20th Century Women and Gender Studies Sources
The following resources are major tools for finding digitized texts related to the history of women and gender.
- Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires Since 1820 This link opens in a new windowOnline archive of documents that views the history of modern empires through women’s eyes, with an emphasis on the voices of the colonized. 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.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new windowA collection of books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's reform activities.
- Women and Social Movements, International — 1840 to Present This link opens in a new windowContains primary source writing by women activists, including personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made.
- AM Search This link opens in a new window
UCLA subscribes to selected AM (formerly Adam Matthew) databases comprised of digitized archival material and primary sources. You can use AM Search to search across all of them. UCLA has access to licensed AM content published through 2024. Formerly known as Adam Matthew Archive Explorer.
- African American Communities This link opens in a new window
Explore late 19th-20th century African American communities in different cities through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports, and oral histories.
- Alexander Street Press This link opens in a new windowUCLA subscribes to several dozen distinct databases hosted by Alexander Street Press. This interface allows you to search across most of them. Click on "My Collections" to see the list of subscribed databases.
- American Consumer Culture: Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 This link opens in a new windowProvides insight into the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century through access to the complete market research reports of Ernest Dichter, the era's foremost consumer analyst and market research pioneer.
- American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new windowCovers the colonial period through the 20th century, and includes unusual and short-lived magazines as well as better-known titles with long runs. Topics encompass a broad spectrum including agriculture, anthropology, art, archaeology, education, family life, fashion, industrialization, literature, medicine, music, photography, politics, religion, science, sport, and temperance. UCLA provides access to Parts I-VII.
- Archives of Sexuality and Gender (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new windowDigitized primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues concerning gender and sexuality, and impacting LGBTQ communities around the world. Includes newsletters and newspapers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and more. Contributing repositories include: Kinsey Institute, British Library, Lesbian Herstory, Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, National Library of Medicine, and more. UCLA provides access to Parts I and II (LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940), Part III (Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century), Part IV (International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture), and Part VI (Community and Identity in North America).
- Archives Unbound (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new windowArchives Unbound includes primary source content with broad topic clusters including: African American studies; American Indian studies; Asian studies; British history; Holocaust studies; LGBT studies; Latin American and Caribbean studies; Middle East studies; political science; religious studies; and women’s studies.
- Bolivia: Records of the U.S. Department of State, 1960-1963 (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new windowThe backstory to this archive revolves around the rise of the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), which emerged as a broadly based party. Under President Victor Paz Estenssoro (1907-2001), the MNR “introduced universal adult suffrage, carried out a sweeping land reform, promoted rural education, and nationalized the country’s largest tin min
- Calisphere This link opens in a new windowOver one million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more from the collections digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state.
- Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969 This link opens in a new windowDocuments from the British Foreign and Colonial Offices which cover the whole of South and Central America, plus the non-British islands of the Caribbean, from just after the final Spanish withdrawal from mainland America in the 1820s to the height of the Cold War in the 1960s. Includes coverage of revolutions, territorial changes and political movements, foreign financial interests, industrial and infrastructural development (including the building of the Panama Canal), wars, slavery, immigration from Europe, and and relations with indigenous peoples.
- Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969 This link opens in a new windowFrom the Confidential Print series, issued by the British government's Foreign and Colonial Offices since c. 1820, This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan.
- Defining Gender, 1450-1910 This link opens in a new window
Contains primary source material from British and European archives, and includes four thematic areas: Conduct and Politeness, Domesticity and the Family, Consumption and Leisure, Education and Sensibility, and The Body.
- Digital Transgender Archive This link opens in a new windowInternational open access online hub focused on accessibility of transgender history. DTA is a collaboration among more than twenty institutions, including digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
- Discovering American Women's History OnlineBrings together hundreds of primary source digital collections covering U.S. women’s history.
- Dovie Horvitz CollectionThe Dovie Horvitz Collection consists of over 1,300 images and scanned texts representing objects and printed matter that reflect the lives of women from the mid 1800s through the mid 1900s.
- Early Experiences in Australasia: Primary Sources and Personal Narratives 1788-1901 This link opens in a new windowOnline portal of first-person accounts, including letters and diaries, narratives, and other primary source materials.
- Empire OnlinePrimary source manuscripts and secondary essays relevant to Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class and Colonialism, 1783-1969.
- Everyday Life & Women in America, c1800-1920Thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of books, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, marriage, and more.
- Food Studies Online This link opens in a new windowProvides interdisciplinary archival content, visual ephemera, monographs, and videos that explore how food shapes the world around us. Includes cookbooks, menus, documentaries, vintage commercials, diet trends, and more.
- Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new windowPrimary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Includes sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
- Gerritsen Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs (Women's History) This link opens in a new windowFacsimile scans of monographs, periodicals, and pamphlets in 15 languages, started in the late 1800s by Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen. Focus is on 19th and 20th century feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights but includes books published from 1543 to 1945.
- HEARTH: Home Economics ArchiveHEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines.
- Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
Full text of more than 1000 open access alternative publications from the 1960s-1980s covering feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, LGBTQ+ activists, and more.
- Jewish Life in America, c1654-1954 This link opens in a new windowContains digitized manuscript materials covering the history of Jewish communities in America through the mid-20th century. Includes letters, scrapbooks, autobiographies, notebooks and more.
- Latin American Women Writers This link opens in a new windowA collection of full text literature and non-fiction by Latin American women from the 17th century colonial period to the present. Includes prose, poetry, and drama composed by women writing in Mexico, Central America, and South America. Also included are essays by Latin American feminists and revolutionaries, who address both the universal concerns of women in every age and the distinctive issues of their struggles in the region.
- LGBT Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Online portal with full text books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements from the 20th century to the present. The purchase of LGBT Thought and Culture was made possible through a generous gift from the David Bohnett Foundation.
- Library of Congress Digital CollectionsOnline access to manuscripts, ephemera, images, maps, and more. Includes several sets of materials related to the suffrage movement.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest This link opens in a new windowThis online portal explores the period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. It includes color images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, historical news video, ephemera and memorabilia.
- The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960 to 1974Documents key events, trends, and social movements in 1960s America. Includes letters, diaries, oral histories, posters, broadsides, pamphlets, advertisements, and more.
- Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new windowHundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Sources cover topics including the arts, the British Empire, exploration, race, and more. Contents also include manuscripts, diaries and correspondence, drawings, guidebooks and photographs.
- UCLA Library International Digital Ephemera Project This link opens in a new windowAn initiative to digitize, preserve and provide broad public access to print, images, multimedia, and social networking resources produced worldwide. This UCLA Library project captures ephemeral content in collaboration with global partners.
- Women in the National Archives This link opens in a new window
Includes a Finding Aid to Women's Studies Resources in The National Archives at Kew, and original documents on the Suffrage Question in Britain, the Empire and Colonial Territories.
- Women's Studies Archive (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new windowIncludes the modules Women's Issues and Identities, Voice and Vision, and Female Forerunners Worldwide. Focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries, including documents such as diaries, letters, photographs, news clippings, organizational records, and journals. Primary sources include a record of the issues that have affected women, societal contributions, social status, and women's movements. Topics cover abolition of slavery, alcohol and temperance movements, pacifism and political activism, domestic service, education, health and hygiene, divorce and social reform.
- Women Working 1870-1930Includes digitized books, manuscripts, and images from Harvard University Libraries and Museums on women in the U.S. economy from 1870-1930.
- World Scholar: Latin America and the CaribbeanIncludes a combination of contemporary and historical documents on Latin America in multiple languages, including maps, manuscripts, and newspapers.