Guides: History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality: Find Primary Sources

Primary Sources

What are primary sources?

Primary sources are original documents and objects created at the time being studied, such as diaries, newspaper accounts, letters, governmental records, or drawings. Any record that documents a past event can be considered a primary source.

Where can I find primary sources?

You can find primary sources in libraries, museums, and archives, including McGill's Rare Books and Special Collections Library (located on the 4th floor of the McLennan Library building). You can also find digitized primary sources online in library databases, such as those linked below, as well as in digitized collections, such as McGill's Digital Exhibitions & Collections.

You can also find primary sources in print and eBooks through the library. Historians and other scholars often bring together (and, when necessary, translate) primary sources in collections called sourcebooks (sometimes spelled source books), readers, or anthologies. You can systematically search for these in the Library Catalogue by using subject headings. Try combining keywords on your topic with the word sources (which demarcate primary sources) in a subject heading search. For example:

su: women Ireland history sources
su: women history renaissance, 1450-1600 sources
su: feminism history 20th century sources

Gender

Defining Gender, 1450-1910 (Adam Matthew)
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Contains access to original British source material for teaching and research on the history, literature, sociology and education from a gendered perspective.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub
Gender: Identity and Social Change (Adam Matthew)
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Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. This expansive collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Masculinity: Men Defining Men and Gentlemen (1600-1800)
This collection features rare advice books, manuals and literary texts relating to masculinity between 1560-1800. It is chiefly comprised of 61 core texts from the collections of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, including: Castiliogne’s The Courtyer (1561), Primaudaye’s The French academie (1589) and broadsides like The Noble Gallant (c.1670).
Two-Spirit Archives
The Two-Spirit Archives at the University of Winnipeg makes Two-Spirit people visible in our documentary heritage. It is guided in its development by the Two-Spirit Archives Advisory Council, which ensures Two-Spirit people are central to preserving the history of their contributions to society and in strengthening their community. Currently includes a small digital collection, and links to other projects including the Two-Spirited People of Manitoba Oral History project.

Archives of Sexuality and Gender (Gale Primary Sources)
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LGBTQ history and culture since 1940. Archive containing historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals, personal correspondence, interviews, publications, gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries.
New modules: L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.
The content of this database is available for text-mining through Gale Digital Scholar Lab
Includes reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health.Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950 to 1990.

Sex & Sexuality

Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century (Gale)
This collection is made up of more than five thousand rare and unique books covering sex, sexuality, and gender issues across the sciences and humanities and throughout history. This online archive includes three unique collections:
1. The Private Case from the British Library, comprised of printed books segregated from the main library from the 1850s to 1990 on grounds of obscenity.
2. Special Subject Units from Sex Research: Early Literature from Statistics to Erotica, a collection from the Alfred C. Kinsey Institute for Sex Research dating from 1700 to 1860.
3. A collection of rare and unique books from the New York Academy of Medicine, consisting of more than 1,400 monographs covering a variety of topics in sex, sexuality, and gender studies.

Sex and Sexuality (Adam Matthew)
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This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Investigating the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and personal accounts.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub
Archives of Sexuality and Gender (Gale Primary Sources)
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LGBTQ history and culture since 1940. Archive containing historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals, personal correspondence, interviews, publications, gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries.
New modules: L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.
The content of this database is available for text-mining through Gale Digital Scholar Lab
Includes reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health.Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950 to 1990.
Queer Pasts
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A collection of primary source exhibits for students and scholars of queer history and culture.

