- Find Information
- Research Guides
- Women's History, U.S.
Women's History, U.S.
A guide to primary and secondary sources for various periods in U.S. women's history
Featured Books
The Routledge Historical Atlas of Women in America by Available as an e-book.
This atlas portrays the history of American women from a geographical and demographic perspective. In a variety of colorful maps and charts, it documents milestones in the evolution of the social and political rights of women. Coverage includes women in the Revolutionary Era, Black and white women in Antebellum America, the rise of reform movements such as temperance, women's suffrage, and abolition during the 19th century, women in World Wars I and II, and recent issues and trends in the 20th century.
The American New Woman Revisited: A Reader, 1894-1930 by Available as an e-book.
In North America between 1894 and 1930, the rise of the "New Woman" sparked controversy. Who was she and where did she come from? Was she to be celebrated as the agent of progress or reviled as a traitor to the traditional family? Bringing together a diverse range of essays from the periodical press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the author shows how the New Woman differed according to region, class, politics, race, ethnicity, and historical circumstance. Together, these readings redefine our understanding of the New Woman and her cultural impact.
Resources by Subject
Women in Early America by E-book.
Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence by Call Number: E276 .B47 2006
Women and Religion in Early America,1600-1850: The Puritan and Evangelical Traditions by Call Number: BR520 .W474 1999Available as an e-book and in print.
Their Lives, Their Wills: Women in the Borderlands, 1750-1846 by Call Number: HQ1438.M45 P67 2015
Choctaw Women in a Chaotic World by Call Number: E99.C8 P48 2005
Enslaved Women in America: From Colonial Times to Emancipation by Call Number: E443 .W47 2015Available as an e-book and in print.
Women in Civil War Texas: Diversity and Dissidence in the Trans-Mississippi by Call Number: F391 .W78 2016Available as an e-book and in print.
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War by Call Number: E628 .B52 2002
Worth a Dozen Men: Women and Nursing in the Civil War South by Call Number: E625 .H55 2012Publication Date: 2012E-book and in print
Stepdaughters of History: Southern Women and the American Civil War by Call Number: E628 .C575 2016Available as an e-book and in print.
Mary Chesnut's Diary by Call Number: E487 .C52 2011
- Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938An online collection from the Library of Congress containing more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. Transcripts of interviews with former slaves are organized by state, and then alphabetically by name of informant within each state.
- Elizabeth Johnson Harris' Life Story, 1867-1923Elizabeth Harris was born in Augusta, Georgia, in 1867, to parents who had been slaves. Elizabeth Harris's handwritten memoir includes the story of her courtship and marriage as well as descriptions of the adult lives of several of her children. Harris divided her memoir into two sections: her childhood years and her life during and after courtship and marriage. Collection from Duke University. Includes photos and news clippings.
- Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson Slave Letters, 1837-1838Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson were house slaves at Montcalm, the family home of David and Mary Campbell, located in Abingdon, Virginia. According to historian Norma Taylor Mitchell, young men wrote these letters for Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson to their mistresses and other slave family members. Collection from Duke University. Contains four letters of correspondence.
- Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S. C. VolunteersMemoir of Susie King Taylor, an African American woman.
- Rose O'Neal Greenhow PapersRose O'Neal Greenhow was born in Montgomery County, Maryland in 1817. "Wild Rose", as she was called from a young age, was a leader in Washington society, a passionate secessionist, and one of the most renowned spies in the Civil War. Collection from Duke University. Contains letters and news clippings.
Treacherous Texts: An Anthology of U.S. Suffrage Literature, 1846-1946 by Call Number: JK1896 .T74 2011Available as an e-book and in print.
Suffragists in Washington, DC: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote by Call Number: JK1896 .R63 2017
Jailed for Freedom by Call Number: JK1901 .S85 1971Publication Date: 1920; reprintedAvailable as an e-book and in print.
A firsthand account of the National Woman's Party.
The Suffragents: How Women Used Men to Get the Vote by Call Number: JK1896 .K57 2017
Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener by Call Number: JK1899.H36 H36 2020Publication Date: 2020
Suffragist Migration West after Seneca Falls, 1848-1871: Catharine Paine Blaine by Call Number: HQ1438.N57 R64 2024Publication Date: 2024
Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question by Call Number: JK1896 .G695 1997Available as an e-book and in print.
African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920 by Call Number: JK1896 .T47 1998Available as an e-book and in print.
Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Available as an e-book
The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images by Call Number: E185.86 .A34 1997Publication Date: 1997Includes chapters on discrimination in the women's suffrage movement and the struggle for equality in the South.
Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940 by Call Number: HQ1426 .D39 1987Publication Date: 1987
The Weight of Their Votes: Southern Women and Political Leverage in the 1920's by Available as an e-book
Splintered Sisterhood by Publication Date: 1997Available as an e-book
Discusses anti-suffrage / anti-feminism
- 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American HistoryA Library of Congress Research Guide about the women's suffrage amendment. Includes digital collections of primary sources and recommended websites and print materials.
- Women's Suffrage: Campaign for the Nineteenth AmendmentA collection of primary sources from the Digital Public Library of America.
- Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight For the VoteOnline exhibit about U.S. women's suffrage from the Library of Congress. Includes selected digitized primary sources.
- Women's Rights: SuffrageA collection of primary sources from the National Archives.
- Rightfully Hers: American Women and the VoteThis online exhibit from the National Archives Museum includes seven sections:
Who Decides Who Votes?
Why Did Women Fight for the Vote?
How Did Women Win the 19th Amendment? A Strategy for Suffrage
A Piecemeal Path to Women's Voting Rights
Amendment at Last
What Voting Rights Struggles Persist?
What Was the 19th Amendment's Impact? - Elizabeth Cady Stanton PapersLetters, speeches, and writings. From the Library of Congress.
- Carrie Chapman Catt PapersDiaries, correspondence, speeches, photographs and more. From the Library of Congress.
- Minnie Fisher Cunningham PapersDigital primary source collection documenting the activities of a leading Texas suffragist at both the state and national levels. From the University of Houston Libraries.
- Papers of Alice PaulThe papers of Alice Paul, suffragist, held at Harvard University. Much digitized content organized into series: Personal and Family; Suffrage: National Woman's Party; World Woman's Party; Other International Activities
- National Woman's Party RecordsA selection of 95 documents including letters, manuscripts, pamphlets, speeches, handbills, and more from the National Woman’s Party. From the Ohio Memory website, a collaborative program of the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio.
- Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's PartyA collection of 448 digitized photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party, held at the Library of Congress.
- The Suffragists: From Tea-Parties to Prison, Interviews with Sylvie Grace Thompson Thygeson, Jessie Haver Butler, Miriam Allen deFord, Laura Ellsworth Seiler, and Ernestine Hara KettlerTranscribed oral histories from the Online Archive of California's Suffragists Oral History Project.
- Votes for Women! The Women's Suffrage Movement in TexasFrom the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era by Call Number: HQ1419 .G46 1991Available as an e-book and in print.
Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States by Call Number: HQ1418 .G56 1990Located at the Downtown Library and the JPL.
Against the Tide: Women Reformers in American Society by Call Number: HQ1412 .A343 1997Located at the Downtown Library.
Woman's World / Woman's Empire: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930 by Call Number: HV5227 .T97 1991
- Woman's Christian Temperance Union - University of IowaA digital collection of the Proceedings of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1874-1897.
- Smasher's Mail Newspaper CollectionA digital collection of thirteen issues of the newspaper, The Smasher's Mail, published by Carrie A. Nation, best known for her crusade against the liquor trade. Contains anti-alcohol essays and editorials, reprints of letters Nation received from supporters and opponents, half-tone illustrations, cartoons, and poetry devoted to the temperance and prohibition cause.
- Jane Addams Digital EditionDigital collection of documents of the noted late 19th and early 20th-century activist and social reformer Jane Addams. Includes correspondence and writings (excluding books) from 1901-1935.
- Myra McHenry Papers - Wichita State UniversityThe Myra McHenry Papers digital collection contains 15 letters written to Myra McHenry between 1900 and 1907. The correspondents include Carry A. Nation, A. T. Ayres, Lucy Wilhoite, J. C. Rogers, and McHenry’s son, Cornell McHenry. The chief subject of the letters is temperance, but several include personal matters. An activist in the early temperance movement in Kansas, McHenry (1848-1939) staged street corner lectures, published a newspaper and many pamphlets, and was arrested frequently for her aggressive tactics.
- The Life and Times of Florence Kelley in Chicago, 1891-1899An archive of documents authored by or about Florence Kelley, a leader in the child labor reform movement.
- Women Working, 1800-1930A collection of primary (and some secondary) sources exploring women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Content from the collections of Harvard University.
- Women's Bureau Data and StatisticsCurrent and historical data for women in the labor force from the U.S. Dept. of Labor. Information on occupations, participation rates, earnings, mothers and families, and women veterans.
- 100 Years of Working WomenThe top 10 occupations women have held in each decade since 1920.
Women and the American Labor Movement: From Colonial Times to the Eve of World War I by Call Number: HD6079.2 .U5F65 1979
Women and the American Labor Movement: From World War I to the Present by Call Number: HD6079.2 .U5F66 1980
Race, Gender, and Work: A Multicultural Economic History of Women in the United States by Call Number: HQ1410 .A46 1991
Women Have Always Worked: A Concise History by Call Number: HD6095 .K45 2018Publication Date: 2018Second edition.
