Library Research Guides: WOMEN'S &amp; GENDER STUDIES: Primary Sources

Current and Historical News

You can find current newspapers and historical articles using Wellesley databases as well as SuperSearch.

Browse this guide to learn more about news resources.

Spotlight: Heath and Society

Drug Industry Documents Archive
"An archive of documents created by major pharmaceutical companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales and scientific research." Most documents are from court cases, all are searchable.

primary sources

Primary sources are original, uninterpreted information, such as firsthand accounts of events in letters, diaries, interviews, or historical news reportage.

Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
Full text of alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals, produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press, and alternative literary magazines.
Dates: 1950-2023 CE
Gerritsen Collection This link opens in a new window
Premier international collection of digitized material (1543-1988) on the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Searchable database of 150,000 pages of letters and diaries, drawn from journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings.

Twentieth Century Advice Literature This link opens in a new window
A fulltext collection of advice manuals covering all aspects of social, political, cultural and professional life in the United States.
Women's Magazine Archive, 1883-2005 This link opens in a new window
Full text of six leading women's magazines focused on social issues, women's health, family and the home, politics, and fashion.
Dates: 1883-2005 CE
Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
NEW! The Vogue Archive contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition), from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women’s reform activities

Women Working,1800-1930
Part of the Open Collections Program at Harvard University Library, this is a great place to look for primary sources of women working in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century. The digitized collection includes: books, pamphlets, images and some manuscripts. It is easy to browse or search the collection.
American Memory
American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
Grrrl Zine Network
Grrrl, lady, queer, and trans folk zines, distros and Do-It-Yourself projects from all over the world.
Queer Zine Archive Project
The mission of the Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is to establish a "living history" archive of past and present queer zines and to encourage current and emerging zine publishers to continue to create. In curating such a unique aspect of culture, we value a collectivist approach that respects the diversity of experiences that fall under the heading "queer."
Digital Collections from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture, Duke University
Collections of materials on the Women's Liberation Movement, African American women's experiences under slavery, and Civil War women. The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture acquires, preserves and makes available to a large population of researchers published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women, past and present.
Dovie Horvitz Collection
Over 1,300 images and texts that reflect the lives of women from the 1850s-1950s.

Subject Guide

Sarah Moazeni

she, her, hers

Email Me

Contact:

Clapp 218B

781-283-4021

Subjects: Education, History, Jewish Studies, Medieval/Renaissance Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Peace & Justice Studies, Philosophy, Religion, South Asia Studies, Women's & Gender Studies