New: Women’s Studies Archive: Issues and Identities

[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 Databases from Archives Unbound!

I am pleased to report that the VHL has committed funding towards four new databases from the Archives Unbound collections from Gale.

These four collections are now available for all Bodleian readers to use, and can be found in SOLO or our Database A-Z. You can find out more about each collection below. Their topics range from the American Confederacy, religion, politics and African American movements in 1930s/40s America.

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

Confederate Newspapers: A Collection from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama

This collection is a mixture of issues and papers from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama ranging from 1861-1865. These newspapers “recorded the real and true history of public opinion during the war. In their columns is to be found the only really correct and indicative ‘map of busy life, its fluctuations and its vast concerns’ in the South, during her days of darkness and of trial.” The newspapers are text-searchable, and include advertisements. Topics include everyday life in the Confederacy, as well as discussions of the Civil War and Slavery.

You can access this database directly here.

Election of 1948

This collection provides documents and the perspectives of the four base camps from the 1948 United States presidential election: Democrat incumbent President and eventual victor Harry S. Truman (1884–1972; U.S. President, 1945–1953), Republican and New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (1902–1971), Progressive and former Vice President Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965) and Dixiecrat and South Carolina Governor J. Strom Thurmond (1902–2003). Sources include Papers of Harry S Truman, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, Papers of Americans for Democratic Action as well as selections from several southern newspapers. These sources show the political landscape of the United States post-WWII, and the growing tensions within the country.

You can access this database directly here.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Race Relations, 1933-1945

This new series contains a collection of essential materials for the study of the early development of the Civil Rights Movement-concerned with the issues of Lynching, Segregation, Race riots, and Employment discrimination. FDR’s record on civil rights has been the subject of much controversy. This new collection from FDR’s Official File provides insight into his political style and presents an instructive example of how he balanced moral preference with political realities. Topics also include the migration of African Americans to northern states, the role of Eleanor Roosevelt in championing equal rights and racial justice, and reports on key individuals and organisations, such as the NAACP.

You can access this database directly here.

Global Missions and Theology

This collection documents the broad range of Nineteenth Century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States by reproducing pivotal personal narratives, organizational records, and biographies of the essential leaders, simple missionaries, and churches. This collection includes materials on missionary activities among Native Americans and African Americans, both slaves and freedmen. In addition, it highlights activities in far-flung regions and countries, such as Africa, Fiji and Sandwich Islands, India, China, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Hawaii.

You can access this database directly here.

 

New online resources: Jet Magazine Archive and more!

I am pleased to report that the Vere Harmsworth Library has used funds to purchase the Jet Magazine Archive for Bodleian Readers.

Jet Magazine Archive covers the civil rights movement, politics, education, and other social topics with an African American focus. When completed, it will include over 3,000 issues providing a broad view of news, culture, and entertainment from its first issue in 1951 through 2014.

Users can search across the articles using full-text search, or select specific issues, years or themes. Each article is indexed with relevant keywords. Researchers can also view images and advertisements within each issue.

Our previous trial only provided access to the issues released from 1980-1989. Our access now includes issues published from 1970-2014, the bulk of the archive. Issues published from 1951-1969 will become available in the coming weeks.

Currently the database has only released the issues from the 1980-1989, which are the issues available during our Trial.

You can access Jet Magazine Archive using your Single Sign On here.

The Bodleian Libraries have also purchased new resources which you may find of interest. You can find out more about them via the History Faculty Library blogpost, but two resources of particular interest to Americanists include:

Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part 1

These diverse collections will be of interest to those studying modern American history, society and culture. Key coverage includes:

  • Records and papers of key organisations: ACT UP, Gay Activists Alliance, Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society of New York.
  • Government records and official papers for the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 1983-1994, and on the Bush Administration and the AIDS Crisis.
  • American newsletters and periodicals from key archival collections, such as: the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Historical Society and the Lesbian Herstory Archives, including some of the oldest LGBTQ periodicals published in America.
  • The Lesbian Herstory Archives subject files, which provides the most a hugely detailed information bank on lesbians throughout history, and the Herstory Feminist Newspapers collection, which is composed of US Newspapers written by, about and for women from the 20th Century, at a national and regional level.
  • Personal papers of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin (both as part of the Daughters of Bilitis and their wider involvement with the women’s rights movement and other social movements).
  • Personal papers of Donald Steward Lucas, (both as part of the Mattachine Society, and the wider homophile movement.)

This is alongside coverage from British and International organisations, governments and newspapers/periodicals. Access here (note that you will need to use your Single Sign on to access).

Kanopy

We now have access to videos in the Kanopy Film Archive, a huge collection of documentaries, classic films and original creations. Collections include those focused on diversity, current events and “Campus Collections”. Films can be saved as favourites, and the majority include closed captions and transcripts. This great resource is a real treasure trove!

