New Resources for Women’s History Month

We have recently acquired two new collections that will be of interest to researchers in women’s history: The Women’s Magazine Archive 1 and The Women’s Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library.

Proquest’s Women’s Magazine Archive 1 provides electronic access to six women’s magazines, from their first issues to 2005: Better Homes & Gardens, Chatelaine, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, Parents, and Redbook.  The rich primary source material in The Women’s Magazine Archive 1 is provided in color with fully searchable text.

While The Women’s Magazine Archive 1 documents culture, fashion, parenting, and domestic life, Proquest History Vault’s Women’s Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study includes primary materials on voting rights, national politics, and reproductive rights.

Acquiring The Women’s Studies Manuscript Collections in digital format significantly improves access for researchers, since the Schlesinger materials were previously available on microfilm, only. The voting rights materials encompass the struggle for voting rights for women at the national, regional, and local levels. The papers of national voting rights leaders such as Julia Ward Howe, Anna Howard Shaw, and Matilda Gage, as well as the papers of state and local leaders such as Catherine Waugh McCulloch of Illinois, Olympia Brown of Wisconsin, and Nellie Nugent Summerville of Mississippi are part of the collection. The collection also includes the papers of women who were engaged in national politics in general, such as Mary Dewson and Jeannette B. Rankin. In addition, the collection features records from the Schlesinger Library’s family planning oral history project and the records of Mary Ware Dennett and the Voluntary Parenthood League.    

by Jennifer Elder, WGSS and psychology librarian