- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowComplete back runs of scholarly journals beginning with the first issues and continuing to within 3-5 years of the present.
- GenderWatch This link opens in a new windowA full text database of unique and diverse publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas.
- America’s Historical Newspapers, 1690-1876 This link opens in a new windowAn archive of early American newspapers from across the colonies/states.
Search Strategies
For example,
- wom* > woman, women, woman's, women's
- famil* > family, families, familial
- revolution* > revolutions. revolutionary
- biograph* > biography, biographical
Messiah Library Catalog Search print books, ebooks, DVDs
EBook Central (ebooks) Download, print, and read thousands of books right now
Interlibrary loan Get books and journal articles from Messiah and other libraries. Articles can take anywhere between 12 hours to 1 week to arrive. Books can take between 2 days to 2 weeks to arrive. Postage paid shipping is provided to remote students. This is a free service.**In most cases, we cannot ILL request Dissertations or Dissertation Abstracts**
On the Shelves: Call Numbers
CT = Biography
E = American History
F = Local U.S. History
F1-975 History by Region or State
HQ 1075 = Gender Roles
HQ 1101-HQ 2030 = Women and Feminism
Suggested Searches:
Women AND 19th Century AND United States (or 20th Century, 18th Century, etc.)
Women AND Diaries AND United States
Women AND Sources AND United States
Women AND Correspondence AND United States
--Diaries
--Correspondence
--Biography
--Sources
--Anecdotes
--Personal narratives
--Interviews
- Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
Godey’s Lady’s Book (1830-1898) was designed specifically to attract the growing audience of American women. It was intended to entertain, inform and educate the women of America.
The Lily, The Revolution, and The National Citizen and The Ballot Box. These 19th century newspapers focused on the temperance movement, woman suffrage and voting rights, and the rights of wives and mothers to make decisions about the well-being of their children.
The collection also contains county histories and African American newspapers. - New York Times (Historical, 1851-2018) This link opens in a new window
American Memory: Women's History - Multimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library of Congress
Best of History Web Sites: U.S. History: Women
Collections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921 -American Memory, The Library of Congress
Discovering American Women's History Online - An interactive US map of where women made their marks. Click on a map's dot to take you to that digital collection.
Discovering American Women's History This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
Historical Text Archive: Women's History
In Her Own Right: Women asserting their civil rights, 1820-1920
Independent Voices: An Open Access Collection of an Alternative Press - Digital material from the magazines, journals, newsletters, and newspapers of the alternative press archives of participating libraries spanning the 1960’s to the 1980’s.
Oral histories, artifacts, exhibitions from the Smithsonian - searchable collections, including audio
Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America - Large collections of digitized documents, including papers of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy West, and women's suffrage organizations
U.S. National Archives - Women - Lots of great ideas and resources
Votes for Women-Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920 - From American Memory, The Library of Congress
Women in the Labor Force: A Databook - Publication of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Women Working: 1870-1930 -Online collection from Harvard University explores women's impact on the economic life of the U.S. between 1800 and the Great Depression.
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.
Women's Travel Diaries - Diaries written by British and American women who documented their travels to places around the globe.
World Wide Web Virtual Library: History: USA: Women's History
WWII working women (Oral history)
Important mass-market American women's magazines
Influential American women's magazines, covering much of the 19th and 20th century. Offering insight into women's history and popular culture:
- Ladies Home Journal, 1965-2014 (in print, at Library)
- Good Housekeeping, 1910 - present (in print, at Library)
- McCall's, 1965-2001 (in print, at Library)
- Godey's Lady Book 1830-1898 (Accessible Archives)
A good history paper is meant to:
-make a stand, argument, or claim on a topic
-have a single sentence somewhere in the first paragraph that presents your argument to the reader
-support a claim with evidence, arguments, and references
-make claims that could be debatable by others use past tense
-present a thesis that can be answered with something more than a "yes" or "no"
-anticipate and answer questions that a reader might have
-make the reader care about your topic by explaining the why and how
-contain your original thoughts, interpretations, or explanations based on what you learned
Super Helpful Resources
Fill-in Thesis Generator (This is awesome!)
- A social and cultural historian, with special interests in the history of American women; history-as-theater; the history of education, and women’s biography.
- American Religious History and women
- Female Preaching in America
- Interest in patterns of race and gender discrimination in America
- Interests in 19th and 20th century U.S. history focusing on gender questions. Her interests also include social movements, political culture, law, and citizenship. Her current project concerns Americans who came of age in the 1920s and shaped their lives internationally. Works on marriage and feminism.
- Feminist Legal History and Twentieth Century Women’s History
- US Immigration and Ethnicity, especially concerning gender, industrialization, and working class history
- American religious history, with special emphasis on immigration, race, and religious radicalism
- History of American women and social reform, including prison reform, as well as the history of sexuality
- American women's suffrage movement
- Female in education
- Interest in Dorthea Lange and women's liberation movement; social policy issues, particularly as they concern gender and family issues
- Black women in America, post-reconstruction
- History of citizenship, gender, and authority, especially before the Civil War
- History of American labor and the comparative exploration of women and gender in the workplace, including wages and legislation
- 20th century Women's history, including prison, health, sexuality
- History of medicine and public health in America, especially for women
- Women's rights, abolition, and black women
- Women's Studies, History of American Christianity, Evangelism
- American Women in Mission
- Late nineteenth and twentieth centuries; American philanthropy; women; religion
- 20th century prostitution, public policy, contraception
- American Women’s Religious Writing
- History of women working in science, medicine, and technology
- Research interests include medical and psychiatric history, women’s biography, and the role of reading in women’s lives.
- Women's Rights and Transatlantic Anti-Slavery in the Era of Emancipation
- Southern women’s history
- Women in peace movements and role in abolition of slavery
Chicago Style Bibliography and Footnote Examples
Book Example:
Zadie Smith, Swing Time (New York: Penguin Press, 2016), 315–16.