Women's Studies Resources
The American Antiquarian Society's holdings are rich
with
resources relating to all aspects of women's lives
throughout
American history. Below, you will find information on
resources
that can be found in some of our major collections,
including
Graphic
Arts, Children's
Literature, Manuscripts,
Newspapers,
and books. These collections can be accessed through
the AAS
online catalog and inventories. Click on the images to
view
enlarged versions.
There are many ways to access works "about
women"
in the online catalog. For a full list of headings,
search
"women" and select "subject
browse;" this
will provide a full list of subject headings and
sub-headings.
Examples of subject headings include: women as
authors, women's
rights, women in Christianity, women in public life,
women-legal
status, women in literature, women abolitionists,
women social
reformers, women health reformers, feminist poetry,
women
in the book trades, single women, women teachers,
widows,
to name but a few.
Graphic Arts
The graphic
arts collection contains an abundance of pictorial
materials
that shed light on the domestic, professional, and
political
lives of women. The sheet
music collection contains some 70,000 pieces of
music
arranged for the piano. Performance of music was one
of the
popular pastimes for women. In addition many
publishers issued
sheet music with pictorial covers. They illustrate
many aspects
of women's lives including courtship. Also worth
noting is
the games
collection, which provides insights into the use of
leisure
time by families in the household. Among the holdings
is a
collection of drawing cards, used both in schools and
at home.
Trade
cards advertise a host of products used by women
domestically;
some illustrate women at work in the kitchen. An
inventory
or subject listing and information on each of these
collections
is available.
Women were active in many roles outside the home-as
writers,
artists, merchants, and publishers. Some of these
activities
can be traced through the graphic arts collections.
Emma Cross (1850-1933),
for example, worked as a professional artist after the
Civil
War. The Cross Family Archive contains examples of her
work
as a student and as an artist later in her life. Eliza
(1798-1882)
and
Sarah Goodridge painted miniatures found in the
Society's
portrait collection; Eliza was also responsible for
lithographs
available in that collection.
AAS includes portrait prints of women active
politically.
The inventories of American
portrait prints and cartes-de-visite
photographs can be searched by personal name, as can
the lithograph
collection. Among the important images are Abby Kelley
Foster
and Sojourner Truth. The broadside
collection, which can be searched in the online
catalog, contains
programs of women's rights conventions, such as the
one for
the 1866 National Women's Rights Convention
that notes
that the important issue facing that convention was
"Equal
Rights To All." In the sheet music collection is
the
cover for We'll Show You When We Come to Vote,
published
in Toledo, Ohio, in 1869. On the cover are references
to Elizabeth
Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Susan B. Anthony
(1820-1906), and Mrs. George F.
Train.
Children's Literature
The Children's
Literature Collection is a remarkably rich
resource for
the study of women and girls, encompassing relevant
topics
such as women in religion, girls' biography, gender
roles,
prescribed female reading habits,
mother-daughter-sister relationships,
young female authorship, and domestic education. Many
of these
children's books were written in simple, lucid
language, thus
making them highly accessible to the modern reader.
The Society's
collection is important because it contains
significant holdings
of both juvenile fiction and educational texts, such
as A
Catechism Explanatory of Some of the Principles and
Precepts
of the Christian Religion by Quaker author John
Kendall
in 1837. Not only does the text contain a clear
discussion
about the equality between men and women in the Quaker
meeting,
it also has a frontispiece of a woman preaching in a
religious
meeting, something tolerated by few other sects at the
time.
Female authorship and children's literature developed
together
in Antebellum America, and they clearly benefited each
other.
A search of the subject heading, "Women as
authors,"
in the AAS online catalog will reveal books for girls
and
women written by women authors including reformers
Lydia Maria
Child and Jane Grey Swisshelm. Lydia Maria Child
compiled
The Little Girl's Own Book, a lively miscellany
of
games, crafts, and stories in 1833--the same year that
her
Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called
Africans
was published and embroiled her in a storm of
controversy.
Fortunately for Mrs. Child, The Little Girl's Own
Book
was re-published several times, and boosted her
popularity
in the lean years following the controversy. Jane Grey
Swisshelm's
Letters to Country Girls (1853) is a collection
of
essays by the women's rights advocate originally
issued in
the Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter, a paper published by
Mrs.
Swisshelm between 1847 and 1851. Under the guise of
providing
domestic advice to young white farm girls, Mrs.
Swisshelm
injects her outspoken beliefs about women's rights.
Works by child authors are accessible in the online
catalog
through the genre heading, "Juvenilia," and
AAS
is fortunate to have a nice selection, including
The
King's
Daughter (1867) written by nine-year-old Grace
Fisher
Coolidge,
who as Grace Fisher Pennypacker would later become a
regularly
featured author in the late nineteenth-century
periodical
press. Grace's father (and Boston publisher) George
Coolidge
lovingly issued this chapbook tale of a princess'
rescue from
an enchanted castle by a brave prince. This rare
little book
has its own envelope, featuring favorable reviews of
the press
printed in gold ink. Prevailing social attitudes
toward girls
and young women are perhaps most strikingly reflected
in picture
book images, and AAS has one of the best collections
available
of picture books published by McLoughlin Brothers, a
New York
firm that pioneered the systematic use of color print
technology.