Access here (note that you will need to use your Single Sign on to access. You will be asked to create your own personal account, but you don’t need to create one in order to view the films.)

 

 

Requesting US Elections Campaigns Archive material via the Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts catalogue

You may have seen the recent news regarding the new online request service for Bodleian Archives and Manuscripts. 

However, not all archival material can be requested using this service, and this includes the Philip & Rosamund Davies US Elections Campaigns Archive, which is housed in the Vere Harmsworth Library. However, you can still use the Bodleian Archives and Manuscripts catalogue to view the catalogue records of the wonderful collection, and send email requests for individual items of interest.

When visiting the catalogue page for the US Elections Campaigns Archive, use the blue box on the right hand side of the page to Navigate across the Collection. The Archive is ordered via election type (Presidential/Congressional/State and Local), and by Party and Interest Groups. You can then use the Navigate tool to narrow down the items to material format (e.g. posters/buttons) and years.

A blue box showing the search option, which is at the top, and navigation tool for the US Elections Archive on the Bodleian Archives and Manuscripts webpage. The navigation tool has been used to narrow results to literature materials for the Presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive) in the 1912 election.

Use the Search tool (near the top) or the Navigation tool to search through the archive.

Alternatively you can use the Search function to search across the collections for individual names or policies.

Search results for "Prohibition."

This is an example search of the Archive. You can use the filters on the left side to search within your results or narrow them down to specific years.

When viewing an individual item that you would live to view, click the blue Request This button at the top left of the page. This will bring up a similar message to the one below, which advises you that the material can be viewed at the Vere Harmsworth Library and noting the item shelfmark (please make a note of this when putting through your requests, as this is essential for locating the material you wish to view).

An example message which will appear when you Request an item from the US Elections Campaigns Archive. In the right hand corner of the message is a blue Send Email button.

An example message which will appear when you request an item from the Archive.

Click Send Email and an automatic email form will appear, with the Bodleian Special Collections email address already included. Special Collections will then triage any requests to the relevant team, which for the US Elections Campaigns Archive, would be the VHL Librarian.

Note that any consultation of the US Elections Campaigns Archive would need to be held at the Vere Harmsworth Library, and be supervised at all times by the VHL Librarian. Please allow at least two days (preferably longer) for the VHL Librarian to locate requested items and organise the materials for viewing.

Materials are being actively added to the Archive by the donor on a regular basis, and some materials have not yet been catalogued. A recent cataloguing project means that post-2010 material will be added soon to the Archives & Manuscripts Catalogue. However, if you would like to ask any questions about more recent material available in the Archive, or if you have any general questions about the Archive, please email the Vere Harmsworth Librarian (bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

New in Oxford: Time and The Atlantic magazine archive

I am pleased to announce the the Vere Harmsworth Library has purchased the online archives for The Atlantic and Time magazines.

Both of these magazines greatly add to our 20th Century newspaper and magazine holdings, and provide fascinating primary resources for modern American history, politics and culture.

Time magazine archive (1923-2000)

Published weekly by Time Inc., Time Magazine has focused on conveying to a broad audience both domestic and international news and analysis on a spectrum of subjects.

Intended to be read in under an hour, each issue of Time contains reports of national and international current events, politics, sports, and entertainment. Capturing the relevant news for a given week, the magazine remains an important resource for researchers studying just about any aspect of 20th-Century history and life.

Four covers from Time Magazine's past editions.

An example of magazine covers from Time magazine. Top row, from left to right: Clarke Gable (August 31st, 1936); Jackie Robinson (September 22nd, 1947). Bottom row, from left to right: Richard Nixon (November 5th, 1973, “The Push to Impeach”); Ronald Regan (January 5th, 1981, “The Man of the Year”)

 

Articles and cover pages are fully indexed and advertisements are individually identified, ensuring researchers and readers can quickly and accurately locate the information they seek. The Time Magazine Archive is valuable to researchers of 20th-Century current events, politics and culture, as well as those interested in the history of business, advertising, and popular culture.

The archival collection compliments our current online access to Time magazine via EBSCO Business Source Complete (1990-current), alongside our physical collection held in the BSF.

The Atlantic magazine archive (1857-2014)

The Atlantic was originally created with a focus on publishing leading writers’ commentary on abolition, education and other major issues in contemporary political affairs at the time. Over its more than 150 years of publication. It has featured articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, science and more.

Some of the founding sponsors of the magazine include prominent writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Greenleaf Whittier.

Images of the front covers of the Atlantic Magazine.

