For International Women’s Day 2025, we highlight two of the library’s electronic resources which can provide an insight into women’s lives in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Women's Studies Archives: Voice and Vision
Women’s Studies Archives: Voice and Vision can be searched to find primary sources covering the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many of the magazines, journals and periodicals available here were written by women, rather than for women. Themes of this resource include: the abolition of slavery, political activism, domestic service, education, health and hygiene, divorce and social reform. Students and staff from the Faculty of Engineering, might like to read an article from the journal “The Woman Engineer” from 1919 about the training of civil engineers.
As well as periodical content, this resource provides access to a range of personal papers from social reformers, suffragists, those involved in the temperance movement and pacifists in the UK and America. Twentieth century materials can be found in the collections of the Equal Opportunities Commission (1962-2007) and the Women’s National Commission (1916-2010).
Routledge History of Feminism
Routledge History of Feminism provides access to primary and secondary sources documenting the history of feminism covering the long nineteenth century (1776-1928). You can either search or browse for materials of interest. All materials are added to one of eight subjects and an introductory essay is available for each subject. These are:
- education
- empire
- literature and writings
- movements and ideologies
- politics and law
- religion and belief
- society and culture
- women at home
First wave feminists including Mary Wollstonecraft, Caroline Norton, the Pankhurst family, Josephine Butler, Harriet Martinea and Frances Power Cobbe are well represented.
AM Research Skills
If you’re new to using primary sources, you might like to explore the contents of AM Research Skills. Here you will find materials to help you develop skills in approaching and analysing primary sources. You can develop your skills by exploring a theme, such as the study of resources relating to gender, or you can enhance your skills in analysing specific resources including diaries, letters, photographs and more.
Learn more about this resource in our blog post - Exploring our eResources: AM Research Skills.