AAS collects McLoughlin picture books from the
company's founding
in 1858 through the turn of the century. Among them
are The
Little Housekeepers (1886) and The Little
Housemaid
and Other
Stories (1903); both are filled with images of
girls
cooking,
cleaning, nursing, and entertaining their dolls. These
lush
color illustrations give compelling visual testimony
to little
girls using play as a preparation for marriage and
motherhood.
Manuscripts
Women are extremely well represented in the AAS manuscript
collections, and manuscripts at the Society can be
used
to study a very wide range of topics relating to
women's history,
particularly for the New England area. The collections
are
particularly strong in women's diaries and
correspondence,
but other collections detail women's activities in
religious
and voluntary organizations. Subject headings such as
"Women--diaries"
and Women--correspondence" make it possible to
identify
collections of possible interest.
One of the most notable collections containing
women's correspondence
is the collection of 219 letters written by Abigail
Adams
to female relatives between 1784 and 1816. Also, the
Chase
Family Papers contain letters written by two
Massachusetts
sisters, Lucy and Sarah Chase, while they were
teaching at
Freedmen's schools in the South during the Civil War.
Seven pocket diaries kept from 1865-1875 by Lizzie A
Wilson
Goodenough (b. 1844) of Brattleborough, Vermont,
detail
her efforts to support
herself
as a domestic and while working for a tailor.
Also, Mary Ware
Allen of Northborough, Massachusetts, kept four
extremely
detailed
diaries during the period in 1838 when she was a
student of
Margaret Fuller at the Green Street School in
Providence.
The Worcester Soldier's Relief Society was founded
during
the Civil War to coordinate the benevolent efforts of
women
from Worcester. The Society was engaged in various
fundraising
efforts; sewed, prepared packages of food and medical
supplies,
and operated a lodging house for soldiers passing
through
Worcester. The Manuscripts Collections includes
several detailed
volumes from volunteer societies such as this one.
Newspapers
The Newspaper
and Periodical Collection has quite a variety of items
associated
with women. While no woman is known to have started a
newspaper
on her own in colonial America, it is evident that
women were
active participants in the businesses of their
husbands or
sons. When a publisher died, his widow sometimes took
over
the paper under her name. The seamlessness of this
transition
shows how involved women were with the day-to-day
activities
of operating a newspaper. The New-York Weekly
Journal
was published from Oct. 13, 1746 to Nov. 14, 1748.
Cathrine
Zenger published it for a while when she took over
after the
death of her husband, John Peter Zenger. The
Providence
Gazette; and Country Journal was published from
August
9, 1766 to November 12, 1768. While Sarah Goddard
published
it, the imprint read, "Printed by Sarah Goddard,
and
Company…." Later issues have the imprint
reading,
"Printed (in the Absence of William Goddard) by
Sarah
Goddard, and Company…"
Amateur newspapers are publications produced by
people who
were interested in the process of publishing a
newspaper for
their personal interests. Young girls were often
involved
in the writing, editing, and publishing of these
interesting
little newspapers. In 1869, a table-top press was
patented
and the popularity of amateur newspapers increased
because
they could be produced in private homes. One example
of an
amateur newspaper is the Penfield Extra, which
was
published in Penfield, NY, by Nellie Williams. Her
brother
had been a printer, but was killed during the Civil
War. At
age 12 Nellie used his print shop to produce this
amateur
newspaper. She published it for several years, but her
career
was cut short when she died in her early 20s. In one
issue
she notes, "By Nellie Williams, A little Lass not
yet
in her teens who is the sole Editress and Compositor,
and
probably the youngest Publisher, and Editress in the
world."
In the 1790's, periodicals printed for women began to
appear.
In the 1800's, as printing technology improved and
became
more economical, more periodicals appeared on the
market for
women. This opened up opportunities for women to be
editors,
publishers, and printers. Thanks to electrotyping,
illustrations
could be easily produced for large print runs making
periodicals
with wonderful graphics, such as fashion magazines
possible.
One interesting example is called The Matrimonial
Bazar.
A Monthly Journal, Devoted to the Interests of Love,
Courtship
and Marriage. This publication is filled with
articles
of matrimonial advice and advertisements from men and
women
looking for a partner. It is an early version of a
singles
newspaper. Other periodicals that can be found in the
collection
include The Toilet: a Weekly Collection of Literary
Pieces,
Principally Designed for the Amusement of the Ladies;
The
Ladies' National Magazine; The Sibyl. A Review of the
Tates,
Errors, and Fashions of Society; The Ladies' Musical
Port
Folio. A Choice Selection of the Most Admired and
Original
Songs, Marches, Rondos, Quadrills, &c. for the
Piano Forte;
and Harper's Bazar. A Repository of Fashion,
Pleasure,
and Instruction.
Primary and Secondary Resource Books
The Antiquarian Society's collecting efforts have
documented
the range and depth of cultural production of African
Americans,
both slave and free, female and male, literate and
nonliterate.
