Women's History Sources: A Guide to Manuscripts and Archival Collections

Described in the Special Collections portion of the guide are manuscripts that were created by and/or pertain to women of all age groups, social classes and marital statuses. These manuscripts are in the form of diaries, travel journals, literary works, correspondence, minutes and subject files (among many other document types) that are present in the repository in their original form or, less frequently, as reproductions or transcripts. Included are papers of individuals (such as Millicent Fenwick, Mary Norton and Mary Roebling), as well as records of local organizations (such as the Woman's Club of Woodbury), state organizations (such as the League of Women Voters of New Jersey and the New Jersey Division of the American Association of University Women) and national organizations (such as the Women's Caucus for Art, the National Women's Education Fund and Sisters in Crime). Not listed in the guide are commercially-distributed microfilms of additional collections of relevant papers and records, copies of which are available either at the Douglass Library, the Alexander Library (consult Alexander Library Microforms Database) or elsewhere in the Rutgers University Libraries system.

From the diaries of homemakers on farms to the organizational records of second wave feminist organizations, the manuscripts represented in the present guide reflect the expanding roles and concerns of women throughout American history. Occupations featured in the personal papers described encompass authors (including authors of children's books), art critics, athletes, bankers, businesswomen, charitable workers, clerks, college students, compulsory sterilization advocates, congresswomen, consumer advocates, corrections officials, dieticians, homemakers, human rights advocates, midwives, missionaries, nurses, peace activists, poets, professors, public officials, Red Cross workers, scholars, seamstresses, social workers, students, teachers and translators. The organizational records included pertain to art education, child welfare, church and missionary work, community improvement, consumerism (including the monitoring of workplace conditions), education, feminism and feminist theory, higher education, home economics, journal publishing, lesbian and gay rights, library workers, migrant workers, mystery writers, nutrition, organized labor, patriotism, political activity, reading, religion, scholarship about women, social activity, social welfare, suffrage, temperance, voter education, women artists and their artwork, women's history and women's rights. Among additional topics represented in the papers and records are African Americans, aging, the environmental movement, the Equal Rights Amendment, farming, gardening, girls, household workers, Jewish women, Latin America, the legal status of women, leisure travel, music, personal and family finances, protective legislation, relationships and wartime experiences.

Entries in this guide are alphabetically arranged in several files, including nine linked files for the Special Collections manuscripts and one file for the University Archives collections. The description of each collection, or relevant part of a larger collection, focuses on the content that relates to women. Each entry specifies the name of the material's creator and its form (or sometimes a title in lieu of both), the date range of the collection, its size and a description of the papers or records. Most entries also include background information concerning the individual, family or organization responsible for the creation of the documentation. Sometimes notes are present in the entries which provide additional details, such as indications that more information is available in the form of a finding aid, that non-English materials are included, that advance notice is required for consultation (as some materials are stored offsite), that restrictions on use apply, that publications exist which either reproduce or are based upon the materials, that associated materials exist for which the location is specified or that typed transcripts are present in addition to original handwritten documents.

An index to the guide entries is included for all of the descriptions of Special Collections manuscripts, as well as for the five descriptions of University Archives collections which do not represent official records of the university. This index is composed of three sections of alphabetically arranged hyperlinks that provide topical, name and geographic access to the guide's descriptive entries. The terms appearing in the place names index and in the personal and corporate names index derive from the cooperative name authority file which is used by most libraries, with additional terms not found there having been constructed in a compatible style. The subject headings used in the subjects and titles index derive primarily from A Women's Thesaurus (c1987) edited by Mary Ellen S. Capek; as needed, additional or substitute terms from the Library of Congress Subject Headings have been employed. While an attempt has been made to provide detailed indexing, information in the biographical or organizational history portion of an entry has ordinarily been indexed only when it is also believed to be reflected in some way in the actual papers or records which the repository holds. For example, although Millicent Fenwick was at one time the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, no term for that body appears in the personal and corporate names index, as Fenwick's papers held by the repository pertain only to her congressional career. For additional information concerning the arrangement and other details of the indexes, consult the prefatory note included with each.

The earliest guide to women's history sources in Special Collections and University Archives was a photocopied handout produced in 1984. It featured the repository's entries from the 1979 Women's History Sources: A Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States, edited by Andrea Hinding et. al., interfiled with entries from the supplemental "Gifts and Acquisitions: Women's History Sources Since 1979" (Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, June 1984) compiled by Ruth J. Simmons. Subsequently, a revised and expanded set of relevant collection descriptions was issued in printed form. Drawn from various sources, including information gleaned from Donald A. Sinclair's 1980 A Guide to Manuscript Diaries and Journals in the Special Collections Department, Rutgers University, the printed version was entitled A Guide to the Women's History Archives at Rutgers. It was first issued in 1990 in conjunction with the eighth annual Berkshire Conference on Women's History, hosted by Douglass College, and was subsequently slightly revised–most notably through the addition of an index prepared by Fernanda H. Perrone. As a supplement to the printed guide, a brief overview of the women's collections was prepared, also by Ms. Perrone, which appeared both as a handout and as a (now superceded) web page.

The present online effort, Women's History Sources: A Guide to Manuscripts and Archival Collections, was first published online in early 2002. The text and indexes for entries describing manuscript collections were compiled by Albert C. King, Manuscripts Curator, and the text for entries describing Rutgers University Archives and related collections was prepared by Erika Gorder, University Archivist. In addition to the sources already noted, the new and revised descriptions of manuscripts which appear in the online guide derive from collection summaries prepared by the manuscripts curator for other purposes; from Special Collections finding aids, including several produced by or under the direction of Fernanda H. Perrone; from analyses of diaries prepared by David Kuzma; and from a direct examination or reexamination of many of the collections by the curator.

The Libguide version of this resource was updated and edited by Tallulah Pentecost, Graduate Student Assistant at SCUA on September 18, 2024.