HST251: Social History of American Women (Worthington)

In recognition of the contributions of American women, ALIC presents a listing of web sites relevant to women in the United States.

This database describes and links to over 600 digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. These diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to interviews with women engineers from the 1970s.

The Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project consists of an electronic collection of primary source materials relating to the Salem witch trials of 1692 and a new transcription of the court records. The Documentary Archive is created under the supervision of Professor Benjamin C. Ray, University of Virginia. The Transcription project is supervised by Professor Bernard Rosenthal, University of Binghamton.

In the early 1970s the Suffragists Oral History Project, under the auspices of the U.C. Berkeley's Bancroft Library's Regional Oral History Office, collected interviews with twelve leaders and participants in the woman's suffrage movement. Under the running title of "The Suffragists: From Tea-Parties to Prison," those interviews are now available online through this webpage. Women profiled online include Jessie Haver Butler, Miriam Allen de Ford, Ernestine Kettler, Laura Ellsworth Seiler, and Sylvie Thygeson.

Pre-Civil War records, Military records, Genealogy, Post-Civil War records, Census records, and more.

From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. These former slaves, most born in the last years of the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms.

This handsome website contains video, audio, timelines and primary and secondary documents and essays related to these two great suffragists. The website is a companion to a PBS documentary of the same title by Ken Burns and Paul Barnes. Click the Resources link at the bottom of the homepage and then explore the left frame options.

Part of the "American Memory" digital archive of the Library of Congress, this website provides access to the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Collection, which consists of 167 books, pamphlets and other artifacts documenting the suffrage campaign. They are a subset of the Library's larger collection donated by Carrie Chapman Catt, longtime president of the NAWSA. The collection includes works from the libraries of other members and officers of the organization including: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Mary A. Livermore.

This Fordham University "sourcebook attempts to present online documents and secondary discussions which reflect the various ways of looking at the history of women within broadly defined historical periods and areas. " Explore from the left frame or start drilling down into the contents further down the page by period and location. Lots of linked pages.

In the course of U.S. history, people have migrated to different parts of the country seeking new opportunities. Strong and determined women were an integral part of these migrations. The discovery of gold in California in 1849 enticed thousands of fortune seekers to the West. There were no airplanes or cars to speed the journey. The arduous trip had to be made by wagon or ship, passages which often took months to complete.

DoHistory invites you to explore the process of piecing together the lives of ordinary people in the past. It is an experimental, interactive case study based on the research that went into the book and PBS film A Midwife’s Tale, which were both based upon the remarkable 200 year old diary of midwife/healer Martha Ballard. There are thousands of downloadable pages from original documents: diaries, letters, maps, court records, town records, and more as well as a searchable copy of the twenty-seven year diary of Martha Ballard. DoHistory engages users interactively with historical documents and artifacts from the past and introduces visitors to the pivotal questions and issues raised when “doing” history. DoHistory was developed and maintained by the Film Study Center at Harvard University and is hosted and maintained by the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. BCC Libraries also owns the DVD of her life.

Women contributed to the American Revolution in a variety of ways. Some picked up muskets while others chose to fight with an arrow or a cannon. Others chose a pen, a needle, a pitchfork, sculpting tools, or an apron.

So often when we think of the great Native American heroes of the past, we think of the brave male warriors and chiefs who led their people through war and the long journey into an uncertain future. This time, we wanted to honor the Native American women who soldiered alongside them.