LibGuides: Women's History Month: Library resources

Database Highlights

Women in the National Archives database image

Gender identity and politics database image

Finding Resources using Library Search

Library Search

Search for textbooks, ebooks, journals, articles + more. Library Search LibGuide available for guidance.

Useful Links

Databases for Women's History Research

Use the tabs to discover a small selection of some of the online databases available that relate to women's history.

To access the full range of databases, use the Database A-Z List or for digital archives in particular, look at the Women's History section of the Primary Sources guide.

Online archives

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Black Women Writers This link opens in a new window Black Women Writers presents 100,000 pages of literature and essays on feminist issues, written by authors from Africa and the African diaspora. Coverage begins in the 18th century with narratives depicting slavery, moves through and beyond the Harlem Renaissance, and includes writers from the movements of the 1960s, covering womanism, black feminism, and related topics.
British and Irish Womens Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 90,000 pages of diaries and letters, spanning from the 1550s to the 1950s. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
British Online Archives This link opens in a new window Digital primary source collections, covering a wide range of historical topics.
Permanent access is available to all collections.
British Women Trade Unionists on Strike at Bryant & May, 1888 This link opens in a new window These papers combine business records from Bryant and May with press coverage of the matchwomen's strike over their working conditions in 1888. Photographs of the women who were involved are also included.
Defining Gender This link opens in a new window UK primary source materials from 1450 to 1910 relating to the study of history, literature, sociology and education from a gendered perspective. Documents include ephemera, pamphlets & periodicals, education documents, books, personal writings, business records, government papers, ballads and literature.
Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920 This link opens in a new window Unique primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Feminism in Cuba, 1898-1958 This link opens in a new window Mostly Spanish-language documents relating to Cuban feminism, women in politics, literature by Cuban women and the legal status of Cuban women. The collection spans the period from Cuban independence to the end of the Batista regime (1898-1958), and contains memoirs, essays, journals, speeches, radio broadcasts and literary works.
Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new window Primary sources from the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia.documenting women's lived experiences of suffrage, gender roles, the feminist movement, the mens movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics. Date coverage is from the 19th century to early 21st century.
International Women's Movement: Pan Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association of the USA, 1950-1985 This link opens in a new window Founded in 1928 to strengthen international understanding and friendship among the women of Asia and the Pacific and and women of the U.S.A. Documents included cover 1938-2006 and cover the full range of the association's activities.
Jane Austen Manuscripts Online This link opens in a new window Online access to the collective works of Jane Austen’s fiction manuscripts.
Perdita Manuscripts This link opens in a new window The Perdita Project was set up to find and digitise early modern women authors who were lost because their writing existed only in manuscript form. The digitised manuscripts in this collection were written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the 16th and 17th centuries. Content includes accounts and receipt books, diaries, biographies, prose, poetry, psalms, travel writing, historical writing and more.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new window Popular Culture explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia.
Sex & Sexuality This link opens in a new window Access to collections from prominent sex researchers and sexologists. Papers from Dr. John Money and Dr. Harry Benjamin document advances in areas such as diverse as biology, health and medicine, sociology, anthropology, and psychology, whilst collected research from Alice Withrow Field and James W. Edwards offer important investigations into criminology and global attitudes towards sex. Covering early 19th to the early 21st centuries.
Struggle for Women's Rights: Organizational Records, 1880-1990 This link opens in a new window Comprised of the records of three important women's rights organisations in the U.S.: the National Woman's Party, the League of Women Voters, and the Women's Action Alliance. Issues covered include employment and employment discrimination, childcare, health care, politics and education.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new window Hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Includes unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs. The resource also includes a gallery with hundreds of items of visual material, including postcards, sketches and photographs.
Women and Social Movements: Development and the Global South 1919-2019 This link opens in a new window Themed around efforts to foster gender equity through expanded economic and social participation of women on a global scale, this database covers activism through individual efforts, organizational initiatives, and socio-cultural projects led by or for women in the Global South. Also includes accompanying essays looking at the shifts in approaches to development.
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires Since 1820 This link opens in a new window Explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through womens' voices, particularly those of the colonized. Includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window Contains 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools, all covering the history of women in social movements.
Women and Social Movements, International: 1840 to Present This link opens in a new window Includes the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made. Coverage is global, with the largest collections covering Africa and Asia. Collections can be searched or browsed by a variety of different aspects.
Women at Work during World War II: Rosie the Riveter and the Women's Army Corps This link opens in a new window Contains the Records of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor (1918-1965), and Correspondence of the Director of the Women's Army Corps (1942-1946). Included are reports, records of bureau-sponsored conferences, speeches, articles, studies on the treatment of women by unions, community studies, subject files and correspondence. The WAC correspondence covers recruiting, public support for the WAC, personnel matters like discipline and conduct, and race.
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window Archive of leading women’s interest consumer magazines from the late-19th century to 2005. Mainly US titles, but now expanded to include major UK titles as well. Subject coverage includes gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture. Collections I, II and III available.
Women's Periodicals: Social and Political Issues This link opens in a new window Covers 1786-1933 with content from the U.K. and the U.S. as well as some French, German and Icelandic publications. Includes titles published by men, for women; titles published by male editors with strong input from female assistant editors/; and titles conceived and published by women, for women.
Women's Studies This link opens in a new window Printed and manuscript sources over four centuries, providing a multitude of perspectives on the changing roles of women in history. This collection offers access to the works and legacy of many notable and influential women, but also a chance to hear the voices of forgotten and ordinary women. Covering mainly 18th to early 20th century.

American National Biography Online This link opens in a new window Access to thousands of biographies of the individuals who have shaped American history. Intuitive search and browse options are available to facilitate searching by name, date, occupation and more.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography This link opens in a new window Online reference work for information about people who have helped shape British history, life and culture. The Dictionary offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors.

American Film Institute Catalog This link opens in a new window An index of American film from 1893-present.
Box of Broadcasts This link opens in a new window An online service for off-air recording, media streaming and archiving of TV and radio programmes from all scheduled free to air broadcast channels. BoB provides a facility for recording, creating clips and playlists of programmes.
Kanopy This link opens in a new window Online video streaming platform. Includes critically-acclaimed movies, inspiring documentaries, award-winning foreign films and more. Films are discoverable via Library Search.

Women's History Month: Library resources

Database Highlights

Finding Resources using Library Search

Library Search

Useful Links

Databases for Women's History Research

Recommend a book