History 432/632: History of Women in the United States

• Documentary Collections and Reference Books on Women's History
• Using the UNR Library Catalog to Find Primary and Secondary Sources
• Thematic Online Collections (Licensed by UNR)
• Links to Women's History on the World Wide Web
• U.S. Census Data on Women

Documentary Collections & Reference Books on Women's History

• History of Women documentary collection (Microfilm C24). This microfilm collection includes thousands of books, pamphlets, and other publications, 31 manuscript collections and almost three hundred reels of women's magazines.  Includes many sources related to the history of women worldwide. An index to the materials in the collection is located in the Microforms Area: Microfilm C24 Index. Every item in the collection is catalogued in the UNR Library Catalog. (a partial list of items in the collection is linked here)
• Ireland, Index to Women of the World from Ancient to Modern Times KNOWLEDGE CENTER Z 7963 B6 I73 (5TH FLOOR)
• James, Notable American Women. The basic biographical source for American women's history.
  REFERENCE CT 3260 N57
• Mainiero, American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present
  REFERENCE PS 147 .A4
• Uglow and Hinton, International Dictionary of Women's Biography (last 2 centuries)
  KNOWLEDGE CENTER CT 3202 .I57 1982 (REQUEST FROM MARS)
• Ware & Braukman, Notable American Women: a biographical dictionary completing the twentieth century.
  KNOWLEDGE CENTER CT 3260 .N5725 2004 (3RD FLOOR)

Using the Library Catalog to Find Primary and Secondary Sources

From the Knowledge Center home page , click the RESEARCH button, then select Library Catalog

The Library Catalog provides information about books, magazine and journal titles, audiovisual materials, and some government publications held by the UNR Libraries and other college libraries in northern Nevada.

• For subject searching in the Library Catalog, the most effective options are:
  
  Keyword search in Encore
  • (search words in title, name & subject fields by typing any combination of keywords or constructing a Boolean search statement)
     
  Library of Congress Subject Headings
  
  • Searching by Library of Congress Subject Headings is more precise
    and may yield more relevant information than does Subject searching.
    Below are examples of recommended LC subject headings:
     
    • African American Women
    • Married Women--United States
    • Feminists--United States
    • Women--United States--History--Sources
       
    (Acknowledgements to Jos Anemaet, librarian at Oregon State University, for information on Library of Congress Subject Headings related to women)
     
• Searching by personal names:
  
  You may use the Catalog’s Author Search to find an author's collected writings,
  or search a person's name as a Library of Congress Subject Heading
  to locate books about the individual. Some examples are given below:
  
  Library of Congress Subject Heading Search:
  • Roosevelt Eleanor--1884-1962
  • Subject subheadings for information about Eleanor Roosevelt include
  • Correspondence, Political and Social Views, and Influence.
  Author Search:
  • Roosevelt, Eleanor--1884-1962

A search in the Catalog normally results in a list of titles, authors or subject headings. Choose the most relevant entries and display the information for individual titles. Carefully check the Location information for each title you want, since the collections are housed in several different libraries, departments, and branches. Likewise, check the Status of each item to determine its current availability.

Note: The Catalog does not provide information about articles in magazines and journals, or most government publications held by the participating libraries.

Thematic Online Collections (Licensed by UNR)

• American History and Culture Online: Sabin Americana, 1500-1926
  29,000 works about the Americas published from 1500 to the early 1900's. Includes books, pamphlets, serials and documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and more. Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography.
• Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800
  Books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera represented in the American Bibliography by Charles Evans. 40,000 works trace the history of the American colonies that would eventually become the United States, and include such diverse topics as temperance, witchcraft, slavery, diplomacy and music.
• North American Women's Letters & Diaries
  Writings of over 1,500 women, representing various age groups, life stages, ethnicities, and geographic regions in North America. Includes published and previously unpublished materials, from colonial times to 1950.
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
  Books, images, primary resources, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies documenting women's reform activities from colonial times to the present.

Links to Women's History on the World Wide Web

• American Memory Project from the Library of Congress
  Online access to textual materials, photographs, sound files, motion pictures and more from the collections of the Library of Congress. All aspects of American history are represented.
• Nevada Women's Archives
  Information about manuscripts and archives related to women available in the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Reno Knowledge Center.
• Women's Studies Research Guide
  A categorized collection of links compiled by staff at the New York Public Library.
• Women's Collections
  Links to many primary source collections in libraries and repositories in the United States focusing on women.
• Knowledge Center: Information Resources for History
  Links to more databases with information about women in American history, including America: History & Life, American National Biography Online, American Periodicals Series, HarpWeek, and Poole's. Off-campus availability of subscription databases is limited to UNR students, faculty and staff.
• Knowledge Center: Information Resources for Women's Studies
  Links on history, literature, philosophy, health & more, compiled by librarian Betty Glass. Off-campus availability of subscription databases is limited to UNR students, faculty and staff.

U.S. Census Data on Women

• U.S. Census Bureau Publications and Electronic Data on Gender
• Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial to 1970 (2 volumes). Includes statistics gathered in the colonial and national censuses and other demographic and economic information. REF HA 202 B87 1976 and BGIC C 3.134/2:H 62/789-970.
• Trends in Marital Status of U.S. Women at First Birth: 1930 to 1994