Women: Position and Progress Collection, 1804-2001
General International Standard for Archival Description
Sophia Smith Collection Smith CollegeNorthampton, MA
Finding aid encoded using Perl scripts and edited in XMetal 2.0. Encoded by Laura Cutter. 2003-06-12
Encoded Archival Description
Encoded Archival Description (EAD) Version 2002
collection
Women: Position and Progress Collection
Creation of Women: Position and Progress Collection
Time of Creation of Women: Position and Progress Collection
Scope and Contents of the Collection "The American Woman's Home," pamphlet by Catharine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1870 The Women: Position and Progress Collection contains manuscript and published material, including books dating from the early nineteenth century. It documents both dominant attitudes about middle- and upper-class women's roles and gender-conscious women's and men's efforts to expand and overturn those roles, and illustrates the impact of such efforts on women's status and position in Western societies. The collection consists primarily of published sources such as articles, printed lectures and sermons, newspaper clippings, and pamphlets; but also includes a significant amount of unusual and unique material such as household bills and inventories, letters, lists, and notes. About half the material in the collection dates from the nineteenth century. The bulk of material consists of articles, books, and pamphlets that reflect the widely divergent views about women's roles that made "the woman question" such a visible and contentious issue in this period. Prescriptive literature, such as advice books with titles such as How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, and The Young Bride's Book, and an assortment of printed lectures and sermons clearly illustrate the power and prevalence of traditional assumptions about women's "natural" maternalism and domesticity. Emerging arguments about the need for women's equality and women's rights are also well-represented in the older segment of the collection by articles from magazines and newspapers, pamphlets, and printed lectures. A few examples of personal letters, household bills, and lists of house rules for servants from a Worcester, Massachusetts home provide a small glimpse into the realities of daily life for upper- middle- and working-class women during the 1830s-80s. The twentieth century material reflects a similar range of opinions about women's social, political, and economic roles, and documents the dramatic shifts in women's status over the last hundred years. Anti-feminist attitudes are primarily represented in a variety of articles and essays from both scholarly and popular publications. Feminist points of view as expressed in magazine and newspaper articles, scholarly essays, and speeches are far more evident in twentieth century material. Unusual items from the twentieth century includes a typewritten outline of the history of the women's movement in the U.S. compiled in 1944 by Mary Williams, a professor at Goucher College; a few personal letters; and a toy catalog which probably dates from the 1940s or 1950s.
Etiquette for women--History--Sources
lcsh
Housewives--History--Sources
Manners and customs--Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Marriage--History--Sources
Middle class women--Attitudes
Motherhood--History--Sources
Women--Conduct of life
Women--Periodicals
Women's rights--History--20th century--Sources
Women's rights--History--19th century--Sources
Women--Sexual behavior--History
Women--Social and moral questions
Sophia Smith Collection
lcnaf
Clippings 1889-1981
Exposition\ exhibitions 1876-1974
History of women--general 1910-1975
Magazine articles, 19th century
Magazine articles, 20th century
Pamphlets
Postcards n.d. (late 19th, early 20th century)
Manners and customs
American Woman's Home by Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe 1870
Green, Mary: household bills 1833-35
Green Hill, Worcester, MA: household lists 1874-88; rules for young school girlsn.d.
May, Samuel J.: three letters to wife Lucretia 1835
General and miscellaneous 1848-1969
Pamphlets and booklets 1845-1959, 2001
Books
Lectures on Female Education and Manners by J. Burton. Baltimore 1811
Noble Deeds of Woman; or, Examples of Female Courage and Virtue by Elizabeth Starling.1850
Woman, in her Social and Domestic Character 1833, and New every morning, a year book for girls 1886 by Mrs. John Sandford
The Ladies Album 1856
Maternal instruction by Elizabeth Helme 1804
How the goode wif thaught hir daughter, extracted from Hindley, Chas., ed. The Old Book Collector's Miscellany, v.2 1872
Books on Shelf
Bracken, Peg. I Try to Behave Myself: Peg Bracken's Etiquette Book 1966
Bragdon, Elizabeth, editor. Women Today: Their Conflicts, Their Frustrations and Their Fulfillments 1953
Cole, Wolliam and Florett Robinson. Women are wonderful! A history in cartoons of a hundred years 1956
Copley, Esther. Female excellence, or hints to daughters designed for their use from the time of leaving school till their settlement in life circa 1850s
The Cosmopolitan Report: The Changing Life of American Women 1986
Dahl, Arlene. Always Ask a Man: Arlene Dahl's Key to Femininity 1965
Donnelly, Eleanor C., editor. Girlhood's Handbook of Woman: A Compendium of Views 1898
Dye, Judith Levett. For the instruction and amusement of Women: the growth, development, and definition of American magazines for women 1780-1840. University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. 1977
Farmer, Lydia Hoyt, editor. The National Exposition Souvenir: What America Owes to Women 1893
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Manmade World or Our Andocentric Culture 1911
The Good Housekeeping Woman's Almanac: The Book With All the Answers for Women by the editors of World Almanac 1977
The habits of good society: a handbook for ladies and gentlemen 1860
Hankins, Mary Louise. Women of New York 1861
Hersey, Heloise. To Girls: A budget of letters 1901
Holtby, Winifred. Women and a Changing Civilization 1935
Hosmer, William. The Young Lady's Book 1852
Life Magazine: The American Woman (special issue) Dec 24 1956
Martineau, Harriet. Household Education 1867
Massachusetts Review. Woman: An Issue 1972
Melendy, Mary. The Ideal Woman for Maidens, Wives, and Mothers 1911
Michelet, M.J. Woman (translated from the French by J.W. Palmer)1860
Rogers, Agnes. Women are here to stay 1949
Royden, Maude. Women's Partnership in the New World 1941
"This Crisis in History": Report of the Third Annual New York Herald Tribune Women's Conference on Current Problems, 1933
Thornwell, Emily. The ladies guide to perfect gentility 1856
Tobias, Roscoe Burdette and Mary E. Marcy. Women as Sex Vendors: or, why women are conservative, being a view of the economic status of women circa 1918
Vann. The Five Talents of Woman: A Book for Girls and Women 1895
West, Jane. Letters to a Young Lady in Which the Duties and Character of Women are Considered 1806
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler. Men, Women and Emotions 1893
Women: Pro and Con, a compilation of quotes about women illustrated by Jeff Hill (Peter Pauper Press) 1958
"I'll be no submissive wife: a ballad" (sheet music), composed by Alex Lee 1838