LibGuides: Women, Gender & Sexuality: Primary &amp; Secondary Sources

Primary and Secondary Resources from the Library

Archives of Sexuality & Gender This link opens in a new window
Searchable primary sources in sex, sexuality, and gender, such as newspapers, newsletters, and other periodicals.
Rice University owns access to the following modules:

Part I: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940
Part II: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940
Part III: Sex and Sexuality in the 16th through 20th Centuries
Part IV: Global Diversity
Part V: L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Black Women Writers: African, African American, and Diaspora This link opens in a new window
Fiction, poetry, and essays from Black women writers from Africa and the African diaspora.
This is one of three modules of Black Writing Collection that Fondren has access to, as well as Black Short Fiction and Folklore and Caribbean Literature.
Defining Gender (1450-1910) This link opens in a new window
Searchable text of papers, travel writing, advice literature, government documents, correspondence, pamphlets, manuscripts, literature, ephemera, and other documents on gender and women's history produced in Britain from the 16th-early twentieth centuries.
Key topics can be explored in five thematic areas:
- Conduct and Politeness
- Domesticity and the Family
- Consumption and Leisure
- Education and Sensibility
- The Body
Everyday Life & Women in America This link opens in a new window
This database "is a resource for the study of American social, cultural and popular history, providing access to rare primary source material from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes. The collection is especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, offering vivid insights into the daily lives of women and men, as well as emphasizing contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures (Adam Matthew)."
Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new window
"Explore essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, and the struggle for women’s rights, from the nineteenth century to the present (Adam Matthew)."
Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online This link opens in a new window
Includes more that 4,700 books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the revolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. Materials will span four centuries (1543-1945) and 15 languages.
Godey's Lady's Book This link opens in a new window
Published from 1830-1880 in Philadelphia, Louis Antoine Godey's publication initially included extensive fashion descriptions and plates, biographical sketches and articles about a variety of subjects. Gradually the periodical matured into an important literary magazine and contained works by significant 19th century authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edgar Allen Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
In Response to the AIDS Crisis: Records of the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 1983-1994 This link opens in a new window
This archive consists of "briefing books, hearing and meeting transcripts, reports, and press clippings document the activities of the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome from 1983-1994 (Gale)."
LGBT Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Magazines serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and related communities are often the principal source of documentation on LGBT+ cultures, lives, and events. Dating back to the 1950s, this collection features major periodicals devoted to LGBT+ interests, covering prominent topics like health, lifestyle, politics, social attitudes, law, activism, LGBT rights, arts and literature (ProQuest).
Currently ten titles are available on this newly launched database: The Advocate; Albatross; Erie Gay News; Gay News; Gay Times; Homosexual Counseling Journal; Just for Us; The Pink Paper; RainbowWeddingNetwork Magazine; Transgender Tapestry.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Sex and Sexuality This link opens in a new window
This collection includes the unpublished papers of prominent sexologists, sex researchers, societies, advocacy groups and campaigners working during the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, including correspondence between professional and private individuals, autobiographical accounts, official records and literary works (Adam Matthew). Fondren Library owns access to Module I: Research Collections from the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections and Module II: Self-Expression, Community and Identity
Module I focuses on sexology and the work of sex researchers, combining advice sought by members of the public with the corresponding answers, thoughts on research proposals and work sent by academics and medical professionals to the Kinsey Institute. It also includes pamphlets and flyers from various organisations and advocacy groups, discussions surrounding sexual behaviours, and the corpus of donated work from researchers looking at specific areas – for example Alice Field, who worked specifically on sex offenders in New York and young girls remanded for prostitution in the wayward minors court.

