Women in the United States in the 19th Century

Subject Headings.
Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Handbooks.
Indexes, Abstracts, and Full Text Sources.
Chronologies.
Biographical Sources.
Internet Sources.
Additional Links and Sources.

SUBJECT HEADINGS.

To locate books or other materials held in the Boston University Libraries on a particular topic, you will need to do a subject or keyword search in the online Catalog. Relevant subjects for books may include but are not limited to:

Abolitionists United States Family relationships History 19th century
African American abolitionists History 19th century
African Americans Civil rights History 19th century
Antislavery movements United states History 19th century
Family United States History 19th century
Feminism and literature United States History 19th century
Feminism United States History 19th century
Marriage United States History 19th century
Middle class women United States History 19th century
National American Woman Suffrage Association
Sex Role United States History 19th Century
United States Constitution 15th Amendment
United State Constitution 14th Amendment
Women abolitionists United States History 19th century
Women and journalism United States History 19th century
Women Legal Status Laws Etc United States
Women Legal status laws etc United States History Sources
Women Suffrage United States History
Women United States History 19th Century
Women's rights United States History 19th century

You may also want to look up prominent individuals either by author or subject:

Beecher Catharine Esther
Douglass Frederick
Grimke Sarah Moore
Hale Sarah Josepha Buell
Mott Lucretia
Stanton Elizabeth Cady
Truth Sojourner D

DICTIONARIES, ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND HANDBOOKS.

ABC-Clio Companion to Women's Progress in America. 1994.: Compendium of alphabetically-arranged entries covering court cases, organizations, individuals, events, and publications associated with women's public achievements. Mugar HQ1410 F76 1994.
American Women's History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events. 1994.: An encyclopedia of women, organizations, and events, emphasizing women in nontraditional roles rather than those who achieved fame in gender-stereotyped occupations. Mugar HQ1115 W4 1994.
Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century. 3 vols. 2001.: Arranged alphabetically with lengthy articles on all aspects of life in the U.S. in the nineteenth century. Use the table of contents in volume 1, or the sytematic outline of contents and detailed subject index in volume 3 to locate your topic. Mugar Ref. X E169.1 E626 2001.
Encyclopedia of Women in American History. 3 vols. 2002.: "This illustrated set examines the unique influence and contributions of women in every era of American history, from the colonial period to the present. It not only covers the issues that have had an impact on women, but also traces the influence of women's achievements on society as a whole." Mugar Ref. X HQ1410 E53 2002.
Handbook of American Women's History. 2nd ed. 2000.: Entries focus on the organizations, concepts, and individuals important to American women's history. Mugar Ref. X HQ1410 H36 2000.
Women's Rights in the United States: A Documentary History. 1994.: Anthology of primary documents on women's rights, including speeches, court decisions, and statutes. Mugar HQ1236.5 U6 W68 1994.
Women's Studies Encyclopedia. 3 vols. Revised and expanded ed. 1999.: Arranged alphabetically from "Abolitionism" to "Zhenotdel" (the women's section of the Soviet Communist Party), entries contain information about women from all disciplines of study. While many entries discuss women elsewhere in the world, the primary focus is on women in the U.S. Mugar HQ1115 W645 1999.

INDEXES, ABSTRACTS, AND FULL TEXT SOURCES.

America: History and Life. 1964 - . (BU-px).: Indexes and abstracts periodical articles and dissertations in the field of North American history, prehistory, and culture. Look here for articles on the history of women in the U.S. and Canada.
American Periodicals, 1741-1900: An Index to the Microfilm Collections. 1979.: Provides a reel number index for three sets of microfilmed periodicals: American Periodicals, 18th Century; American Periodicals, 1800-1850; and American Periodicals 1850-1900, Civil War and Reconstruction. The main section is an alphabetical periodical title index. Each entry includes publishing dates, editors, and brief description. A subject index groups the titles by topic from abolitionists to zoology. There is also an editor index. Some of these magazines are indexed by subject in Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and 19th Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. The Library owns the microfilm collections. Mugar Current Periodicals Z6951 H65.
Historical Newspapers: The New York Times. 1851-2006. (BU-px).: "Offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue."
JSTOR. (BU-px).: Archive of scholarly journals in electronic format, digitized from the first issue onward to a "moving wall" of two to five years ago.
Making of America (MOA).: "Making of America (MOA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints." MOA consists of images of book and journal pages searchable by keywords or by an indexed term.
MLA International Bibliography. 1926 - . (BU-px).: International index to journals, series, monographs, working papers, bibliographies and dissertations on modern languages, literature, linguistics and folklore.
The Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Periodicals.: Library of Congress American Memory Collection of 23 digitized 19th century American periodicals. Search by keyword or browse individual titles. . There is also a searchable collection of 1500 19th century books.
Personal Name Index to 'The New York Times Index.' 22 vols. and supplements. 1976 - .: Compilation of names in The New York Times Index from 1851 to 1999. Mugar Ref. X Z5301 F28.
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature. 1802-1906.: Indexes 240 American and British magazines on all topics. The tabular list of periodicals indexed includes a place of publication column; London, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia predominate. Mugar AI3 E82R Storage: Use Request Form
Project Muse. (BU-px): Provides access to the full text of over 200 scholarly journals in the arts and humanities, social sciences and mathematics. Coverage varies for each journal.
Readers' Guide Retrospective. 1890-1982. (ChRiv-px).: Indexes and abstracts more than 370 of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and Canada from 1890 - 1982.
Social Sciences Full Text. 1983 - . (ChRiv-px): Indexes and abstracts core journals in such fields as anthropology, criminal justice and criminology, gender studies, geography, gerontology, minority studies, social work, sociology, and urban studies. Includes full text of articles from 215+ journals as far back as 1995. For retrospective searching (1907-1984) use Humanities and Social Sciences Retrospective, which indexes nearly 1,200 periodicals as early as 1907.

