opens in a new window
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1400-1500
Letters from the British Paston, Stonor, Cely, Plumpton and Armburgh Papers reveal the world of medieval family, business, relationships, trade, politics and community.
North American Immigrant Letters & Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1840-
Personal narratives, including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories about immigrating to the U.S. or Canada.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1770-1950
Diaries, journals, and letters written by famous and not-so-famous North American women.

Speaking while Female Speech Bank
Archive of speeches by women indexed by topic

Women’s Voices and Life Writing, 1600-1968 This link opens in a new window
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Digitized diaries and oral histories of lesser-known women of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales providing narratives that reveal personal perspectives on race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, aging, and more.

Search for articles published in popular magazines and journals from different times in history.

Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals, part I: Women's, Children's, Humour, and Leisure This link opens in a new window
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1800-1900
Magazines revealing British life in the Victorian age and the events, lifestyles, values, and ideas that shaped their world.
Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals, part II: Empire This link opens in a new window
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1800-1900
Magazines by and for British imperial colonizers, settlers, missionaries, and travelers.
Gale Primary Sources
African American Historical Serials Collection, 1816-1922 This link opens in a new window
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1816-1922
Newspapers and magazines published by African American churches, educational and service institutions.
American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society, Part I-V (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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1684-1912
Popular magazines, newspapers, and journals published in the United States.
American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
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1740-1940
Magazines and journals published in the U.S. mostly before 1900.
Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection This link opens in a new window
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1750-present
Publications documenting the Hispanic culture of the United States - history, literature, political commentary, and culture. Written in Spanish (80%) and English (20%).
British Periodicals Collection I and II This link opens in a new window
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1681-1920
Popular British periodicals mostly from the 19th century.
Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2015 This link opens in a new window
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1843-2015
Issues of The Economist, a news magazine with a global scope published in London.
Godey's Lady's Book This link opens in a new window
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1830-1880
American magazine with firsthand information on social, historical and cultural aspects of the 19th century.
Harper's Bazaar Archive This link opens in a new window
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1867-
Harper's Bazaar magazine shows changes in American fashion, culture and society.

International Women's Periodicals, 1786-1933: Social and Political Issues
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Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
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- Good for: Researching fashion and culture, including specific garments, accessories or brands.
- Contains: Images and text from Vogue Magazine.
- Dates covered: 1892-present.
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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1887-2005
North American women's magazines including Better Homes and Gardens, Chatelaine, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents Magazine, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan and Essence.
Women's Wear Daily Archive This link opens in a new window
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1910-
Comprehensive archive of Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), the leading fashion-industry trade paper.

Collections of several types of primary sources curated around a topic or theme.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, and Conquest This link opens in a new window
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- Good for: Finding primary source documentation related to the European “Scramble for Africa,” colonial conquest and the legacy of slavery, missionaries, explorers, economics, world politics, and international strategy.
- Contains: Books, manuscripts, government records and newspaper accounts
- Dates covered: 1800-1906
Americana This link opens in a new window
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1493-1975
Search all American history archival collections from Adam Matthew Publishers.
Combined search of American History, American Indian Histories and Cultures, American West, Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920, Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975, Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, and Virginia Company Archives.
American Consumer Culture This link opens in a new window
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1850-1990s
Search three archival collections representing 20th century advertising and marketing from Adam Matthew Publishers.
Combined search of Market Research & American Business, 1935-1965, Trade Catalogues and the American Home, J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America
Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 (parts I and II) This link opens in a new window
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1940-present
Primary sources from more than 35 countries related to LGBTQ activism and the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Also searchable in Gale Primary Sources.
China and the Modern World: Missionary, Sinology and Literary Periodicals, 1817-1949 This link opens in a new window
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1817-1949
Academic and literary journals, journals of sinology, and missionary periodicals in English about China.
Church Missionary Society Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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1804-2009
Newspapers, journals and reports offering the perspective of Anglican missionary administrators and workers on cultural encounters and historical events.
Defining Gender This link opens in a new window
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1500s-1920
Primary sources selected to illustrate changing views about gender, themed around conduct, domesticity, consumption and leisure, education, and the body.
Disability in the Modern World This link opens in a new window
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Features both primary and secondary sources related to disability studies, including videos, diaries, brochures, advertisements, and more.
Areas of coverage include: education, and accessibility, advocacy and rights, legislation and politics, media studies, arts, sports and culture, race, class, sexuality, and gender and war industry, and technology
Everyday Life and Women in America This link opens in a new window
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1800-1920
Primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Food and Drink in History This link opens in a new window
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9th century-2015
Cookbooks, advertising ephemera, government reports, films, and other primary sources revealing the evolution of food and drink within everyday life and the public sphere.
Food Studies Online This link opens in a new window
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1900-
Food Studies Online contains 80,000 pages of primary archival materials, images, and secondary works, plus 200 hours of documentaries and series, and visual ephemera.
Key themes and disciplines with extensive coverage represented include marketing and consumerism, production and technology, food history, food movements, culinary and food design, food and identity, health, policy, religion, sociology, anthropology, and history. Coverage from the 1940s.
Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new window
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1800-present
Primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, like women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, family and the body.
J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America This link opens in a new window
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1880s-1990s
The J. Walter Thompson Company advertising agency archives include brand case studies and account files about campaigns for Kellogg’s, Kodak, Kraft, Oscar Mayer, Pan Am, the US Marine Corps, and more.
Part of the American Consumer Culture combined search portal.
Jewish Life in America This link opens in a new window
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1654-1954
Organizational and personal archival collections including rare printed books and pamphlets from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York.
Latino-Hispanic American Experience: Leaders, Writers, and Thinkers This link opens in a new window
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1800-1960
Primary sources related to Hispanic-American writers and activists in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism This link opens in a new window
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1850-1980
Archival material from the travel agency Thomas Cook, a pioneer of package tourism. Includes periodicals such as the Excursionist magazine, personal accounts from travelers on early Cook’s tours, photographs, advertising brochures, guidebooks, posters and ephemeral items.
London Low Life This link opens in a new window
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1800-1910
Primary sources like ballads, slang dictionaries, brothel guides and posters sold on the street during the 19th century in London.
Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window
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1937-1960
Personal diaries, surveys, questionnaires, photos and printed research done about everyday lives of ordinary British people.
Social research organization Mass Observation was founded in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film-maker Humphrey Jennings and poet Charles Madge, who recruited a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers to document their experiences as evidence for a study of the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain.
Medical Services and Warfare This link opens in a new window
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1850s-1930s
Primary sources from Crimean War, the American Civil War and the First World War tell the story of medical advances during warfare, including the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927.
Medieval Family Life This link opens in a new window
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1400-1500
Letters from the British Paston, Stonor, Cely, Plumpton and Armburgh Papers reveal the world of medieval family, business, relationships, trade, politics and community.
Migration to New Worlds This link opens in a new window
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1800-1924
Primary sources like personal accounts, correspondence, maps, plans and photos documenting the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia.
Popular Culture in Britain and America This link opens in a new window
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1950-1975
Primary sources documenting music and popular culture in the US and Britain, 1950-1975, including manuscripts, video, photos, underground magazines and more.
Part of Americana combined search portal
Popular Medicine in America This link opens in a new window
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1800-1900
Advertising pamphlets, trade cards, posters and promotional work by commercial manufacturers of medical aids revealing trends such as phrenology, herbal medicine and hydrotherapy.
Post-War Europe: Refugees, Exile and Resettlement This link opens in a new window
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1945-1950
Records from the National Archives of the UK reveal challenges facing Displaced Persons, refugees and humanitarian aid organizations in the aftermath of World War II.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
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1490-2007
Case studies documenting slavery in America, the Caribbean, Brazil and Cuba, along with material examining European, Islamic and African involvement in the slave trade.
Socialism on Film This link opens in a new window
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1918-1990
Documentaries, newsreels and feature films that reveal the 20th century world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, British and Latin American filmmakers.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. Covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
Trade Catalogues and the American Home This link opens in a new window
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1850-1950
Primary sources like catalogs, price lists, and brochures reflecting the history of consumer advertising and marketing and life and leisure in America. Includes department store catalogs, cosmetic advertisements, real estate brochures and much more.
Part of the American Consumer Culture combined search portal.
The Transformation of Shopping: Department Stores, Social Change and Consumerism 1830-1994 This link opens in a new window
Dates covered: 1830-1994
Primary sources illustrating the sociocultural history of department stores from the mid-19th through late 20th centuries. Contains company archives, union records, trade journals, advertisements, catalogs, business to business publications, business to consumer publications, and more.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new window
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1818-1974
Travel writing in manuscripts, diaries and correspondence as well as drawings, guidebooks and photographs.
Victorian Popular Culture This link opens in a new window
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- Good for: Finding primary sources related to popular entertainment in America, Britain, and Europe.
- Contains: Books, posters, scrapbooks, and optical toys.
- Dates covered: 1779-1930.
Women's Suffrage Collection This link opens in a new window
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1849-1913
Newspaper collections deliver an in-depth look at the eighty-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote.
The Lily. 1849-1856
National Citizen and Ballot Box. 1878-1881
The Revolution. 1868-1872
The New Citizen. 1909-1912
The Western Woman Voter. 1911-1913
The Remonstrance. 1890-1913
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires This link opens in a new window
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1820-present
Primary sources highlighting the voices of colonized women, including in China, Japan, the Philippines, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and Balkans, and South Africa. Includes Native American women, also American women in Guatemala and China.
Women and Social Movements in the United States This link opens in a new window
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1600-2000
Books, images, historical documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies which document reform activities by and affecting women.
Women in the National Archives This link opens in a new window
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1903-1962
Original documents from the National Archives on the suffrage question in Britain, the Empire and colonial territories.
Part of the Archives Direct combined search portal.
World’s Fairs This link opens in a new window
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1851-2000s
Official records, monographs, publicity, artwork and artifacts about world’s fairs, exhibitions and expos.