In Module II explore LGBTQI+ individual personal histories from the late-nineteenth century to the present day; discover accounts of grass-roots organisations, self-expression in the form of diaries and correspondence, and the personal stories of LGBTQI+ activism. This essential resource provides a significant insight into the complex and myriad identities of human sexuality by making available official records of pressure groups and community organisations, diaries and correspondence, photographs, objects, erotic fiction, papers of noted sexologists and more, sourced from archives in the US, UK and Australia.
(Adam Matthew)
Women's Studies This link opens in a new window
This collections covers four centuries providing a multitude of perspectives on the changing roles of women in history. It includes the works of many notable and influential women as well as those by forgotten and ordinary women (Adam Matthew).
Highlights include:
-Papers and rare printed works of important female writers and thinkers;
-Life writing and autobiographies of a range of 18th and 19th century women;
-The papers of Sylvia Pankhurst, suffragette, political activist and campaigner;
-Diaries and correspondence of aristocratic women, giving insights into the social, political and cultural history of rich and powerful women of the 18th and 19th centuries; and
-Women's travel writing - manuscript and printed accounts of women travellers, missionaries, tourists and women living across the British Empire.
Women's Studies Archive, Parts 1-4 This link opens in a new window
"This collection traces the path of women’s issues from past to present—pulling primary sources from manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, and more.... It focuses on the social, political, and professional achievements of women (Gale)." Fondren owns access to Women's Studies Archives, Part 1: Women's Issues and Identities; Part 2: Voice and Vision; Part 3: Rare Titles from the American Antiquarian Society (1820-1922) and Part 4: Female Forerunners Worldwide.
This collection covers "important topics including: the History of Feminist Theory and Activism; domestic culture; lay and ordained church women; women in industry; women's sexuality and gender expression; women’s education; women’s movement; women’s health and mental health; women and law; women and the control of their bodies; and women’s roles and interactions within society (Gale)."
The individual collections in this database are:
● Collected Records of the Women's Peace Party: 1914-1920
● Committee of Fifteen Records,1900-1901
● European Women's Periodicals
● The Herstory Collection
● Grassroots Feminist Organizations, Part 1: Boston Area Second Wave Organizations, 1968-1998
● Grassroots Feminist Organizations, Part 2: San Francisco Women's Building / Women's Centers, 1972-1998
● Malthusian, 1879-1921 (formerly Women and the Social Control of Their Bodies)
● Planned Parenthood Federation of America Records, 1918-1974
● Records of the Women's Peace Union: 1921-1940
● Women and Health/Mental Health
● Women and Law Collection
● Women's Lives
● Women's Labour League: Conference Reports and Journals, 1906-1977
● Women's Trade Union League and Its Leaders
● Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom: United States Section, 1919-1959
Women, War and Society, 1914-1918 This link opens in a new window
"The First World War had a revolutionary and permanent impact on the personal, social and professional lives of all women. Their essential contribution to the war in Europe is fully documented in this definitive collection of primary source materials (Gale)."
Women and Social Movements, International - 1840 to Present This link opens in a new window
"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 (Alexander Street Press)."
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires Since 1820 This link opens in a new window
This archive explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices and 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 (Alexander Street).
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
This project combines the power of a database with a peer-reviewed journal. It includes more than 2,700 authors, primary documents, books, images, essays, book and website reviews and teaching tools (Alexander Street Press).
Fondren's access includes the Series II update, the 2021 edition and the 2022 edition.
Women in the National Archives This link opens in a new window
This collection consists of: 1) a finding aid to women's studies resources in the National Archives; and 2) original documents that cover the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928, and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962 (Adam Matthew)."
The finding aid is the result of a five-year project by staff at The National Archives in the mid-1990s and enables researchers to quickly locate details of documents at TNA relating to women. This finding aid is far more detailed and extensive than anything available elsewhere online and has the benefit of ranging across all of the document classes TNA hold.
Women Writers Online This link opens in a new window
A product of the Women Writers Project, WWO includes the several hundred texts from women authors from 1400 through 1850. Introductions to the works, contextual and topical essays also are available.

Primary and Secondary Resources from the Internet

Epistolae: Medieval Women's Letters
A collection of letters to and from women in the Middle Ages from the 4th to the 13th century. The letters are written in Latin and are linked by the names of the women involved to English translations, biographical sketches, and more.
Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index
Journal articles, book reviews, and essays about women, sexuality, and gender in the Middle Ages.
Monastic Matrix
A scholarly resource for the study of women's religious communities from 400 to 1600 AD.

Suffragettes in Parade

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Safragettes in Parade