Available as an e-book and in print.
Triangle: The Fire that Changed America by Call Number: F128.5 .V688 2003
We Just Keep Running the Line: Black Southern Women and the Poultry Processing Industry by Call Number: HD9437.U63 S684 2014Available as an e-book and in print.
The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America by Publication Date: 2004E-book.
American Women in World War I: They Also Served by Call Number: D639.W7 G38 2006Available as an e-book and in print.
Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War by Call Number: D639.W7 J36 2008
Private Politics and Public Voices: Black Women's Activism from World War I to the New Deal by Call Number: E185.86 .B6975 2006Also available as an e-book
The First, the Few, the Forgotten: Navy and Marine Corps Women in World War I by Call Number: D639.W7 E23 2002
- Women in World War IOnline collection from the National Museum of American History by the Smithsonian. Includes war posters, pictures, letters, women's uniforms, and more.
From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front by Call Number: F869.L89 M5156 2015Available as an e-book and in print.
Texas Women in World War II by Call Number: D736 .W45 2003
- Estelle Ishigo PhotographsEstelle Ishigo was an artist who was interned with her Japanese-American husband at the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Wyoming during World War II. The collection consists of over 100 drawings and sketches by her of camp life as well as some photographs.
- Gertrude Sanford Legendre Papers, 1836-2000Gertrude Sanford Legendre (1902–2000) was an American socialite who served as an OSS operative during World War II. The collection holds over 1,000 documents, letters, and photographs of her life. Collection housed by the College of Charleston.
- Rosie Pictures: Select Images Relating to American Women Workers During World War IISelected images issued by the U.S. government or by commercial sources during World War II, often to encourage women to join the work force or to highlight other aspects of the war effort. A list of additional resources is included. From the Library of Congress.
- The Real Rosie the Riveter ProjectAn archive of filmed oral histories of women hired for positions during the WWII years that had up until that time been defined as “men’s jobs.”
- Women in World War IIAlbum created by the US National Archives. This set contains a collection of 27 photographs and posters depicting women's contributions to the war both at home and abroad.
- Women and the Home Front During World War IIA collection of links to primary and secondary sources about women during WWII.
- Women's Army Corps and WAC African American Band scrapbook from Fort Des MoinesCollection consists of a forty-four page scrapbook belonging to an unidentified compiler, documenting the history of Fort Des Moines, Iowa, as a Women's Army Corps (WAC) training center, and the 404th Women's Army Corps band, the first African American female band in the United States military. The scrapbook contains 100 photographs. Collection housed by Duke University.
- Women's Bureau PhotographsAlbum created by the US National Archives. This selection of 13 photographs from the Records of the Women's Bureau contains images depicting women and their contributions to the war effort during World War II.
Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960 by Call Number: HQ1420 .N68 1994
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Call Number: HQ1237 .C75 2019
Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War by Call Number: DS559.44 .V85 2010Available as an e-book and in print.- The Very Few, the Proud: Women in the Marine Corps, 1977-2001 byCall Number: VE23 .A955 2018Publication Date: 2018
- Stories from the Front: Pain, Betrayal, and Resilience on the MST [Military Sexual Trauma] Battlefield byCall Number: UB418.W65 F57 2022
- Women and War Oral History CollectionOral histories centering the voices of women veterans since WWII with a focus on San Antonio, TX. From UTSA Libraries Special Collections.
- Tejano Voices Project - University of Texas at ArlingtonAudio, transcripts and photographs from the personal recollections of 173 Tejanos and Tejanas and their struggle against racial discrimination in post-World War II Texas.
The American Women's Movement, 1945-2000: A Brief History with Documents by Call Number: HQ1236.5.U6 M323 2009
Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America's Second Wave by Call Number: HQ1421 .R684 2004
Breaking the Wave: Women, Their Organizations, and Feminism, 1945-1985 by Call Number: HQ1426 .B728 2011Available as an e-book and in print.
Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980 by Call Number: HQ1421 .S68 2005
Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era by Call Number: E184.M5 C395 2018Available as an e-book and in print.
Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire by Call Number: HQ1426 .D845 1997Publication Date: 1999
Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration by Call Number: HQ1155 .T45 2004Available as an e-book and in print.
- Voices of Feminism Oral History ProjectThe Voices of Feminism Oral History Project documents the persistence and diversity of organizing for women in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century. Collection held by Smith University. Includes the subjects of women's political activism, grassroots organization, and more. Includes transcripts of most, but not all, of the oral histories in the collections.