Women and Social Movements, International--1840 to Present

Link to updated bibliographies

Women and Social Movements, International—1840 to Present is a new digital archive that offers documents generated by women’s international activism since the middle of the nineteenth century. This online archive offers 150,000 pages of printed and manuscript materials.   Building upon a decade’s experience with Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, we began work on this new archive in 2008.  We assembled an editorial advisory board that met at the June 2008 Berkshire Conference on Women’s History at the University of Minnesota. Board members helped conceptualize the project and in the fall and winter of 2008-2009, they responded to a preliminary bibliography of possible publications and manuscripts to be included. By October 2010 we had identified and scanned more than 130,000 pages of materials and were working with our co-publisher, Alexander Street Press, to develop the user interface that would enable users to access and analyze documents in the archive digitally.  As of August 2014, we have published roughly 150,000 pages of primary source documents and 25 scholarly essays focusing on portions of the archive and database. Minor indexing additions and the posting of a few new documents remain to be completed during 2015. The resource is available to academic libraries around the world by purchase or subscription.

This digital archive offers unprecedented access to the study of women's participation in international politics and social movements, 1840-2010. The long time span greatly enhances our understanding of how women have shaped the modern world.

This has been a four-year project. Hundreds of scholars, librarians, and students have contributed to the work, especially the members of our international editorial advisory board who vetted successive bibliographies and suggested numerous documents that we added to the archive as the work proceeded. We particularly thank three graduate assistants who were part of the project team from the beginning: Denise Ireton, Carol Linskey, and Jessie Frazier. In addition to their own work, they supervised and trained a dozen undergraduate and graduate students who scanned most of the material in the archive. The Interlibrary Loan staff at SUNY Binghamton, under the direction of Jesslynn Shafer, has worked wonders; we also thank John Hagan and Ted Brewster of the Computer Center at the university and Linda von Esch of the University Copy Center. We also thank our colleagues at Alexander Street Press, particularly Julie Miller, Andrea Eastman-Mullins, and Pat Carlson, for providing the technical expertise and managerial support crucial to the completion of the work.

For a 25-minute overview video slide presentation and lecture by digital archive co-editor Kathryn Kish Sklar, click here.

For an essay, "Constructing WASM International, 2007-2010," by archive co-editor Thomas Dublin, Click here.

For further information on library purchase of subscription, contact Eileen Lawrence at Alexander Street Press at lawrence@astreetpress.com.