Archives Unbound: Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Queer history and the Men’s Movement offer interesting perspectives on the struggle for equality and social justice.  The social, political, and cultural contributions of women throughout history are on display in international women's periodicals dating from 1786 to the Women’s and Civil Rights movements. 

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  • Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

    FBI File on Eleanor Roosevelt - As an outspoken woman and humanitarian, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) was a prime target for an investigation by J. Edgar Hoover. Her work with youth movements and the civil rights of minorities made many Americans of the time uneasy, and Hoover, of course, felt obligated to investigate her alleged radical, subversive, and un-American activities. This file includes the usual correspondence, memos, and newspaper clippings. The letters between Hoover and Eleanor provide fascinating insight into their relationship. Also included are many letters from "ordinary" citizens protesting Roosevelt's activities and syndicated column, "My Day," pleading with Hoover that "she must be stopped."

    Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activist, Political Activist, and Woman - Fannie Lou Hamer was the daughter of sharecroppers and spent eighteen years of her adult life as a sharecropper and timekeeper on the Dee Marlow plantation in Sunflower County, Mississippi. She was fired in 1962 because she attempted to register to vote. The following year she became a registered voter and the field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She was instrumental in starting the Delta Ministry, and she was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She led a delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1964. She became chairman of the board of the Fannie Lou Hamer Day Care Center founded in Ruleville, Mississippi, in 1970, by the National Council of Negro Women. She also served as a member of the board of the Sunflower County Day Care Center and Family Service Center and on the policy council of the National Women's Political Party of Mississippi. This collection comprises more than three thousand pieces of correspondence plus financial records, programs, photographs, newspaper articles, invitations, and other printed items. 

    The Changing Men Collection Vertical Files - The Changing Men Collections (CMC) comprises the largest research collection of materials about the modern men’s movement in the United States and throughout the world.  Over 400 vertical files document the development of the men’s movement during the last 25 years. Consisting of research materials on key issues affecting contemporary men, there is information on such topics as men’s consciousness raising, masculinity, initiation rites, men in therapy, men’s emotional healing, African American men, battered men, circumcision, anger management, ecomasculinity, teen fathers, relationships, shadow work, men’s supports networks, and the ManKind Project. The files also represent the work of a variety of diverse men’s groups from throughout the world, as well as conference proceedings from the American Men’s Studies Association, Chicago Men’s Gathering, National Conferences on Men & Masculinity, among others.

    The International Women's Movement: The Pan Pacific/Southeast Asia Women’s Association, 1950-1985 - Formerly known as the Pan Pacific Women's Association of the U.S.A., the Pan Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association was founded in 1928 to strengthen international understanding and friendship among the women of Asia and the Pacific and women of the U.S.A. The group promotes cooperation among women of these regions for the study and improvement of social, economic, and cultural conditions; engages in studies on Asian and Pacific affairs; provides hospitality to temporary residents and visitors from Pacific and Asian areas; and presents programs of educational and social interest, dealing with the customs and cultures of Asian and Pacific countries. The records of the Pan Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association consist of international conference proceedings, from the 10th, 11th, and 13th-15th conferences; correspondence; minutes of the executive board and other meetings; reports; constitution and by-laws; publications and printed material; and photographs of the national PPSEA taken between 1950-1985. The records also include two scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, and records from four local chapters including New York, Chicago, Toledo (OH), and Stockton (CA).

    Women Organizing Transnationally: The Committee of Correspondence, 1952-1969 - The records include extensive official correspondence (1952-69) as well as hundreds of letters to and from correspondents throughout the world documenting the work of the organization. In addition, there are official records; minutes; complete files of multi-lingual publications entitled "Community Action Series" and "Meeting Community Needs;" miscellaneous publications; conferences and workshop material; files on individual participants, filed by country. The country files also contain published materials pertaining to the status and problems of the world's women.

    Women, War and Society, 1914-1918 - The First World War had a revolutionary and permanent impact on the personal, social, and professional lives of all women. Their essential contribution to the war in Europe is fully documented in this definitive collection of primary source materials brought together in the Imperial War Museum, London. These unique documents - charity and international relief reports, pamphlets, photographs, press cuttings, magazines, posters, correspondence, minutes, records, diaries, memoranda, statistics, circulars, regulations, and invitations - are published here for the first time in fully-searchable form, along with interpretative essays from leading scholars. Together these documents form an indispensable resource for the study of 20th-Century social, political, military, and gender history.

    Women's Issues and Their Advocacy Within the White House, 1974-1977 - This collection documents Patricia Lindh’s and Jeanne Holm’s liaison with women’s groups and their advocacy within the White House on issues of special interest to women. Includes material accumulated by presidential Counselor Anne Armstrong and Office of Women’s Programs Director Karen Keesling. Topics include liaison activities with over 300 women’s organizations, agency women’s groups, and program units, advisory committees on women and women appointees; public policy; and legislation and regulation of women’s civil rights in the government and the economy.

    Women's Periodicals: Social and Political Issues - Historical women’s periodicals provide an important resource to scholars interested in the lives of women, the role of women in society, and, in particular, the development of the public lives of women as the push for women’s rights—woman suffrage, fair pay, better working conditions, for example—grew in the United States and England. Some of the titles in this collection were conceived and published by men, for women; others, conceived and published by male editors with strong input from female assistant editors or managers; others were conceived and published by women, for women. The strongest suffrage and anti-suffrage writing was done by women for women’s periodicals. Thus, a variety of viewpoints are here presented for study.

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