Library Guides: Gender &amp; Sexuality Studies Library Guide: Find Primary Sources

Databases with Primary Sources

The following databases contain digitized archival documents, ephemera, diaries, letters, newspapers, books, and more that document histories of gender, sexuality, and women.

Archives of Sexuality & Gender
Provides a collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender with material dating back to the sixteenth century. Topics include health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, and erotica.
Black Women Writers
Fiction, poetry, and essays from three continents and 20 countries written by women from Africa and the African Diaspora. Taken together, these works outline the ongoing development of black feminism.
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
Includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women across more than 300 years.
Defining Gender – 1450-1910
Ephemera, pamphlets, college records and exam papers, commonplace books, diaries, periodicals, letters, ledgers, account books, educational practice and pedagogy, government papers from the Home Office and Metropolitan police, and more.

Digital Transgender Archive
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.
Discovering American Women's History Online
Digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) documenting the history of women in the United States. The diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to photos of ethnic weddings from the late 20th century.

Everyday Life & Women in America
Contains images of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.

The collection is especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, offering vivid insights into the daily lives of women and men, as well as emphasizing contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
Gender: Identity and Social Change
Documents the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. The collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
Gerritsen Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs
The definitive cross-cultural resource for information on women's history (1543-1945). Trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of that country's feminist movement on other countries and their movements.
Independent Voices
A digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinxs, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
LGBT Thought and Culture
Online resource documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day. The collection illuminates the lives of lesbians, gays, transgender, and bisexual individuals and the community with content from various sources.
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries
Contains the personal writings of women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, displayed as images of the original manuscripts. The collection is drawn entirely from the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society.
North American Women's Drama
Contains scripts and monologues by women playwrights living in North America. Also includes playbills, posters, and other primary historical source material.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Consists of the immediate experiences of women via diaries and letters from Colonial times to 1950.
Perdita Manuscripts (Women Writers, 1500-1700)
Digital facsimiles of original manuscripts by early modern women from diaries to works of drama. Focuses on women and women's writing in Early Modern Britain.

This resource is produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University.
Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin and the Daughters of Bilitis (Archives Unbound)
A resource for research on LGBTQ+ history, feminism, and social movements. Part I covers the Daughters of Bilitis—the first lesbian rights organization in the U.S.—with rare documents like meeting minutes, letters, and early issues of The Ladder magazine. Part II includes materials on broader activism, including responses to Del Martin’s book Battered Wives, which exposed domestic violence as a widespread issue.
Religious Periodicals for Women, Children and Families 1804-1878
U.S. publications focusing on important topics faced by families in the nineteenth Century and broader social themes like anti-slavery, universalism, and temperance. Sourced from the American Antiquarian Society.
Sex & Sexuality
Explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors throughout the twentieth century through various publications.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History
From the everyday to the extraordinary, these rare diaries and the supporting correspondence describe the travel experiences, destinations and desires of nineteenth and twentieth century American women.

The project has wide ranging interdisciplinary appeal, offering first hand accounts of major historical events as reported by eye witnesses, detailing key interests and themes in women’s lives, providing snapshots of cities, cultures and customs, and charting the rise of modern tourism and the travel industry. Topics covered include: Emigration and daily life, Missionary Work, World War I, World War II, Boxer War in China, Frontier Life in America, Personal Enlightenment through travel, Education and Finishing School, Sightseeing, Holidays and Tourism, Customs, culture and leisure.
Women's Magazine Archive
ProQuest's Women's Magazine Archive is an archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines. The magazines are all scanned from cover to cover in high-resolution color, including images and advertisements

This resource includes: Archive 1: Better Homes & Gardens (1922-2005); Chatelaine (1928-2005); Good Housekeeping (1885 to 2005); Ladies’ Home Journal (1883-2005); Parents (1926-2005); Redbook (1903-2005). Archive 2: Town and Country (1846 to 2005); Woman’s Day (1937 to 2005); Cosmopolitan (1886 to 2005); Seventeen (1944 to 2005); Essence (1970 to 2005); Women’s International Network News (1975 to 2003). Archive 3: Company (1978 to 2005); Cosmopolitan UK Edition (1972 to 2005); Flare (1979 to 2005); Good Housekeeping UK Edition (1922 to 2005); Prima (1986 to 2005); and She (1955 to 2003).
Women's Periodicals of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century, 1733-1844
The Women's Periodicals of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century, 1733-1844 collection presents 210 U.S. women’s-related periodicals spanning the Colonial through the Jacksonian Eras. Sourced from the American Antiquarian Society.
Women's Periodicals of the Nineteenth Century, 1845-1865
Women's Periodicals of the Nineteenth Century, 1845-1865 represents 250 U.S. periodicals published between 1845 and 1865 focusing on female authors and publishers who cemented the foundations of women’s active role in American social and religious movements.
Women's Periodicals of the Nineteenth Century, 1866-1891
The Women's Periodicals of the Nineteenth Century, 1866-1891 collection contains over 230 periodicals published between 1866 and 1891 that range widely in subject matter from religious and cultural periodicals from the South to domestic and parenting magazines from the North.
Women, War and Society, 1914-1918 (Archives Unbound)
Sourced from the archives of the Imperial War Museum, London. Includes charity and international relief reports, pamphlets, photographs, and press cuttings, along with interpretative essays from leading scholars. Covers 1914-1918.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
The history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. Seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. history generally at the same time that it makes the insights of women's history accessible.

The collection currently includes 91 document projects and archives with more than 3,600 documents and 150,000 pages of additional full-text documents, and more than 2,060 primary authors.
Women in the National Archives (U.K.)
The Women in the National Archives collection consists of two distinct elements: A finding aid to women's studies resources in the U.K. National Archives and original documents on the suffrage question in Britain, the Empire and colonial territories. The original documents cover the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.
Women’s Issues and Their Advocacy Within the White House, 1974-1977 (Archives Unbound)
Sourced from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. This collection documents Patricia Lindh’s and Jeanne Holm’s liaison with women’s groups and their advocacy within the White House on issues of special interest to women. Includes material accumulated by presidential Counselor Anne Armstrong and Office of Women’s Programs Director Karen Keesling.

Topics include liaison activities with over 300 women’s organizations, agency women’s groups and program units, advisory committees on women and women appointees; public policy; and legislation and regulation of women’s civil rights in the government and the economy.

Women Working, 1800-1930
Digitized historical, manuscript, and image collections from Harvard University Libraries. Explores women's roles in the US economy between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Documents working conditions, conditions in the home, costs of living, recreation, health and hygiene, etc.

Using the Library Catalog

Many primary sources have been published in book form. These can be:

Scholarly editions/transcriptions of manuscript and/or printed texts from the time period you're studying
Books published during the time period you're studying, which bear witness to contemporary circumstances
- ebooks
- books in Tulane Libraries' special collections

Both types of books can be discovered by searching Tulane's Library Catalog. Here are some search tips and tricks to get started:

Tip #1: Search Strategic Subject Headings

When looking for primary sources, do a Library Catalog Advanced Search and combine keywords related to your research area with strategic subject headings like these:

Sources
Diaries
Personal narratives
Correspondence
Interviews
Description and travel

For example...

to search for primary sources about women in Louisiana:

to search for diaries or personal narratives relating to experiences in Egypt:

Tip #2: Use Date Filters

If you're looking for materials published in your time period of study, limit the publication date range to that period.

For example, if you want to see materials relating to Louisiana, published or produced in the 17th century, you can limit the date range to 1600-1700.

You can either use the Advanced Search:

Or left-hand filters: