Research Guides: Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Guide: Primary Sources

Research Using Primary Sources
Use this guide from our Special Collections to learn about primary sources:
What
Why
Where
How

Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories.

Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons.

These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research.

University of Maryland Libraries own many primary materials in all kinds of formats, including books, microforms and electronic collections.

We own a tremendous number of primary resources. One way to locate primary sources is to use WorldCat - using keywords and adding defining terms such as:

letters
diaries
manuscripts
archival resources
archives
sources
correspondence
personal narratives
interviews
autobiography

So, searches could look like this:
women correspondence
women pioneers diaries
women military archival resources
women interviews performance art
women artists autobiography

American Jewess, 1895-1899
The American Jewess (1895-1899) described itself as "the only magazine in the world devoted to the interests of Jewish women." It was the first English-language periodical targeted to American Jewish women, covering an evocative range of topics that ranged from women's place in the synagogue to whether women should ride bicycles. Founded and edited by Rosa Sonneschein (1847-1932), it offered the first sustained critique, by Jewish women, of genera inequities in Jewish worship and communcal life. Assembled and digitized by the Jewish Women's Archive, this digital reproduction of the 8 volumes of The American Jewess was assembled from the collections of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Klau Library, Brandeis University Libraries, the Library of Congress, and the Jewish Women's Archive. Time span: 1895-1899.
ArchiveGrid
Provides online access to nearly a million descriptions of archival collections held by thousands of libraries, museums, historical societies and archives worldwide. ArchiveGrid includes over 7 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,400 archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.
Center for Research Libraries Catalog
CRL is a consortium of North American academic and independent research libraries. The consortium acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through ILL. CRL holds over four million newspapers, journals, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching. Holdings include such diverse materials as 800,000 doctoral dissertations (including those of Albert Einstein, Dag Hammarskjold and other Nobel laureates); some of the earliest African-American newspapers; and the 100,000-plus-page archive of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge security force. Emphasis is on materials produced outside the United States, and the Center has special strength in publications and archives from many developing nations. These holdings are available for use by students, scholars and other researchers affiliated with CRL member institutions. For more information see https://www.crl.edu/?l1=5 All, although majority of materials emphasise early modern and modern periods.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
The Eighteenth Century Collections Online (Parts I and II) is a full-text searchable digital database of over 180,00 English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of works from the Americas. It includes a variety of materials, from books and directories, Bibles and sheet music to sermons and advertisements, Includes both well-known and lesser-known authors and canonical titles of the period as well as contemporary works that analyze and debate those same titles.
Everyday Life & Women in America, c.1800-1920
Especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, it comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.
Feminism in Cuba: Nineteenth through Twentieth Century Archival Documents
The collection, most of which is in Spanish, has documents that fall into three categories: Works by feminists about feminists and their causes, including memoirs of feminist congresses, collections of essays by feminists, journals published by feminist organizations, and published speeches and radio broadcasts; assessments by male politicians, jurists, and legislators about the condition of women in the cities and countryside; literary works by feminist writers that illustrate or discuss the condition of women, including excerpts from novels, essays, poetry written by women about women, and literary analysis of these works.
GenderWatch
Full text database comprised of 175 titles, primarily of the many ongoing periodicals that deal with gender issues, including academic and scholarly journals, regional publications, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, booklets and reports. Subject areas covered include: government, history and politics, lesbian and gay studies, women's studies, and other humanities and social sciences disciplines. Dates of coverage of some publications are 1970 to the present.
Past Masters: Women Writers
The Women Writers collection is a growing collection of works and/or correspondence of important authors such as Jane Austen, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Bronte, Fanny Burney, Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft and others. Past Masters includes definitive, authoritative editions of literary works and authors' letters from distinguished academic publishers. All of the print apparatus is included and is fully searchable. Full-text searching may be made within any single volume, across an entire collection, or across all titles.
International Women's Periodicals, 1786-1933: Social and Political Issues
More than 50 womens periodicals mostly published in American and Britain with a few German and French titles. Subjects include housekeeping and family, fashion, religion, sex and birth control, eugenics, suffrage, and business
LGBT Studies in Video
"This growing collection in LGBT Studies features text and video resources exploring the social, cultural, and political evolution of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. The immense text holdings in this collection include materials ranging from texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and to memoirs, biographies, poetry, and works of fiction. The latter category includes winners of the Stonewall Book Awards and Lambda Literary Awards. The video holdings include documentaries, interview, and archival films that look at all aspects of the LGBT community: LGBT history, gay culture and subcultures, civil rights, marriage equality, LGBT families, AIDS, transgender issues, religious perspectives on homosexuality, global comparative experiences, and other topics. The collection has an international and multidisciplinary focus (inclu. lgbt studies, sociology, anthropology, psychology, counseling, history, political science, cultural studies, and religious studies)."
LGBT Thought and Culture
Provides full-text access to key works and archival documents of LGBT political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day. This immense collection includes materials ranging from texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and to memoirs, biographies, poetry, and works of fiction. The latter category includes winners of the Stonewall Book Awards and Lambda Literary Awards. Has an international focus. Is cross-searchable with the LGBT Studies in Video database.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) is a growing collection of archives which brings together rare primary source materials monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs and more from the long nineteenth century (1789-1914.) UMD has access to archives 1-12.
North American Immigrants Letters Diaries and Oral Histories
This collection of primary sources, including letters, diaries, autobiographies, and oral histories, documents the experience of immigrants to the United States from 1840 to the present, with special emphasis on the period 1890 to 1920. Immigrants from all over the world are included.
North American Women's Drama
North American Women's Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. More than 30% of the plays in the collection have never been published before. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. North American Women's Drama allows in-depth browsing and searching of both the bibliographic and the full-text elements within the database.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Electronic collection of womens diaries and correspondence from Colonial times to 1950. Coverage includes: all age groups and life stages, a wide range of ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous, and the not so famous. More than 1,500 biographies are also included.
Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin and the Daughters of Bilitis
The papers of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, life-long pioneers of the lesbian rights, gay rights, and women's rights movements. Important multidisciplinary resource for such subjects as LGBT studies, women's studies, political science, history, sociology, and American studies. Full-text, fully searchable database.
Renaissance Women Online
When complete, the collection will include the full text of 100 works by women writers from the early modern period, together with introductions to the individual works and essays on the cultural context of the period. The RWO is a subset of the Women Writiers Online (WWO) database. Includes novels, poems, drama, and non-fiction. 1500-1700.
Women and Social Movements in the U.S.
WPrimary documents, books, images, scholarly essays, reviews, pamphlets, personal narratives, advice literature, training guides, interviews and teaching tools. 1600-2000.
Women Writers Online
Full text of women's writings in English or in English translation from 1400 to 1850. Includes novels, poems, drama, and non-fiction The Renaissance Women Online (RWO) database is a subset of this database.

American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals to 1980 by Laura Arksey (Editor); Nancy Pries (Editor); Marcia Reed (Editor)
Call Number: MCK FOLIO CT214 .A74 1983 vols. 1-2
V. 1. Diaries written from 1492 to 1844 -- v. 2. Diaries written from 1845 to 1980.
Women's Collections by Suzanne Hildenbrand (Editor)
Call Number: MCK STACKS Z688.W65 W64 1986
Describes women's collections in institutional and private establishments in the United States.
Women's Diaries, Journals, and Letters by Cheryl Cline
Call Number: MCK REF CT3230 .C5 1989
ISBN: 0824066375
Women's History Sources by Andrea Hinding; Ames S. Bower
Call Number: MCK FOLIO HQ1410 .W69 vols. 1-2