Monthly Archives: September 2023

New: Women’s Studies Archive: Issues and Identities

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[Partially re-blogged from the History Faculty Library blog]

As we continue to grow our eresources collections on women’s history, we are pleased to announce that Oxford researchers now have access to Women’s Studies Archive: Issues and Identities.

Home page of the resource showing a search box and an image of a line of suffragettes holding a poster which reads "Mr Presidents, how long must women wait for liberty".

National Woman’s Party members picket outside the White House in 1917 with the message, “Mr. President, How long must women wait for Liberty” Source: Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman’s Party, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 12 © Gale Cengage

This collection traces the path of women’s issues in the 19th and 20th centuries, drawing on primary sources from manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, and more. It captures the foundation of women’s movements, struggles and triumphs, and provides researchers with valuable insights. It focusses on the social, political, and professional achievements of women, the pioneers of women’s movements, and is useful to understand the issues that have affected women and the many contributions they have made to society.

It is, however, more generally also a useful resource to research WWI, WWII, social and economic conditions, and world events in the 20th century, as described and seen from women’s perspectives and revealed in periodicals, correspondence and papers.

Individual source collections of particular interest to US historians are:

  • Periodicals and newsletters from the Herstory Collection, tracing the women’s rights movement in the US and abroad; alongside primary source collections focused on women’s health/mental health and the law.
  • Manuscript records of key women involved in political movements, missionary work or American pioneer activities.
  • Records of the Committee of Fifteen (1900-1901), a private group based in New York who collected evidence of “vice” – prostitution and gambling- to spur local authorities into action and promote anti-vice legislation.
  • Records of the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) and its founders.
  • Records of political anti-war movements, such as the Woman’s Peace Party (1914-1920), the Women’s Peace Union (1921-1940) and the United States section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) (1919-1959).
  • Files from two key grassroots feminist organisations based in Boston and San Francisco, which were part of the second-wave feminist movement.
  • Records from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, including records from it’s predecessors (American Birth Control League and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau). Documents include minutes of meetings, conferences, subject files, correspondence and personal papers of key founders.

You can search across the above collections and other Gale databases via Gale Primary Sources. Please note that you will need to use your Single Sign On to access these resources.

New: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World

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[Partially re-blogged from the History Faculty Library blog]

We are delighted to announce that Oxford researchers now have access to Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive, part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World.

This collection provides access to a wide range of materials to help understand the inception of slavery in Africa and its rise as perpetuated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, with particular focus on the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.

It covers a wide spectrum of subjects related to the history of slavery: legal issues; economics; the Caribbean; children and women under slavery; modes of resistance; and much more, from 1490 to 1896.

This collection will be of interest to those studying the broader institution of slavery. Individual source collections of particular interest to US historians are:

  • Correspondence to the US Secretary of the Navy from the Officers of the Africa Squadron, a US-British manned squadron which patrolled the West African Coast to intercept and search slave trading ships.
  • Legal documents, including backgrounds, proceedings and prior rulings related to The Amistad slave rebellion, which became an important rallying point for the abolitionist cause.
  • Manuscript collections related to enslaved and free people of colour in New Orleans, such as deeds and estate appraisals, bank and tax files, military rosters, bills of lading, and many other municipal materials.
  • US Customs Service Records for New Orleans, documenting the transfer of incoming and outgoing enslaved persons from the port. These important records include key details such as names, destinations, enslavers and shippers.
  • The papers of Oliver Pollock, a former commercial agent of New Orleans and Virginia, who was a major financier of the American Revolutionary War, primarily through his role in the slave trade.
  • Collections from the British Library, such as the letter books of the Virginia Colony (1634-41) and manuscript collections from the Egerton Collection of official papers relating to the English settlements in America, 1627-1699.

You can search across the above collections and other Gale databases via Gale Primary Sources. Please note that you will need to use your Single Sign On to access these resources.