Studies on Women and Gender Abstracts. 1995 - . (ChRiv): Indexes and abstracts journal articles, chapters, and books on women. The focus is on "education, employment, women in the family and community, medicine and health, female sex and gender role socialisation, social policy, the social psychology of women, female culture, media treatment of women, biography, literary criticism, and historical studies." Formerly Studies on Women Abstracts (1983-1999), Mugar Z7962 S78. Storage: Use Request Form.
Women Writers Online. (ChRiv-px).: A full text database of pre-Victorian women's writing in English. Covering the period 1400-1850, WWO includes fiction, poetry, and drama, as well as writings in religion and philosophy, history and politics, science and medicine.
Women's Studies International. 1972 - . (BU-px).: Contains citations or citations/abstracts from ten women's studies databases.
Women's Studies Index. 1989 - 2002.: Subject/author index to feminist and mainstream women's studies periodicals, including U.S. and foreign journals and magazines. Mugar HQ1180 W66. Storage: Use Request Form.

CHRONOLOGIES.

Chronology of Women Worldwide: People, Places and Events That Shaped Women's History. 1997.: Chronologically-arranged history of women in the world, emphasizing explanations and significance of events. Also contains myths and legends about women, excerpts of important documents concerning women, and a list of women-related events for each day of the year. Mugar Ref. X HQ1121 C617 1997.
Chronology of Women's History. 1994.: Inclusive list of landmarks in women's history between 20,000 BC and 1993, arranged in ten categories, by time period. Mugar HQ1121 O47 1994.
NAWSA Timeline: One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview.: Timeline of events in history of woman suffrage.
Timetables of Women's History. 1994.: Presents achievements of women from ancient times to the present. Includes biographical entries. Mugar Ref. X HQ1121 G74 1994.
The Women's Chronology. 1994.: From 3 million BC to 1993, this work records landmarks in women's history. The 13,000 entries are grouped by category in an easy-to-read format. There is a detailed subject index. Mugar HQ1122 T73 1994.
Women's Firsts. 1997.: Arranged thematically (e.g., activism, military), this work describes first-time accomplishments, honors, awards, and other landmark "firsts" of women worldwide, from ancient times to the present, with an emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. Also includes a calendar of "firsts" from 1562 AD and an index by year from 2300 BC. Mugar Ref. X CT3203 W66 1997.

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES.

African American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. 1993.: Contains biographical sketches of approximately 300 women from the Colonial period to the present. Includes appendix listing women by career. Mugar E185.96 A45 1993.

American National Biography. (BU-px).: The first new biographical encyclopedia on American history in seventy years, this work covers more than 17,500 historical figures.

Biographies of American Women: An Annotated Bibliography. 1990.: Contains entries for 1391 biographies of 700 American women, published since the early 1800s. Includes appendix arranged by profession or category. Mugar Z7963 B6 S88 1990. Storage: Use Request Form.
Black Women in America. 2nd ed. 3 vols. 2005.: Includes biographical essays on individual black women, both historical and contemporary, and entries on general topics such as Abolition and the Harlem Renaissance. Mugar Ref. X E185.86 B542 2005.
European Immigrant Women in the United States: A Biographical Dictionary. 1994.: Contains biographies of 234 European immigrant women who contributed to shaping the U.S. in such areas as the arts, politics, social work, religion, and medicine. Mugar E184 E95 L58 1994.
Notable American Women, 1607 - 1950: A Biographical Dictionary. 3 vols. 1971.: Biographical sketches of 1359 American women who lived between 1607 and 1950. Mugar Ref. X CT3260 N57.
Notable Black American Women. 1992.: Contains biographical essays on 500 black American women of historical and contemporary significance. Mugar E185.96 N68 1992.
Women in Particular: An Index to American Women. 1984.: Contains brief biographical information on more than 20,000 American women. Includes sources for further information. There are field/career, religious affiliation, ethnic/racial, and geographical indexes. Mugar HQ1412 H47 1984.