Digitized collections of books published during different time periods.

Gerritsen Collection-Women's History Online, 1543-1945 This link opens in a new window
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1543-1945
Books and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights.

Digitized photos and art images.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Photography This link opens in a new window
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- Good for: Texts on the invention and early history of photography, collections of photographs, photograph albums, and early books illustrated with photos.
- Contains: Books, photographs
- Dates covered: 1800s-early 1900s
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
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Art digital images and related data.
A repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, social sciences and related data; the tools to actively use those images; and a restricted usage environment that seeks to balance the rights of content providers with the needs and interests of content user.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog This link opens in a new window
Images held by the Prints and Photographs division of the Library of Congress.
The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and other units of the Library of Congress. About 90% of the records are accompanied by one or more digital images. In some collections, only thumbnail images display to those searching outside the Library of Congress because of potential rights considerations.

Life Photo Archive
Millions of news and editorial photographs and other images dating from 1750 to the present. Includes many iconic images, but most were never published.
NYPL Digital Photo Collections
Includes several fashion design collections as well as many historical photos from the NY Public Library.
Smithsonian Photography Initiative
Online database of photographs dating from the 1850s to the present. Subjects cover the arts and literature, culture and society, nature and science, industry and technology, history and geography. Includes both professional photos and amateur snapshots.
UNLV digital photo collections
Search collection of photos of Nevadans and more held in UNLV Libraries Special Collections and Archives.

These links allow you to search across multiple databases at the same time.

AM Explorer This link opens in a new window
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1493-1975
Search all archival collections from Adam Matthew Publishers.
Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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Includes 19th Century UK Periodicals, Archives of Sexuality & Gender (LGBTQ History), British Library Newspapers, The Economist (1843-2014), Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, Sabin Americana (1500-1926), China and the Modern World, London Times Digital Archive, and London Times Literary Supplement.
Historical U.S. Newspapers from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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1841-2000 with some more recent
Search all ProQuest U.S. historical newspaper collections simultaneously.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender‎ (1909 - 1975)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune‎ (1849 - 1993)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Christian Science Monitor‎ (1908 - 2003)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times‎ (1881 - 1993)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times‎ (1851 - 2013)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Tribune‎ (1841 - 1922)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post‎ (1877 - 2000)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: U.S. West, including Reno Gazette-Journal (1876-2008), San Francisco Examiner (1889-2007), and Spokane Statesman-Review (1894-2009)
Historical Periodicals from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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1740-1940 with some more recent
Search all ProQuest historical periodical collections simultaneously.
American Periodicals‎ (1740 - 1940)
British Periodicals‎ (1681 - 1939)
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive‎ (1880 - 2000)
The Harper's Bazaar Archive‎ (1867 - current)
Periodicals Archive Online‎
The Vogue Archive‎
Women's Magazine Archive‎ (1846 - 2005)
The Women's Wear Daily Archive‎
Readex AllSearch This link opens in a new window
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1639-1922
Combined search of American historical newspapers (1690-1922), printed books (1639-1819), and pamphlets and ephemera (1749-1922).
Search all collections of historical primary sources from Readex simultaneously: America's Historical Newspapers, American Broadsides and Ephemera; American Pamphlets; Early American Imprints (Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker).

Accessible Archives combined search
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Cross search 19thC American periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, and clippings.
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Collections include African American Newspapers, The Civil War A Newspaper Perspective, Godey's Lady's Book, South Carolina Newspapers (colonial), and antislavery and woman suffrage publications.
EBSCO 19th C periodicals
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Cross search American Antiquarian Society periodicals with African American Serials, Gateway to North America collections.

History: Primary Sources by Era or Topic

Las Vegas women

Women's history: Primary Source Collections

Women's history in Special Collections and Archives

PIONEERS

GAMING

POLITICIANS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS

POLITICAL AND COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS

WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS

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