The ArQuives
The ArQuives is one of the largest independent LGBTQ2+ archives in the world and the only archive in Canada with a mandate to collect at a national level. Its mandate is to safeguard the LGBTQ2+ history of Canada. The ArQuives preserves a wide range of material including personal and organizational papers, books, monographs, photographs, moving images, sound recordings, periodicals, artifacts (like buttons, board games, t-shirts, and banners), and other reference material.
Tip: try browsing the digital exhibits.
Edmonton Queer History Collection
This collection features 2SLGBTQ+ community magazines, newsletters, and items of historical significance. Material has been digitized in support of the Edmonton Queer History Project an innovate university-community project designed to help celebrate the people, places, and moments that have helped to build Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community.
NYPL: LGBTQ+ History
Several digitized collections related to LGBTQ+ History.
Homosexuality in 18th-century England
An online sourcebook compiled by Rictor Norton.
Homosexuality in 19th-century England
An online sourcebook compiled by Rictor Norton.
Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914
Drawn from the Harvard Law School Library’s extensive trial collections, Studies in Scarlet features over 420 trial narratives involving the crimes and passions of both renowned and ordinary people.
L'Enfer de la Bibliothèque nationale de France
Enfer ("Hell") from the Bibliothèque nationale de France is one of the most storied and sought-after private case collections of forbidden books. The collection was created in the 1830s to protect and isolate works that were considered contrary to the morals of the time. Enfer is made up of more than 2,400 literary works, manuscripts, engravings, lithographs, and photographs dating from the 1530s to 2010s and provide a wide perspective throughout time and in different societies on what were considered to be erotic and/or pornographic works.
Directory of LGBTQ2S+ Archives in the USA and Canada
List of LGBTQ2S+ archives in the USA and Canada, kept by Prof. Alex Ketchum (McGill).
LGBTQ History Digital Collaboratory
This public DH research initiative preserves gay, queer, and trans life stories from Canada and abroad. See especially the tabs labeled "Projects" and "Oral History Hub."

Women's History and Writing

General collections

Women's Voices and Life Writing, 1600-1968
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Brings together diaries and oral histories to enable students and researchers to explore the lives of hundreds of individuals from diverse backgrounds, from abolitionists to suffragists, and royalty to republicans. Vivid narratives cover a wide range of themes, including domestic life, travel, sport, feminism, gender fluidity, and class with the collection providing a platform for working class, LGBTQ+, and disabled women’s voices.
Women's Studies (Adam Matthew)
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A breadth of printed and manuscript sources over four centuries, providing a multitude of perspectives on the changing roles of women in history. This collection offers access to the works and legacy of many notable and influential women, but also a chance to hear the voices of forgotten and ordinary women.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub
Women's Studies Archive (Gale Primary Sources)
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Global in scope, the archive presents materials covering the social, political, and professional aspects of women's lives and offers a look at the roles, experiences, and achievements of women in society. A wide range of primary sources provide a close look at some of the pioneers of women's history, a deep dive into the issues that have affected women, and the many contributions they have made to society.

Medieval & Early Modern Europe

Medieval and Early Modern Women
This collection fills a need for original source material relating to Medieval and Early Modern Women. It contains important texts by key women authors, manuscripts bearing illustrations of women, and sources describing the lives of women in this period. Part 1 draws upon the manuscript resources of the British Library. It contains the first known autobiography in English - that of Margery Kempe (c1373-c1439), the mystic and traveller - and the earliest extant English diary proper - that of Lady Margaret Hoby (1571-1633) - which started as a spiritual and confessional diary but changed over time into an account of her life. Part 2 expands the range of material documenting women's lives in the medieval and early modern periods and contains a significant collection of Household Books and related materials; a range of noteworthy association copies; and correspondence by and between women. These sources bring us closer to the social and domestic lives of women in the medieval and early modern period and offer insights into women's reading and women's learning.
Epistolae: Women's Medieval Letters
Collection of medieval letters to and from women dated from the 4th to the 13th centuries to and from women, presented in the original Latin and in English translation.
Monastic Matrix
Scholarly resource for studying women's religious communities from 400-1600 C.E., including primary and secondary sources as well as a bibliography.

