Great Sites in U.S. Women's History
Cyberspace contains an almost infinite amount of information and misinformation. Therefore, one must choose websites wisely. To assist my colleagues, students, and friends, I have compiled here great sites in U.S. Women's History (in no particular order). These sites contain either superior online digital collections or fantastic links to online collections. You will find that some extraordinary sites are cross-listed. I hope you find these websites as helpful for research and teaching as I. Please visit again, because this list may change.
Internet Women's History Sourcebook: This formidable site includes documents pertaining to women's history in a global context. Scroll down to "North America" to find the U.S. Women's History sources. This site is part of a larger, and very impressive, project called the Internet History Sourcebooks Project at Fordham University constructed by Dr. Paul Halsall. www.fordham.edu/halsall/women/womensbook.html
Ninteenth-Century American Women Writers: This site contains full-text selections in nineteenth-century American women's literature, antislavery and suffrage documents. The 19thCentury Women Writers' Web Page contains links to other useful literary sources, as well. the site is maintained by the Society for the Study of American Women Writers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. http://www.unl.edu/legacy/Archiveshome.html
The Digital Scriptorium at Duke: This superior digitized collection contains several collections related to women's history, especially slave narratives, southern women, women and 1960's-1970's radicalism, and the Civil War. Other collections are also superb, though this site is not comprehensive enough for me to include in my top 10 general american history sites list. The site is maintained by the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/
Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Women Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921: This site includes documents from the Library of Congress' Rare Book and Manuscript Collection. The site contains an extensive collection of digitized suffrage documents that nicely complements a U.S. Women's History course. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawshome.html
The Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: The documents here focus on the first decade of Cady's and Stanton's collaboration, from 1852 until 1861, when they honed their skills as reformers in New York State. These primary historical sources are pertinent to the study of women, American politics, New York State, and antebellum reform movements. The site is maintained by the University of South Carolina. http://mep.cla.sc.edu/sa/sa-table.html
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930: This site, organized by "projects," introduces problems in American women's history by first posing a scholarly question and then offering visitors an explanatory introduction, ample related documents, bibliographies, and endnotes. The authors, professors at the State University of New York at Binghamton, have designed a creative resource for teachers and students. www.binghamton.edu/womhist
Suffragists Oral History Project: Sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley Library, this site contains digitized transcriptions of oral histories preserving the memories of leading suffragists. These transcripts document women's activities to win the right to vote for women and their careers as leaders of the movements for welfare and labor reform, world peace, and the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/ROHO/ohonline/suffragists.html
African-American Women Writers of the 19th Century: The New York Public Library has created this website as part of its digitized library collection. The site is a rich source for nineteenth-century African-American women's literature, poetry, and autobiography. http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/
Emma Goldman Papers Project: The online Emma Goldman Papers Project contains a wealth of information and full-text primary sources of this famous American radical and feminist. The site contains primary text, biograpical essays, and teaching tools. In additon, the visitor will find online samples of materials from the published version of the project. The site is maintained by The University of California, Berkeley, Sunsite project. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/
Margaret Sanger Documents on the Web: This site documents the life of another significant American feminist, Margaret Sanger. The online collection includes digitized speeches and a mini-edition of Sanger's journal, The Woman Rebel. The site also contains links to other sometimes hard-to-find Sanger publications. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/msweb.htm