August 19, 2008
Women and War Resources
By Elisabeth Grant
At this summer’s America in the Civil War Era, 1829–77: A History Institute for Teachers, sponsored by groups from the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Carthage College, participants explored a range of topics related to the Civil War (see all the presentations and related classroom lessons here online).
Jane E. Schultz, professor of English, American Studies, and Women’s Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, was one of the participants at this summer conference and discussed “Women and the Civil War.” Also, check out a previous, but related, article of hers, “Ten Common Myths about Women in the Civil War and How to Dispel Them.”
Schultz also took part in this year’s 14th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, by chairing the session “The Unfinished Business of Gendering War History,” and has since put together, with the help of Kristi Palmer, assistant librarian at IUPUI, an excellent selection of “Women and War Primary Digital Resources.” With their permission we present below links to a selection of free resources they recommend.
Women and War Primary Digital Resources
Free databases online
- American Memory Project-Library of Congress
- Documenting the South
- Valley of the Shadow
- Duke Civil War Women
- University of Washington War Posters
- Imperial War Museum: Civilians section
- Historic Government Publications from World War
- Women Working, 1800-1930
- Gifts of Speech: Women’s Speeches from Around the World
- Margaret Sanger Papers Project
- Cuban Heritage Collection of Univ. of Miami Libraries
- Tejano Voices, University of Texas at Arlington
- Mujeres Latinas Digital Collection, Iowa Digital Library
Other Websites
- National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
- Women’s Studies Section of Association of College and Research Libraries
- WWW Virtual Library Women’s History
- Women and the Holocaust Website
- Women’s E-News
The American Memory Project at LoC is good, but even better is the LoC Veterans History Project, which often includes digitized oral histories (or transcripts of them), photographs, etc. It has a database that allows you to search by gender, branch, conflict, and so on; most holdings are 20th century: http://www.loc.gov/vets/
In addition, the Women’s Research and Education Institution has an entire section of their website devoted to military women, including a list of archives that offer materials about women in the military. While most are non-digital, Texas Tech has a Vietnam archive online that includes women’s oral history transcripts. For WREI’s resources, see http://www.wrei.org/MilitaryWomen.htm
Moving away from primary sources, H-Net’s H-Minerva listserv, dedicated to women and war/women and the military is also an excellent reference.
— Tanya Roth Aug 19, 09:59 AM