Gerritsen Collection of Women's History

Scope: 6th to mid-20th century; 200+ periodicals & 4,000+ books in many languages.

Sample documents:

Women's Education:

1. Emma Willard, A Plan for Improving Female Education, 1918

2. Edward Clarke, Sex in Education: or, A Fair Chance for the Girls, 1873.

Argued that intellectual activity was dangerous to women�s physical health. Feminist rebuttals often focused on this widely read book.

3. Julia Ward Howe, Sex and Education: a reply to Dr. E.H. Clarke's "Sex in education", 1874.

A defense of women�s higher education by this famous 19thcentury feminist

4. Helen Starrett, After College,What?: for girls, c. 1896.

A discussion of the problems female graduates faced

5. Cecil Grant, The Case for CoEducation, 1913.

Girls would provide a civilizing influence on male students, Grant held, thus forging better citizens and a healthier society.

6. Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, What Shall We Do with Our Daughters?: Superfluous Women, and Other Lectures, 1883.

These essays on women�s education, industrial training, employment, etc., reflect rising concerns with the growing nu mber of unmarried women for whom traditional domesticity was irrelevant

7. Edith A. Barnett, The Training of Girls for Work: An Expression of Opinions, 1894.

While most 19thcentury works about women were directed at the middle and upper classes, these essays discuss health, education, character, etc., from the working woman�s perspective

Feminist Core Titles:

1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman's Bible, c. 1895.

Revising and reinterpreting passages that omitted or derogated women

2. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, various editions

3. Helen Moody, The Unquiet Sex, 1898.

Describing the "new" woman for a popular audience

4. John Martin, Feminism, Its Fallacies and Follies, 1916.

Presenting feminist and antifeminist perspectives

5. Caroline French Benton, The Complete Club Book for Women: Including Subjects, Material and References for Study Programs:Together with a Constitution and ByLaws,
Rules of Order, Instructions How To Make a Yearbook, Suggestions for Practical Community Work, A Resume of What Some Clubs Are Doing, Etc., Etc.: A Companion Volume to Woman's Club Work and Program, 1915.

6. Henrietta Jackson Wells Livermore, How to Raise Money for Suffrage, 1917.

With advice on organizing fun d drives and insights on the economic and organizational skills acquired by women in the movement

Women's Health:

1. M. Angeline Merritt, Dress Reform Practically and Physiologically Considered With Plates, Illustrations, Opinions of the Press and the Private Testimony of Various Prominent Individuals,1852

2. Catharine Beecher, Letters to the People on Health and Happiness, 1855.

A forerunner of Our Bodies, Ourselves, educating women about their bodies and ways to maintain their health

3. Margaret Welch, Is Newspaper Work Healthful For Woman?, 1894.

Arguing that the deter minant factor is the nature of the work, not female physiology

4. Protection of the Health and Motherhood of the Working Women of Illinois: the campaign to up-hold the ten-hour law, 1900.

5. Ely Van De Warker,Woman's Unfitness for Higher Coeducation, c. 1903.

A physician and commissioner of schools provides social and physiological arguments reminiscent of the late 19th century

6. Lydia Maria Francis Child, The Family Nurse: Or, Companion of the Frugal Housewife,1837.

The author�s works on home and family were among the most popular of the many domestic advice books of the time.

Women's History:

1. Address of Elizabeth Cady Stanton ... Delivered at Seneca Falls and Rochester, N.Y.;

an 1870 reprint of the 1848 lecture

2. Jacob [James] Helfenstein, The Social Position of Woman in Different Periods of History, 1863

3. Earle Cross, The Hebrew Family, 1927.

A sociological study of marriage and the relative position of men and women in Hebrew society

3. Helen Maria Winslow, The Woman of To-morrow, 1905.

Winslow draws on the experiences of the 19thcentury women�s movement to forecast women�s social position in the 20th century, reflecting the ambivalence of an era that witnessed changing attitudes towards women.

4. Mary Mason, The Young Housewife's Counsellor and Friend, 1875.

Typical of late 19thcentury literature counseling women on managing a household and caring for a family

5. Annie S. Swan Smith, As Others See Her: An Englishwoman's Impressions of the American Woman in War Time, 1919.

Comparing American women�s war work with that of Englishwomen during World War I

6. Oliver Edward Janney, The White Slave Traffic in America, c. 1911.

In its discussion of the moral, social, and economic factors underlying the sex industry, this book illustrates Americans� alarm at the spread of prostitution in the early 20th century

7. Dolce, Lodovico, 1508-1568.: Dialogo della Institutione delle Donne Vinegia: G. Giolito de Ferrari, 1547, 176 pages.

Women's Biographies and Correspondence:

1. Anna Gordon, The Life of Frances E.Willard, 1912.

An intimate biography of the founder of the Women�s Christian Temperance Union.

2. Ida Husted Harper, 1851-1931.The life and work of Susan B. Anthony, including public addresses, her own letters, and many from her contemporaries during fifty years.

These three volumes comprise more than a biography of Susan B. Anthony. They reveal a great deal about the 19th century women's suffrage movement, which was synonymous with Anthony's life.

3. Helen Dyer, Pandita Ramabai: The Story of Her Life, c. 1911.

Detailing Ramabai�s struggle for women�s education in India

4. Jacob Bouten, Mary Wollstonecraft and the Beginnings of Female Emancipation in France and England, 1922

5. America's Twelve Great Women Leaders During the Past Hundred Years as Chosen by the Women of America: A Compilation from the Ladies Home Journal and the Christian Science Monitor, c. 1933

6. Ethel Hill, Great Suffragists�And Why: Modern Makers of History, c. 1909

7. Sand, George: Correspondance, 1812-1876 . Paris: Calmann Levy,, 1882, 2386 pages.

Periodicals in Women's History:

1. The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions, 1866�1910

2. The Woman Patriot: Dedicated to the Defense of Womanhood, Motherhood, the Family and the State,Against Suffragism, Feminism, and Socialism, 1918�1932

3. Our Sisters: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Interests of Women of Every Class,Clime, & Creed, 1895�1898

4. Today's Woman: A Weekly Home and Fashion Journal, 1893�1896

5. International Women's News, 1906�

6. FrauenReich: Deutsche HausfrauenZeitung, 1874�1910

7. Journal des Demoiselles, 1833�1896

8. De Hoop der Toekomst, 1894�1899

Women's Political Science & Social Rreform

1. Catharine Beecher, An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, 1837.

Advising women of their duty to fight for the abolition of slavery

2. Frances Willard, Woman and Temperance, c.1883.

A history of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and women�s leadership in the movement to abolish liquor

3. William Bowditch,Woman Suffrage, a Right Not a Privilege, c. 1882.

A male proponent�s reports of meetings of the National Society for Women's Suffrage in London, dealing with the early movement for the franchise of women in England

4. AntiSuffrage Essays by Massachusets Women, 1916.

Insight into the sentiments of those opposed to women voting

5. Mary Mumford, The Relation of Women to Municipal Reform, c. 1894

6. Cecil Maurice Chapman, Marriage and Divorce: Some Needed Reforms in Church and State, 1911.

A refor mer�s conception of marriage as it was and should be, and a plea for liberalized divorce laws.

see “The Gerritsen Collection.” by Janet Sharistanian et al. in Feminist Studies, vol. 3, no. 3/4 (spring-summer 1976), pp. 200-206.