LibGuides: Women's and Gender Studies: Primary Sources and Archival Collections

Primary Sources

What are primary sources?

Primary sources can be broadly defined as first-hand accounts from individuals with a direct connection to a topic.

Often primary sources are used in historical research, where primary sources are things that originate from the time period of study. While this may be text-based (letters, newspaper articles, etc.), primary sources can also include objects, clothing, media like music and movies, and photographs.

Outside of the historical context, primary sources are a valuable tool for analysis of the present. Contemporary primary sources can include government documents, datasets, patents, court cases, and current media like music and movies.

How do you find primary sources?

Depending on your topic, and whether your research is historical, there are lots of places where you can find primary sources! Often historical materials will be kept in archival collections. This type of collection seeks to preserve the materials for the future while still making them accessible to researchers. Many of the sources on this page are online collections that provide users with digital access to their collections.

How do primary sources relate to feminist research?

Primary sources are a really important part of feminist research because they can often be used to incorporate the voices, ideas, and knowledge of those who are traditionally excluded from academic discourse. Primary sources are a way to move these perspectives (in the words of bell hooks) "from margin to center" by including a more diverse set of voices that are usually silenced by various forms of oppression.

Online Collections and Archives

Gender History Collections

Black Women's Suffrage
The content featured in this collection explores linkages between women’s suffrage and other social causes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (anti-slavery, anti-lynching, education reform and civil rights) as well as racism within the Suffrage Movement
Women's Liberation Movement Print Culture
This collection contains manifestos, speeches, essays, and other materials documenting various aspects of the Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Women Working, 1800-1930
An exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression.

LGBT Queer Collections

Digital Transgender Archive
DTA is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.
Lesbian Herstory Archive
Founded in the 1970s, our mission is to gather and preserve records of Lesbian lives and activities so that future generations will have ready access to materials relevant to their lives.
LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory
The LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory connects archives across Canada and the U.S. to produce a digital history hub for the research and study of gay, lesbian, queer, and trans* oral histories.

Art Collections

The Ardorous
The Ardorous is a platform for female artists showcasing individual and collaborative projects between a collective of female creative professionals
Justseeds
We believe in the transformative power of personal expression in concert with collective action. To this end, we produce collective portfolios, contribute graphics to grassroots struggles for justice, work collaboratively both in- and outside the co-op, build large sculptural installations in galleries, and wheatpaste on the streets—all while offering each other daily support as allies and friends.

Pollak Library Primary Source Collections

British and Irish Womens Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
The letters and diaries in this collection were authored by women resident in Great Britain or Ireland between 1700 and 1950. They provide first person accounts of about 500 women from all age groups, ethnicities, and many geographical regions. The materials may be browsed by author, source, year, place, historical events and personal events.
Everyday Life & Women in America 1800-1920 This link opens in a new window
Everyday Life & Women in America 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.
Available through July 31, 2025
Nineteenth Century Collections Online : Women and Transnational Networks This link opens in a new window
This database provides access to periodicals, pamphlets, books, diaries, photos and other primary source materials on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late-eighteenth century to the era of suffrage in the early-twentieth century. The transnational scope predominantly features information on European and North American social movements, but also includes collections from other regions.
North American Womens Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
This large collection of digitized letters and diaries was authored by women in the United States (and, to a lesser extent, Canada and Mexico) from colonial times to 1950. The collection sheds light on the role and status of women, attitudes to specific historical and personal events, and the general life and times of various historical periods. It is particularly useful in womens studies, history, American studies, literature and linguistics. The materials can be explored by browsing by author, source, year, place, personal event (e.g. childbirth), and historical event; they may also be searched in numerous ways, including by authors nationality, race, religion, occupation, age at marriage, etc.
Women's Issues and Identities: Women's Studies Archive This link opens in a new window
Womens Issues and Identities is an archive of primary and secondary sources from across the globe that illuminate history from the female point of view. Notable collections within the archive include: Women and Health/Mental Health, Grassroots Feminist Organizations, Women and the Law and European Womens Periodicals.
Women and Social Movements This link opens in a new window
Provides primary and secondary sources for the study of womens activism and social movements in the United States from colonial times to the present, including the full-text books, documents, articles, bibliographies, and images. Also included are teaching tools with lesson plans, a chronology of U.S. women's history, and a Dictionary of Social Movements.
Women in The National Archives This link opens in a new window
The original documents cover the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.
Available through July 31, 2025

Women's and Gender Studies

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Women's and Gender Studies Librarian

General Primary Source Collections

Primary Sources

Online Collections and Archives

Pollak Library Primary Source Collections

Web Accessibility