American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture Inthe United States

by Harvey, Sheridan; Ruth, Janice Ean; Natanson, Barbara Orbach; Day, Sara; Sinclair, Evelyn

• ISBN13: 9780844410487
• ISBN10: 0844410489
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England

Summary

With over 200 illustrations and five essays based entirely on Library of Congress materials, American Women exemplifies the multicultural, interdisciplinary approach to American women's history and culture that the Library's phenomenal collections provide. Starting with chapters on general and rare books, newspapers, periodicals, and legal collections, and moving on to special-format materials such as manuscripts, prints and photographs, maps, music, recorded sound, motion pictures and television, American folklife, and foreign-language collections, this new guide is designed to help researchers plan a research strategy before they ever visit the Library of Congress. Used in conjunction with the Library's online catalogs and digitized collections, it should inspire historians, biographers, picture researchers, film and documentary makers, and others dedicated to uncovering and telling women's stories. For example, as a result of the copyright laws, for a century and a half the Library has been the recipient of bottomless resources for studying representations of women in popular culture, from graphic materials of all kinds to literary works, film, comic books, and more. As for manuscripts, the traditional underpinnings of history, the Library has for many years quietly collected the papers of many important women, from leaders of reform movements, to the two current women Supreme Court justices, to scientists, writers, and artists.

Author Biography

Senior editor SHERIDAN HARVEY is the women's studies specialist at the Library of Congress.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
James H. Billington
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	xix
Susan Ware
Using the Library of Congress	xxxi
The General Collections	3	(38)
Sheridan Harvey
Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913	32	(9)
Sheridan Harvey
Serial and Government Publications Division	41	(28)
Georgia Metos Higley
Law Library of Congress	69	(32)
Pamela Barnes Craig
The Long Road to Equality: What Women Won from the ERA Ratification Effort	92	(9)
Leslie W. Gladstone
Rare Book and Special Collections Division	101	(22)
Rosemary Fry Plakas
Jacqueline Coleburn
Manuscript Division	123	(64)
Janice E. Ruth
``With Peace and Freedom Blest!'' Woman as Symbol in America, 1590-1800	176	(11)
Sara Day
Prints and Photographs Division	187	(29)
Barbara Orbach Natanson
Women on the Move: Overland Journeys to California	216	(11)
Patricia Molen van Ee
Geography and Map Division	227	(26)
Patricia Molen van Ee
Music Division	253	(26)
Robin Rausch
The House That Marian Built: The MacDowell Colony of Peterborough, New Hampshire	270	(9)
Robin Rausch
Recorded Sound Section-Motion Picture, Broadeasting, and Recorded Sound Division	279	(22)
Nancy J. Seeger
Moving Image Section-Motion Picture, Broadeasting, and Recorded Sound Division	301	(22)
Rosemary Hanes
Brian Taves
American Folklife Center	323	(18)
James Hardin
Area Studies Collections	341	(30)
Peggy K. Pearlstein
Barbara A. Tenenbaum
Abbreviations	371	(2)
Notes	373	(16)
Index	389