Examples of front covers of The Atlantic Magazine. Top row, from left to right: November 1947 (90th Anniversary special); April 1956 (Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman). Bottom row, from left to right: September 2008 (Special Election issue); March 2012 (Special Commemorative Issue to mark 150th anniversary of the Civil War.)

 

The Atlantic Magazine Archive, covers events and political issues through literary and cultural commentary. It includes more than 1,800 issues providing a broad view of 19th, 20th and early 21st-Century American thought.

You may also be interested in our other periodical resources such as The National Review, The Nation, The New Republic and Vogue. For more information on our newspaper and periodicals, please visit our online guide.

New in Oxford: Black Thought and Culture

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Following a trial period, and positive feedback from readers, I am pleased to announce that the Vere Harmsworth Library has purchased access to the online resource, Black Thought and Culture.

This impressive database contains a collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts.

The collection spans from the works of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and Ida B. Wells Barnett, to Zora Neal Hurston, Audra Lorde, and Jesse Jackson. Most notably, the collection includes items previously undigitized, and difficult to obtain, such as:

  • The transcript of the Muhammad Ali trial
  • A full run of The Black Panther newspaper, with full-colour images of every page as well as searchable text
  • 2,500 pages of exclusive Black Panther oral histories owned by the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation
  • Selected audio files, heard here for the first time
  • the full run of Artist and Influence journal, tracking African American cultural trends in the 20th Century.

This resource will be of interest to those interested in African American history, politics, literature and culture.

You may access the resource here.

American National Biography Update: March 2021

Believing that the life of a nation is told by the lives of its people, the American National Biography consists of over 19,000 scholarly biographies of significant, influential, or notorious figures from American history. The latest update to the American National Biography adds thirteen new essays in celebration of Women’s History Month.

New additions include Nina Allender (1872­–1957), who merged art and activism to have a lasting effect on the women’s suffrage movement. Allender’s art aimed to entertain, but the imagery provided important commentary on politics, race, and gender. She also collaborated with Alice Paul to promote the National Woman’s Party’s positions in her illustrations. Allender carved out new space for professional female artists and activists within social movements and in public life. Her work challenged decades of negative anti-suffrage cartoons and advanced a new (and lasting) stereotype of suffragists as fashionable, young, white women.

Alice Coachman (1923­–2014), track and field sensation who in 1948 became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, in the high jump event. A lifelong competitor whose athleticism propelled her from poverty, segregation, and gender constraints to international triumph, Coachman is now revered as a civil rights pioneer. She presented as demurely feminine off the track and scorched competitors on it, proving her worth in elite global contests and challenging racism and sexism by virtue of her success. She set the standard in U.S. track and field for Wilma Rudolph, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Allyson Felix, and other black women athletes who, since 1948, have realized their own potential because of her leadership in American sports.

Angel De Cora (1868 or 1869–1919), Winnebago artist and educator who insisted on the inherent artistic ability of indigenous people and the distinctiveness of the art they produced. De Cora promoted an alternative to the European American aesthetic, arguing that Indian art be viewed by its own standards rather than European American ones. She simultaneously pushed for recognition of Native American productions as art rather than ethnographic artifacts and aimed to establish Native American art as a cultural category in mainstream American society

Alvenia Fulton (1906–1999), African American health food promoter and celebrity dietitian who looked to improve community health through fasting and vegetarianism. Fulton’s sought to confront racism in whatever form it took—whether by helping black athletes and celebrities overcome racial barriers in their respective fields, helping families get healthy affordable food, or creating sustainable and anti-racist techniques for reversing heart disease. Ultimately, Fulton’s pioneering work as a healer and community leader laid the groundwork for the black vegan movement of the 21st century, with its attention to issues of health and racial equality.

Rose Winslow (1899–unknown), suffragist and labor activist whose life reveals the connections forged between working-class immigrant women and women’s middle-class reform movements in the Progressive Era. Working as a hosiery knitter and then a shopgirl, Winslow became an organizer for the National Woman’s Party, the National Consumers’ League, and the Women’s Trade Union League. Jailed for picketing the White House, she also had an audience with President Woodrow Wilson, where she made the working-class case for woman suffrage.

Neith Boyce (1872–1951) feminist-anarchist novelist and playwright whose work with the Provincetown Players made them one of the twentieth century’s most influential theater groups. She was also an important forecaster of strains on the institution of marriage as it changed during the twentieth century. Her life exemplifies how modernism was more than an artistic aesthetic; it was a new way of conceptualizing human relationships.

