Sometimes collections of primary source documents are republished in books. To find books like these, search WPI Library Search for books about your topic and add keywords like sourcebook, documents, primary sources, documentary history, papers, letters, journal, diary, memoir, or autobiography to your search terms. You can also search for books written by the people you are studying.
Search full text and images 1851-2021 including news, illustrations, editorials, and advertisements.
Online archive of eBooks and complete backruns of scholarly journals in a variety of academic fields.
Gender Issues and Sexuality
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Gender Issues and Sexuality provides insight into the personal, social, and political issues of gender and sexuality---issues that range from intimate matters of personal belief to matters that profoundly shape modern society. Included are approximately 175 full or excerpted documents---speeches, legislation, magazine and newspaper articles, essays, memoirs, letters, interviews, novels, songs, and works of art---as well as overview information that places each document in context. Entries are organized into chapters that feature a general overview of the chapters subtopic. The following standard subheads are included in each entry: Date Source About the Author Introduction Primary Source Significance Further Resources All titles contain an introduction to its topic, a chronology of major events associated with the topic, and a general index.
Before They Could Vote: American Women's Autobiographical Writing, 1819-1919
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The life narratives in this collection are by ethnically diverse women of energy and ambition - some well known, some forgotten over generations - who confronted barriers of gender, class, race, and sexual difference as they pursued or adapted to adventurous new lives in a rapidly changing America. The engaging selections - from captivity narratives to letters, manifestos, criminal confessions, and childhood sketches - span a hundred years in which women increasingly asserted themselves publicly. Some rose to positions of prominence as writers, activists, and artists; some sought education or wrote to support themselves and their families; some transgressed social norms in search of new possibilities. Each woman's story is strikingly individual, yet the brief narratives in this anthology collectively chart bold new visions of women's agency.
On Norms and Agency: Conversations about Gender Equality with Women and Men in 20 Countries
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Social norms, gender roles, beliefs about one's own capacity, and assets, as well as communities and countries, determine the opportunities available to women and men, and their ability to take advantage of them. World Development Report 2012 shows significant progress in many areas, but gender disparities still persist. Our study covered 20 countries in all world regions, where over 4,000 women and men, in remote and traditional villages and dense urban neighbourhoods, in more than 500 focus groups, discussed the effects of gender differences and inequalities on their lives. Despite diverse social and cultural settings, traits and expectations of the ideal "good" woman and "good" man were remarkably similar across all sample urban and rural communities. Participants acknowledged that women are actively seeking equal power and freedom, but must constantly negotiate and resist traditional expectations about what they are to do and who they are to be. When women achieve the freedom to work for pay or get more education, they must still accommodate their gains to these expectations, especially on household responsibilities. Girls' desire for education, which nurtures their aspirations for greater agency, exceeded that of boys in rural and urban communities. Both young women and men wished for more education and better jobs than are common in their communities and strikingly wanted to marry later, bear children later, and have more autonomy in choosing their partners than traditional community norms dictated. The main pathways for women to gain agency are education, employment, and decreased risk of domestic violence. A safer space encourages women to negotiate for more participation and equality in household discussions and decisions. Women's ability to contribute to family finances and control (even partially) major or minor assets helps them gain more voice at home and in public spheres. Women's aspirations and empowerment to break gender barriers occur regardless of dynamic or poor economies, while men's perceived gain in agency-and their identity as breadwinner-largely depends on economic conditions. When only a few women manage to break with established norms-without a critical mass-traditional norms are not contested and may be reinforced. The process of gender norm change thus appears to be uneven and challenging, lagging behind topical conditions. The easy co-existence of new and old norms means that households in the same community can vary markedly in how much agency women can exercise, and women feel less empowered when opinions and values of families and communities stay with traditional norms.
Treacherous Texts: U.S. Suffrage Literature, 1846-1946
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Treacherous Texts collects more than sixty literary texts written by smart, savvy writers who experimented with genre, aesthetics, humor, and sex appeal in an effort to persuade American readers to support woman suffrage. Although the suffrage campaign is often associated in popular memory with oratory, this anthology affirms that suffragists recognized early on that literature could also exert a power to move readers to imagine new roles for women in the public sphere. Uncovering startling affinities between popular literature and propaganda, Treacherous Texts samples a rich, decades-long tradition of suffrage literature created by writers from diverse racial, class, and regional backgrounds. Beginning with sentimental fiction and polemic, progressing through modernist and middlebrow experiments, and concluding with post-ratification memoirs and tributes, this anthology showcases lost and neglected fiction, poetry, drama, literary journalism, and autobiography; it also samples innovative print cultural forms devised for the campaign, such as valentines, banners, and cartoons. Featured writers include canonical figures as well as writers popular in their day but, until now, lost to ours. Includes writings by: * Sojourner Truth * Elizabeth Cady Stanton * Frederick Douglass * Fanny Fern * Harriet Beecher Stowe * Djuna Barnes * Charlotte Perkins Gilman * Marianne Moore * Sui Sin Far * Edna St. Vincent Millay * Gertrude Stein And many others.
The Light We Carry
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER * ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2022 * In an inspiring follow-up to her critically acclaimed, #1 bestselling memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today's highly uncertain world. There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life's big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much? Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles--the earned wisdom that helps her continue to "become." She details her most valuable practices, like "starting kind," "going high," and assembling a "kitchen table" of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness. "When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it," writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.
To find primary sources via Google, try adding keywords like primary sources, documents, archives, journals, papers, letters, or documentary history to your search terms.
Library of Congress
Lesbians and queer women have been excluded from the official historical record, but their experiences tell a great deal about the past. They reveal what it meant for a woman to desire and love other women, and to survive and resist against a culture that treated them as sinful and deviant. Their stories open a window onto a world that once was, and help us imagine a world that might yet be. The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony collects and makes available the oral histories of people who presently or at one time identified as same-sex and same-gender attracted women.
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the 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.
Collections from the New York Public Library
The Gay Peoples Union (GPU) was the most important gay and lesbian rights organization in Milwaukee during the 1970s. The Gay Peoples Union Collection presents digital copies of primary source materials documenting GPU and Milwaukee's gay liberation movement.
Founded in 1985, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of LGBTQ public history.
The Lesbian Herstory Archives is home to the largest collections of materials about lesbians in the world. Our photo collection, which we are now starting to digitize, reflects the growth of the Archives since 1974. Our collection holds tens of thousands of images. We offer you a small sampler here. Please keep in mind that many items came to us from women who simply wanted their images saved, their lives remembered. The collection holds snapshots, professional photography, found images and everything in between.
The OutHistory website contains oral histories from the LGBT movement.
This site contains the entire 105 issues of OutWeek Magazine, published in New York from June, 1989 to July, 1991. OutWeek Magazine was the seminal lesbian and gay publication during the peak era of AIDS activism in the late 80s and early 90s.
Presents the history of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people [=LGBT]. It includes hundreds of original texts, discussions, and [soon] images, and addresses LGBT history in all periods, and in all regions of the world.
A Digitised Collection of Thai Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Publications
A digital archive that contains Victorian texts on LGBTQ themes.
A digital archive of historical LGBT t-shirts
An exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression.
"This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States."
Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation
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Sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation are key indicators of the demographic diversity in the United States. Sex and gender are often conflated under the assumptions that they are mutually determined and do not differ from each other; however, the growing visibility of transgender and intersex populations, as well as efforts to improve the measurement of sex and gender across many scientific fields, has demonstrated the need to reconsider how sex, gender, and the relationship between them are conceptualized. This is turn affects sexual orientation, because it is defined on the basis of the relationship between a person's own sex or gender and that of their actual or preferred partners. Sex, gender, and sexual orientation are core aspects of identity that shape opportunities, experiences with discrimination, and outcomes through the life course; therefore, it is crucial that measures of these concepts accurately capture their complexity. Recognition of the diversity within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other sexual and gender minorities - the LGBTQI+ population - has also led to a reexamination of how the concepts of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation are measured. Better measurement will improve the ability to identify sexual and gender minority populations and understand the challenges they face. LGBTQI+ people continue to experience disparate and inequitable treatment, including harassment, discrimination, and violence, which in turn affects outcomes in many areas of everyday life, including health and access to health care services, economic and educational attainment, and family and social support. Though knowledge of these disparities has increased significantly over the past decade, glaring gaps remain, often driven by a lack of reliable data. Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation recommends that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) adopt new practices for collecting data on sex, gender, and sexual orientation - including collecting gender data by default, and not conflating gender with sex as a biological variable. The report recommends standardized language to be used in survey questions that ask about a respondent's sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Better measurements will improve data quality, as well as the NIH's ability to identify LGBTQI+ populations and understand the challenges they face.
Data Feminism
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A new way of thinking about data science and data ethics that is informed by the ideas of intersectional feminism. Today, data science is a form of power. It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind? The narratives around big data and data science are overwhelmingly white, male, and techno-heroic. In Data Feminism, Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein present a new way of thinking about data science and data ethics--one that is informed by intersectional feminist thought. Illustrating data feminism in action, D'Ignazio and Klein show how challenges to the male/female binary can help challenge other hierarchical (and empirically wrong) classification systems. They explain how, for example, an understanding of emotion can expand our ideas about effective data visualization, and how the concept of invisible labor can expose the significant human efforts required by our automated systems. And they show why the data never, ever "speak for themselves." Data Feminism offers strategies for data scientists seeking to learn how feminism can help them work toward justice, and for feminists who want to focus their efforts on the growing field of data science. But Data Feminism is about much more than gender. It is about power, about who has it and who doesn't, and about how those differentials of power can be challenged and changed.