Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 is a resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000, this collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history generally and at the same time make those insights accessible to teachers and students at universities, colleges, and high schools. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools. Those subscribing to this collection can access the online version of Notable American Women and the database on Commissions on the Status of Women.
Movements and Organizations: American Anti-Slavery Society, American Civil Liberties Union, Anti-Lynching Movement, Ant-Slavery Movement, Birth Control Movement, Civil Rights Movement, Equal Rights Amendment Movement, Feminism, General Federation of Women's Clubs, Hull House, International Women's Peace Movement, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Association of Colored Women, National League of Women Voters, Suffrage Movement, Temperance Movement, Tuskegee Institute, United States Children's Bureau, Woman's Rights Convention Movement, Women's Labor Movement, and more.
Themes: education, birth control, colonization, immigration, indigenous women, political and human rights, religion, sexuality, women of color, work and class identity, and more.
Content Types: biographies, books, conference proceedings, diaries, ephemera, essays, government documents, interviews, letters, maps, meeting minutes, news articles, oral histories, pamphlets, periodicals, photographs, poetry, press releases, reviews, speeches, testimonies, and more.
The Women and Social Movements in the United States collection features Document Projects, which include an introduction for a topic of research, a list of linked primary sources that support research in that topic, and an introduction for each document that gives context and background. Some example Document Projects include:
This collection includes materials to support teaching, called “Teaching Strategies.” These materials compile documents into mini syllabi that include primary sources from the database paired with an introduction, discussion questions, and small assignments.
Additionally, this collection also features a full 15 week syllabus entitled “The Empire Suffrage Syllabus.”
The year 2020 marked the centennial of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Long celebrated as a victory for “American women,” this milestone had mixed legacies, given the ongoing history of settler colonialism and the different gradations of citizenship in the United States and its territories.
This new digital history project offers scholars and students tools for analyzing women’s suffrage beyond the continental U.S. context by the placing the issue of gender and citizenship in the broader context of empire.
This syllabus is broken into four modules, spanning the period from the eighteenth through the twenty-first centuries, offer critical pedagogical tools for approaching U.S. women’s history from a richer and more global perspective:
Module 1: Women, Modern States, and Racial Empires. Module 1 introduces the imperial and revolutionary contexts for new ideas about race, gender, and political participation at the turn of the 19th century, setting the stage for the rise in the importance of voting.
Module 2: Women's Voting and U.S. Empire. Module 2 highlights women’s electoral participation as both agents and opponents of U.S. territorial expansion and colonial rule.
Module 3: Women's Anti-Imperialist Political Activism. Module 3 considers the transnational and grassroots activisms of colonized and U.S. women of color in the pursuit of liberation that has transcended both electoral politics and national sovereignty itself.
Module 4: Who Ran, Why They Lost, Why They Won. Module 4 explores women who ran for the highest political office in the United States, the barriers that impede their success, and women in countries beyond the U.S. who have become heads of state.
