Gender Studies at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

The Clark Library is revising our cataloging practices, checking records for accuracy and to eliminate, whenever possible, language that is biased or racist. We are updating metadata especially in instances when the historical narrative needs to be challenged or when greater social context needs to be included.

Read more about our past and current approaches to description in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Statement on Cataloging and the UCLA Library’s Ethical Description Statement. 

The Clark Library acknowledges our presence on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples. We pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present, and emerging.

William Andrews Clark, Jr. (1877–1934), founder of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, never intentionally constructed a Gender Studies collection for the library. Nonetheless, gender permeates our holdings of over 130,000 printed books, pamphlets, broadsides, and maps; 530 bound manuscripts from the early modern era; and more than 1,100 linear feet of personal papers and business records. A significant portion of Clark, Jr.’s original collection involves themes of fashion; domestic labor; women’s education; constructions of gender difference; family relationships; marriage and divorce; parenthood; sex work; regulation of sexual activity and women’s bodies; women’s health; visual art by and about women; early modern feminist advocacy; fiction and poetry written by women; women’s suffrage; and women in the book arts. We continue to collect material in these areas and offer visitors an array of gender histories from the early modern period to the present day. Our collection chiefly focuses on the lives of white women in England, France, and America; however, we hold notable materials by and about women of color that we will highlight in the library guide. 

Collection highlights include the McManus Family Trunk Collection; dozens of cookery manuscripts from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries; a collection of letters from Edward Burne-Jones to his daughter, Margaret Burne-Jones Mackai, and his friend, Violet Maxsel; treatises by women’s rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft; the Hannah More Collection; a 1773 edition of Phillis Wheatley’s poetry; fans by Sarah Ashton; the Dollie Radford Papers; and the Marion Kronfeld Collection. 

The guide will not use terms like “women artists” or “women writers.” Instead, the Clark Library will employ language like “writers who are women” and “artists who are women.” This change ensures that creative works by women are not essentialized to the gender of the writer or artist. Rather, experiences of gender inform the creative process and unfold in myriad ways across the Clark Library collection. 

Visit the UC Library Search to find bound manuscripts, rare books, correspondence, art, fine press books, photographs, and other materials related to Gender Studies. You can search by author, title, or keyword. You can further limit your search by date through “Advanced Search” or through the facets on the left of your screen. Your search will yield different results depending on if you search based on author or subject. For instance, to search for texts that discuss Mary Wollstonecraft input the search term in a simple search or through “Advanced Search” followed by “Subject.” To search for texts written by Mary Wollstonecraft, go to “Advanced Search,” then “Author,” and type “Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759–1797.”

Online Archive of California (OAC), and that website provides an easy way to keyword search across all of the library's collections. It also gives an alphabetical listing of all finding aids. As an alternative research tool, this guide allows researchers to browse the Clark Library's finding aids by topic. Request these items through Aeon to consult them in our Reading Room. 

For more information on how to sign up for a free Aeon account, please visit our website.

The content of this guide was written by 2024-25 Clark Instruction & Engagement Fellow Mal Meisels (mollymeisels@g.ucla.edu).