Primary sources provide firsthand testimony or direct evidence about a topic. Often, primary sources are contemporaneous with the events or conditions that are being documented and are created by individuals who witnessed or experienced them. Examples of primary sources include:
The databases below have a broader focus but also contain sources of interest to Women's & Gender Studies:
Gender Roles in American Life by
This two-volume set examines how the evolution of gender roles in the United States has changed family dynamics, business practices, concepts of womanhood and manhood, and affected debates about equality, political and military service, and childrearing roles and practices. In the centuries that have passed since colonial America was first established, gender roles in American society have undergone massive transformations, with impacts that have been felt in every aspect of our culture. This evolution in gender roles has affected society in practically every conceivable manner, from family dynamics, the economy, and entertainment to business practices, how politics and military training are conducted, and childrearing roles and practices. In some places, it has sparked a tremendous backlash among Americans who see traditional gender roles as one of the country's foundational pillars. This set surveys all of these issues, making use of a wide assortment of primary documents to help readers understand the individuals, events, and ideas responsible for these changes in how American men, boys, women, and girls live, work, play, and relate to one another. These documents include speeches, testimony, and manifestos issued by prominent activists and commentators; recorded remarks of U.S. presidents and members of Congress; newspaper editorials, poems, short stories, and personal letters written by generations of American men and women; and passages from key Supreme Court decisions and legislation that have influenced gender roles--or were the result of evolving ideas regarding gender.
Gender Issues and Sexuality: Essential Primary Sources by
Contents: Beyond Femininity and Masculinity : Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality |
Women's Rights Movement |
Gay Rights Movement |
Transgendereds and Transsexuals |
Gender and Sexuality Issues in Medicine and Public Health |
Gender and Sexuality in School and the Workplace |
Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in the Media |
Obscenity, Pornography, and Sex Crimes
American Women Speak by
This A-to-Z compendium explores more than 150 American women activists from colonial times to the present, examining their backgrounds and the focus of their activism, and provides examples of their speeches. Throughout history, American women's oratory has crusaded for religious rights, abolitionism, and peace, as well as for Zionism, immigration, and immunization. This text examines more than 150 influential American women activists and their speeches on vital issues. Each entry outlines the speaker's motivation and provides examples of their speeches in context, supplying information about the setting, audience, reception, and lasting historical significance.
Women's America: Refocusing the Past by
Divided into four sections which cover the span of women's experiences in the US from colonial times to the present. Each section begins with a short introduction by the editors which sums up the particular historical era being covered and the scope of the documents which follow.
Women's Rights in the United States: A History in Documents by
A diverse collection of documents - including manifestoes, letters, diaries, cartoons, broadsides, legal and court records, poems, satires, advertisements, petitions, photographs, leaflets, maps, posters, autobiographies, and newspapers - to examine major themes in the history of women's rights and women's rights movements in the U.S. The documents encompass the experiences of women from a wide range of racial, ethnic, class, economic, sexual, marital, and social groups. Covers such topics as organized social movements; changing definitions of rights and different women's access to rights; divisions among women within women's rights movements; global contexts for women's rights activism; and the question of what it means for women and men to be "equal."
Women's Rights in the United States: A Documentary History by
The 125 historical documents in this volume bring to life the triumphs, disappointments, and enduring contributions of women's struggle for equal rights in America.
Women's Rights Emerges Within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870 by
Combining documents with an interpretive essay, this book is the first to offer a much-needed guide to the emergence of the women's rights movement within the anti-slavery activism of the 1830s. A 60-page introductory essay traces the cause of women's rights from Angelina and Sarah Grimké's campaign against slavery through the development of a full-fledged women's rights movement in the 1840s and 1850s. A rich collection of over 50 documents includes diary entries, letters, and speeches from the Grimkés, Maria Stewart, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Weld, Frances Harper, Sojourner Truth, and others.
America's Working Women by
A landmark work when it appeared in 1976, America's Working Women helped form the field of women's studies and transform labor history. Spanning the years from 1600 to the present, selections from diaries, popular magazines, historical works, oral histories, letters, songs, poetry, and fiction show women's creativity in supporting themselves, their families, and organizations or associations. Slave women recall their field work, family work, and sabotage. We see Indian women farming, and we also see the white culture coercing Indian women to give up farming. We see women in industry playing a central part in the union movement while facing the particular hazards of women's jobs and working conditions. New selections show the historical origins of today's important issues: sexual harassment, equal pay, "sex work," work in the underground economy, work in the home, and shift work. With an expanded focus on women from all racial and ethnic backgrounds and regions, America's Working Women grounds us in the battles women have fought and the ones they are in the process of winning.
The Columbia Documentary History of American Women Since 1941 by
This collection of documents seeks to chronicle the exciting and tumultuous recent history of American women, beginning with World War II, and the lasting reverberations of the greater employment opportunities for women created by the war effort. Subsequent documents speak to a series of timely topics: the ideas and changes brought about by the women's movement, the challenges to and defense of reproductive rights, the backlash against feminism in the name of family values, and new visions for women's lives in the twenty-first century.
Radical Feminism by
A selection of essential writings to understand the radical feminism movement of the 1960s and 1970s The second wave of feminism was one of the most significant political and cultural developments of the 1960s and 1970s. Yet the role radical feminism played within the women's movement remains hotly contested. For some, radical feminism has made a lasting contribution to our understanding of male privilege, and the ways the power imbalance between men and women affects the everyday fabric of women's lives. For others, radical feminism represents a reflexive hostility toward men, sex, and heterosexuality, and thus is best ignored or forgotten. Rather than have the movement be interpreted by others, Radical Feminism permits the original work of radical feminists to speak for itself. Comprised of pivotal documents written by U.S. radical feminists in the 1960s and 1970s, Radical Feminism combines both unpublished and previously published manifestos, position papers, minutes of meetings, and newsletters essential to an understanding of radical feminism. Consisting of documents unavailable to the general public, and others in danger of being lost altogether, this panoramic collection is organized around the key issues of sex and sexuality, race, children, lesbianism, separatism, and class.
Modern American Women by
A collection of more than 75 primary sources, all of them (with the exception of two Supreme Court decisions) were written by women. The aim is to tell the story of American women over the last 100 years, primarily in their own words. This volume can stand alone, or be used in combination with Nancy Woloch's Early American Women 1600-1900. Each chapter opens with a general historical overview, which is followed by five to seven documents. A wide range of sources are drawn on to make up the documents in the book, these include letters, speeches, diaries, memoirs, autobiography, novels, social science and oral history, and the experiences of Native American women, Jewish women, black women, Mexican American women and Latinas and Asian-American women are fully represented.
Women and the National Experience: Primary Sources in American History by 
Women at the Podium by
From the battlefield and the pulpit, before cameras and vast crowds, women have long shaped history with powerful, impassioned words. Now, in the first anthology of its kind, S. Michele Nix brings together the memorable speeches of women throughout the ages. Filled with courage, poignancy, and wit, Women at the Podium pairs issues of war, patriotism, social justice, women's rights, religion, politics, and the press with leaders who helped to change the world. With this landmark collection, relive history alongside the women who rose to champion their causes and countries. Listen as Elizabeth I braces her troops for battle against the Spanish Armada and Margaret Thatcher steadies Britain through the Falklands War. Lean in as Frances Harper advocates liberty for slaves and Margaret Chase Smith denounces McCarthyism. Engage in the battle for women's rights as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth campaign for the right to vote. Watch the drama unfold as Barbara Jordan argues for the impeachment of Richard Nixon and Lady Jane Grey says farewell from the gallows. Hear Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Elizabeth II, Katharine Graham, Barbara Bush, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and many others in a collection that presents a unique and compelling view of history. Spanning centuries and crossing cultures, Women at the Podium stands as the definitive anthology of women's oratory. It is a stirring tribute to the many women who fought so hard to be heard.
From Megaphones to Microphones: Speeches of American Women, 1920-1960 by 
Lift Every Voice: African American oratory, 1787-1900 by
The speeches in this collection are examples of the powerful expressions of both famous and lesser-known African Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries on issues including slavery and racial equality, women's rights, education, religion, immigration, socialism and war.
Print (hardcopy) version also available. Call number: E 185.18 .L54 1998.
Women's Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the Present by
Historical events of the last three centuries and personal milestones in women's lives come alive through these singular correspondences, over 400 letters accompanied by over 100 photographs.
The Search for Self-Sovereignty: The Oratory of Elizabeth Cady Stanton by
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the founding philosophers of America's women's rights movement. The first woman's rights convention in the United States was held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848; there she helped write and present the Declaration of Sentiments, a woman's bill of rights which articulated the inferior and unjust position of women in law, church, and society and called for redress. From this grew the organized demands by women in the United States for the ballot and other social change.
The Selected Papers of Jane Addams: Preparing to Lead, 1860-81 by 
Great Events from History: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Events by
With contributions from prominent scholars in the field, this set chronicles the events and the people who have defined the GLBT experience since the mid-nineteenth century. Most of the essays were originally commissioned by Salem for inclusion in the EBSCO database GLBT Life with Full Text. (2 volumes)