INTERNET SOURCES.

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century.: "African American Women Writers of the 19th Century is a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920. A full text database of these 19th and early 20th- century titles, this digital library is key-word-searchable."
American Women's History: A Research Guide.: "American Women's History provides citations to print and Internet reference sources, as well as to selected large primary source collections. The guide also provides information about the tools researchers can use to find additional books, articles, dissertations, and primary sources."
American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States.: Gateway to doing research on the history of women in the U.S. in the catalogs and digital collections of the Library of Congress.
Archival Sites for Women's Studies.: "Welcome to Archival Sites for Women's Studies, developed and maintained by the Women's Studies Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries."
Arthur & Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.: Foremost library on the history of women in the United States, this collection of books, manuscripts, periodicals, photographs, oral histories, and ephemera documents American women's history in the 19th and 20th centuries in particular.
Discovering American Women's History Online.: Developed by a reference librarian at Middle Tennessee State University, "this database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States."

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony Papers Project Online.: "The mission of this project is to find and copy all of the Stanton and Anthony papers that still survive--as manuscripts and printed texts--and make those primary sources available and useful for research."
The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress.: "The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895. The printed Speech, Article, and Book Series contains the writings of Douglass and such contemporaries in the abolitionist and early women's rights movements as Henry Ward Beecher, Ida B. Wells, Gerrit Smith, Horace Greeley, and others. The Subject File Series reveals Douglass's interest in diverse subjects such as politics, emancipation, racial prejudice, women's suffrage, and prison reform. Scrapbooks document Douglass's role as minister to Haiti and the controversy surrounding his interracial second marriage."
Home Economics Archives, Cornell University.: "HEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines [including Housekeeping and Etiquette and Child Care, Human Development, and Family Studies]. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals. Future phases of the project will include books published between 1926 and 1950, as well as additional journals. The full text of these materials, as well as bibliographies and essays on the wide array of subjects relating to Home Economics, are all freely accessible on this site. This is the first time a collection of this scale and scope has been made available."
"Liberty Rhetoric" and the Nineteenth-Century American Woman.: "The site includes a small online archive of women's poetry, letters, images, songs, speeches, and declarations. By examining these resources, and the "questions to ponder," students may gather information about the ways nineteenth-century women used "liberty rhetoric" to argue for changes in their worlds. "Liberty Rhetoric" is a tradition of speaking about the relationship between the state and the citizen.
Pathfinder for Women's History: Archives Library Information Center, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.: A listing of historical websites relevant to women in the United States. Includes bibliographies, primary sources, and more.

Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the U.S. & the U.K., 1815 - 1914.: "Studies in Scarlet presents the images of over 420 separately published trial narratives from the Harvard Law School Library's extensive trial collections. Included are a number of trials of the wealthy and renowned such as an account of the adultery trial of Caroline, Queen Consort of George IV, the sodomy trial of Oscar Wilde, and the trial of Harry Thaw for the murder of Stanford White, the famous architect who was Evelyn Nesbit Thaw's lover. The larger part of the collection, however, consists of the stories of ordinary men and women thrust into the public eye when their marriages and love affairs went wrong or their relationships did not conform to social standards. Studies in Scarlet includes American, British, and Irish cases 1815-1914 involving domestic violence, bigamy, seduction, breach of promise to marry, and the custody of children, as well as trials for murder and rape. These trials are especially rich sources for the study of the history of women in early modern society."

Teaching With Documents: Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment.: Historical documents from the National Archives illustrating the decades-long struggle for women to gain the right to vote in the United States.
Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection 1848-1921.: Selections from a collection of books, pamphlets, and other materials documenting the U.S. women's suffrage movement at the Library of Congress. Includes timeline, bibliography, and searchable indexes.
Women, Enterprise & Society: A Guide to Resources in the Business Manuscripts Collection at Baker Library.: "This Web-based publication identifies materials in the Business Manuscripts Collection at Baker Library [Harvard Business School] that document women's participation in American business and culture from the eighteenth through the twentieth century."
Women in America, 1820 - 1842.: Views on American women written by European travelers, including Dickens and Tocqueville.
Women Working, 1800 - 1930.: "This collection explores women's roles in the US economy between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, conditions in the home, costs of living, recreation, health and hygiene, conduct of life, policies and regulations governing the workplace, and social issues are all well documented by original source material. The collection, drawing from 9 Harvard libraries and 1 museum, debuted in 2004 and now contains: 3,500 digitized books, pamphlets and serials, 70 consumer and trade catalogs; 40 magazines; 1,125 photographs; 7,500+ pages from manuscript collections."

ADDITIONAL LINKS AND SOURCES.

Primary Sources Research Guide.: Guide to finding primary sources in Boston University library collections and on the Web.