Perdita manuscripts : women writers, 1500-1700 (Adam Matthew)
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Complete facsimile images of manuscripts written or compiled by women living in the British Isle during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Canada and the U.S.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 (Alexander Street)
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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. The collection currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools. Includes access to the online version of Notable American Women and the database on Commissions on the Status of Women.
Everyday Life & Women in America : c.1800-1920 (Adam Matthew)
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Contains primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub
North American Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street)
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This collection contains 150,000 indexed and searchable pages of diaries and letters from 1,325 women documenting their experiences. Includes biographical sketches of those represented, as well as over 7,000 pages of previously unpublished material.
North American Women's Drama (Alexander Street)
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From colonial times to the present, this collection presents over 1,500 full-text plays by 330 women playrights from the United States and Canada. Includes many rare, out of print, or previously unpublished materials.
Canada's Early Women Writers
Bio-bibliographical database of Canadian English-language women writers who first published in or before 1950.

The Alberta Women's Memory Project
Includes profiles of Alberta women, memoirs, and digitized archival collections relevant to the lives of women in Alberta during the 20th century.

Women's Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
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An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines.
Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005.
Library can facilitate negotiating text-mining rights for this database for McGill faculty and students wishing to acquire the rights with their own research funds. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub- dshub.library@mcgill.ca, Subject: ProQuest text or data mining question.
Subject coverage : gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture.

Chatelaine (1928-2005)
English-language Canadian women's magazine which covers topics from food, style and home décor to politics, health and relationships.

Britain

Orlando : Women's Writings in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present (Cambridge)
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A textbase comprising more than 8 million words of original scholarship about women writers’ lives, bodies of work, and cultures in a collection of author profiles, event entries, and bibliographic entries brought together for searching and remixing by the project’s bespoke tagging system.
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street)
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A collection of British and Irish women's diaries and correspondence spanning more than 300 years.

Irish Women Writers of the Romantic Era
Papers of Mary Tighe (1772-1810) and Lady Sydney Morgan (1776-1859) from the National Library of Ireland.
Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers
This collection will be of significance to all scholars and students interested in later nineteenth-century British literature and popular culture. It includes some of the best-selling and characteristic works of women writers that were highly influential in the development of the mid-Victorian novel.

Women in the National Archives (Adam Matthew)
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Reproduces original documents covering the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub
Travel Writing: Spectacle and World History (Adam Matthew)
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This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Students and researchers will find sources covering a variety of topics, including architecture, art, the British Empire, climate, customs, exploration, family life, housing, industry, language, monuments, mountains, natural history, politics and diplomacy, race, religion, science, shopping and war.

Women's Missionary Archives
This collection contains a wide range of material focusing on the work of women missionaries across the globe. The collection is made up mostly of official publications from various missionary organisations including: The Female Missionary Intelligencer, 1862-1877 from the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, News of the Female Mission of the Church of Scotland, 1862-1922 from the Female Mission of the Church of Scotland, the Women’s Missionary Magazine, 1901-1919 from the United Free Church of Scotland and the Quarterly Zenana Record, 1887-1900.

Feminism

Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs (ProQuest)
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A collection of books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the revolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. Now available on the ProQuest platform.

Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires Since 1820
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices. With a clear focus on bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront, this highly-curated archive and database includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Women and Social Movements, International - 1840 to Present
Women and Social Movements, International is a landmark collection of primary materials. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
Rise Up! Feminist Archive
The Rise Up! project aims to create a digital archive of original publications, documents, flyers, posters, and many other materials representing feminist activism from the 1970s to 1990s across Canada and Quebec.
Gallica: Presse féministe
Sélection de titres de presse féministe disponibles sur Gallica, sur une période allant des années 1830 au milieu du 20e siècle.

Transgender History

Digital Transgender Archive
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
Transgender Archives (University of Victoria)
The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria is committed to the preservation of the history of pioneering activists, community leaders, and researchers who have contributed to the betterment of Trans+ and other gender-diverse people.
LGBTQ History Digital Collaboratory
This public DH research initiative preserves gay, queer, and trans life stories from Canada and abroad. See especially the tabs labeled "Projects" and "Oral History Hub."

Liaison Librarian

Kristen Howard

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Subjects: Classical studies, History, Indigenous studies

History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality