Research Guides @ Fordham: Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS): Primary Sources &amp; Digital Collections

Subscription-based Collections

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 (scholar's edition) This link opens in a new window
Thousands of documents, images, bibliographies and teaching aids.
International Women's Periodicals/1786-1933: Social And Political Issues This link opens in a new window
Part of Gale Archives Unbound. Offers full text of some of the most significant women’s periodicals from the late eighteenth century through the early 1930s.
Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
Gale's primary sources platform for cross-searching: American Historical Periodicals (Series 1-5), Eighteenth Century Collections, U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs (1832-1978), Archives of Sexuality and Gender Part 1, and more.
Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
Transcriptions of primary source materials from books, newspapers, magazines and more covering American history and culture during the 19th century.
Routledge Historical Resources: The History of Feminism This link opens in a new window
Covers the subject of feminism over the long nineteenth century (1776–1928). Includes primary and secondary resources. Note: The majority of database content is from British perspectives. To find American content, search by region or by name of a particular feminist activist.
Artstor This link opens in a new window
Hundreds of thousands of photographs and images of paintings, sculptures, architecture and other works of art. Remote Users: Must Make Personal Account on Campus before trying remote access. After signing in with your AccessIT ID, sign in again with personal account username and password. Must disable your browser’s pop-up blocker.

Newspapers & Magazines

Current and Historical Newspapers at Fordham
View the full list of current and historical newspaper collections available at Fordham Libraries.

American Periodicals (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 1,500 journals published between 1740 and 1940.

Finding Periodical Articles from a Citation
This short video explains how to look up periodical (newspaper, magazine, journal) articles from a citation to see if Fordham has access.

Additional Resources at NYPL

New York Public Library offers remote access to more primary source collections covering women's history including a wider range of newspaper collections, as well as The Women's Magazine Archive, Archives of Gender and Sexuality, and the LGBT Magazine Archive.

Apply for a digital library card to access NYPL resources.

Research Help

Not finding the information you need?

Chat live with a librarian to get some help.

Open Access Collections

General Collections

Digital Public Library of America
Best place to search for digital collections across many libraries, museums, and historical societies.
NYPL Digital Collections
Offers access to over 912,000+ items. Look to the left panel and select Topic to search for items about women's history.

HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Partnership of major research institutions and libraries creating digital archive of public domain works (printed before 1925) and selected government publications.

Women & Gender History

Women's Rights at the National Archives
Information links and selected digitized items from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Women's History Digital Collections
Digitized collections from the Library of Congress includes multiple suffrage collections, Mary Church Terrell Papers, web archives, and more.
Archives of Women's Political Communication
Collection of women's speeches and other communications maintained by the Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University.
Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection
A collaborative project documenting the roles of Black women in the Women’s Suffrage Movement between the 1850s and 1960.
Women Working, 1800-1930
Explores women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression via Harvard Library.
Civil Rights Digital Library
Offers digital primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and more covering the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s.
Chicana por mi Raza Digital Memory Collective
Preserves Chicanx and Latinx histories during the long Civil Rights Era. Provides access to oral histories, material culture, correspondence, and rare out‐of‐print publications.
Women's Liberation Movement Print Culture
Manifestos, speeches, essays, and other materials documenting various aspects of the Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
Digital Transgender Archive
A collaboration of more than fifty colleges, universities, organizations, public libraries, and private collections to increase the accessibility of transgender history.

Photograph Collections

Catching the Wave: Photographs of the Women's Movement
Digitized photographs from photojournalist Bettye Lane and photographer Freda Leinwand documenting the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s and 1970s from the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.

Alternative Press

Reveal Digital
Offers open access primary source collections on American prison newspapers from 1800-2020, alternative press papers and magazines from the 20th century, and a student activism collection from Interference Archive.

"Women Marching with a Banner" by Freda Leinwand

Library Catalog & Primary Sources

Try searching the Library Catalog to locate primary sources in book format (i.e. writings by activists, primary source sets, anthologies, etc.):

Search by name in the Author field (i.e. Terrell, Mary Church) to see if there are books by a particular woman or activist.

Search in the Title field for a specific book by a woman or activist (i.e. "A Colored Woman in a White World").

Try the Finding Books page for additional search tips.

Government Documents

Government documents covering women's and gender history may be laws, congressional testimonies, federal funding information, and more.

ProQuest Legislative Insight This link opens in a new window
Covers full text, primary source Congressional legislative history. Includes all enacted and related bills, Congressional Record excerpts, and related committee documents.
Congress.gov This link opens in a new window
Contains official and factual U.S. Federal legislative information such as text of bills and statutes, committees, reports, resolutions, and more.

govinfo.gov
Provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
MetaLib
Offers a federated search of multiple U.S. federal government databases containing reports, articles, and citations along with direct links to selected resources available online.

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS): Primary Sources & Digital Collections

Finding Primary Sources