Maria Gertrudes “La Tules” Barceló (c.1800–1852), entrepreneur who operated the most extravagant gambling halls and saloons in nineteenth-century Santa Fe. La Tules’s saloon served as the site where men of all social standings and backgrounds gathered, including soldiers, traders, businessmen, the upper-class, and immigrants, both Anglo and Spanish. Barceló actively participated in gambling and surprised men with her winning skills in the Spanish game of Monte. Her saloon served as a bridge between New Mexicans and Euro Americans, who shared and exchanged cultural and economic commodities, and it provided a place for Euro Americans to grow accustomed to the New Mexican society.

New in Oxford: African American Periodicals

I am pleased to announce that the Vere Harmsworth Library has purchased online access to the resource African American Periodicals for the University.

 

 

 

Based on the work of James P. Danky in African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography (Harvard, 1998), this vast collection covers over 150 years of American history, from slavery up to the modern era. The collection features over 170 titles, written by and for African Americans.

Primary sources found here include news, commentary, advertisements, literature, drawings and photographs, Key titles in this unique resource include African Repository, El Mulato, The Black Warrior, Pennsylvania Freedmen’s Bulletin, Colored Harvest, Voice of the Negro, Horizon: A Journal of the Color Line, The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, Blue Helmet: A Magazine for the American Negro Soldier of All Wars, Harlem Pointer, African World, Black Pride Newsletter, Right On! and others from every region of the United States. Primary sources found here include news, commentary, advertisements, literature, drawings and photographs, helping to capture the voice of African American history and culture.

Our online platform allows our readers to search the African American Periodicals by full-text, or to browse by periodical title, historic period, or themes. Readers may also search via article type, such as advertisements, or opinion pieces. You may access the resource by clicking here

Bodleian readers may also search across our Readex databases, using Readex AllSearch. This allows researchers to cross-search across multiple primary resources, including the African American Newspapers and Ethnic American Newspapers.

Similar resources include:

If you would like any advice on using our databases or resources, please contact the Vere Harmsworth Librarian, Bethan Davies bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

New in Oxford: Black Abolitionist Papers, and more!

I am delighted to announce that access to a number of major new e-resources are now available.

The Bodleian Libraries have committed substantial external funding to a one-off set of purchases of electronic research resources deemed to be important to researchers in the University. This follows a project to identify desiderata across all subjects and to list suggestions from readers.

Of particular interest to US Studies are the Black Abolitionist Papers (1830-1865) 

This collection covers 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. The content includes letters, speeches, editorials, newspaper articles, sermons, and essays from libraries and archives in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. Over 15,000 items written by nearly 300 Black men and women are available for searching,with over 30% consisting of handwritten and unique documents.

As described on the Black Abolitionist Paper’s website 

“This collection, when first published in microfilm, literally transformed scholarly understanding of Black activism during this period. Now it is available in a searchable, easily accessible format for research, teaching, and study.”

Other resources recently purchased that may be of interest include:

Trench Journals and Unit Magazines of the First World War

Published by every type of military and support service unit, from every involved nation, trench journals were a means of expression through which men and women engaged in all aspects of World War I could share their thoughts and experiences. Over 1,500 periodicals, drawn from the holdings of major libraries and research collections, make this resource the most comprehensive collection of trench journals available to scholars anywhere in one place.

Collections can be narrowed to specific nations, languages and army units. This resource would be useful for Americanists interested in the US involvement in World War 1, the perception of US forces by other allied forces, and further social-cultural studies of US forces in the early 20th Century.

This resource brings together complete runs of journals from disparate sources. Functionality allows both browsing and precision searching for editorials, advertisements, poetry, cartoons and illustrations, photographs, and obituaries, opening up opportunities for research in multiple fields: literature, history, war studies, cultural studies, and gender studies.

Women and Social Movements, International

Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life. This digital archive includes 150,000 pages of conference proceedings, reports of international women’s organizations, publications and web pages of women’s non-governmental organizations, and letters, diaries, and memoirs of women active internationally since the mid-nineteenth century.  It also includes photographs and videos of major events and activists in the history of women’s international social movements. Additionally, there are 30 essays from leading contemporary scholars exploring themes illuminated by the primary documents in the archive.

Researchers can limit their searches to specific geographic areas, or search across resources to review information on specific themes or topics.

LGBT Magazine Archive

The resource archives of 26 leading but previously hard-to-find magazines are included in LGBT Magazine Archive, including many of the longest-running, most influential publications of this type in the US . The complete backfile of The Advocate is made available digitally for the first time. As one of the very few LGBT titles to pre-date the 1969 Stonewall riots, it spans the history of the gay rights movement.

Art and Architecture Archive

Full-text archive of periodicals (cover-to-cover colour scans) in the fields of art and architecture. Date range: 19thC – 21stC. Subjects covered include fine art, decorative arts, architecture, interior design, industrial design, and photography worldwide.

Oxford researchers should use their SSO to gain remote access. The resources can be access via SOLO or Databases A-Z.