For almost 200 years we have sought to add these
materials
to our holdings and to make them available to
researchers.
Not unexpectedly, the majority of printed materials
included
in our collections are by free persons of color in the
Northeast.
Literary skills in this part of the United States were
advanced
and generated a rich production of sermons, religious
tracts,
society and convention minutes and proceedings,
broadsides,
periodicals, and newspapers in addition to books of
fiction,
autobiography, poetry, and drama. Illustrated here are
just
a few examples of books in our library written by
African
American women.
Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa
and brought
to Boston as a slave in 1761. Encouraged by the family
that
owned her, she learned to read and write. She became a
Boston
sensation after she wrote a poem on the death of
evangelical
preacher George Whitefield in 1770. Her book, Poems
on
Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London:
1773) was
the first volume of poetry to be published by an
African American.
Harriet Wilson's Our Nig: or,
Sketches
from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White
House,
North. Showing that Slavery's Shadows Fall Even
There
(Boston: 1859) has generally been identified as the
first
novel published by an African American in America.
Recent
scholarship has established that it is
autobiographical. The
author describes her sufferings as a nominally
"free
black" in ante-bellum New Hampshire.
Julia A. J. Foote's A Brand Plucked
from
the Fire (Cleveland, Ohio: 1881) is representative
of
a number of texts published by 19th-century African
American
and white women who believed that Christianity had
made them
the spiritual equals of men and hence equally
authorized to
lead the church. When the minister of Foote's church
in Boston
refused her access to his pulpit, she set out on an
independent
preaching career. She participated in the holiness
revivals
that swept the Midwest during the 1870s and later
became a
missionary in the A.M.E. Zion church.
Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart,
Presented
to the First African Baptist Church & Society, of
the
city of Boston (Boston: 1835) was written by
Stewart who
was a teacher and public speaker known for four public
addresses
delivered in Boston at a time when virtually no women
(whether
African American or white) had the courage to speak
from a
public platform. William Lloyd Garrison gathered her
lectures
together and published them in this volume. The last
is her
farewell address delivered in 1833, when she announced
her
decision to leave Boston "for I find it is no use
for
me, as an individual, to try to make myself useful
among my
color in this city."
Ann Plato's only known publication is
Essays;
Including Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces, in
Prose and
Poetry (Hartford: 1841). Scholars have not been
able to
reconstruct Ann Plato's life from sources other than
this
book. We do know that she was part of a vibrant
African-American
literary community in Hartford CT. Matters of religion
and
patterns for good living tend to dominate her
writing.
At the beginning of this Web page are suggestions of
ways
to access works by and about women in the online
catalog.
Using those subject headings and combining them with
the terms
African American(s), black(s), or Negro(es) will
reveal many
of our holdings. As is always the case, be imaginative
in
your search strategy and ask our staff for help,
either in
person or by e-mail.
Women's Studies is a very popular research topic at
the American
Antiquarian Society, and our holdings include many
secondary
sources. A sample of recent books researched at AAS in
women's
studies can be found in this checklist
of twenty-four titles. These include studies about
women in
politics, religion, law, medicine, theater, reform
movements,
and crime. There are also studies on gender,
domesticity,
witchcraft, biography, and poetry, among other topics
extending
from the colonial period through the Civil War. For an
excellent
overview of AAS collections that support research in
areas
of women's studies, see Patricia Cline Cohen's essay,
"Doing
Women's History at the American Antiquarian
Society,"
cited at the end of the checklist.
-Georgia Barnhill, Curator of Graphic Arts
-Laura Wasowicz, Curator of Children's Literature
-Vince Golden, Curator of Newspapers
-Thomas Knoles, Curator of Manuscripts
-Nancy Burkett, Marcus A. McCorison Librarian
-Joanne Chaison, Research Librarian
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For additional information, please view the
on-line exhibition A
Woman's Work is Never Done
Chromolithographed
Trade Card
for Dry Hop Yeast
Painting by Emma Cross (1850-1933) from
the Cross
Family
Archive
National Women's Rights
Convention broadside,
1866
Sheet Music Cover We'll Show You
When We
Come to Vote, 1869
Frontispiece of a woman preaching at a
religious
meeting, from A Catechism Explanatory...
The King's
Daughter,
1867
Cover of The Little
Housemaid
and Other Stories, 1903
Letter written by
Abigail Adams
to her sister Mary Cranch, August 2, 1784
First page of letter
written
to the Chase Sisters from a friend,
February 18, 1866
Pocket Diary kept by Lizzie A. Wilson
Goodenough
Detail of masthead from
the
Penfield Extra, published by Nellie Williams
in Penfield,
NY
Funny sample ad printed in The
Matrimonial
Bazar
"Ladies' Spring
Wrappings,"
from Harper's Bazar, April 29, 1871
Selected books written
by African-American
women
Frontispiece portrait of Phillis
Wheatley from
Poems on various subjects, religious and moral
"Holy is the Lamb," music
from A
Brand Plucked from the Fire
Liberty's Daughters,
by Mary Beth Norton, 1980
Secondary sources
researched
by scholars at AAS
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