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Women's Archives and Libraries

Women Based Archives and Libraries

At the beginning of the 20th century, women's protection of their own history and their own documents became possible with the woman-centered archives established by women. There are also some hidden archives that are not available for use because they are not properly cataloged.

In order to better understand the history of women's collections in various countries, it should not be forgotten that the decisive force is the feminist movement in that country. At the beginning of the 20th century, especially the documents produced by the women's movement were preserved in archive centers. The collections in these centers were the materials printed during the activities of the women's movement or during its activities and meetings. Usually these library and archive centers were founded under the leadership of a feminist. For example, Marguerite Durand (1864-1936) began to hide and protect the documents of the women's movement in 1897. Later, she donated the documents she had collected to the Municipality of Paris in 1931. Marie-Louise Bougle (1883-1936) turned her own house into a library in 1926. Eliska Vincent (1841-1914), known as the first archivist of the feminist movement in France, bequeathed all the documents she collected throughout her life as a feminist activist to be donated to the Social Museum of Paris. She chose Marguerite Durand and Maria Verone (1874-1938) as executors of this will. The collection consisted of documents related to the feminist movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In her will, she wanted a feminist institute to be established within the museum. Although the museum opened a research section on women in 1916, this collection of approximately 600,000 documents was rejected by the museum in 1919, despite all the efforts of Marguerite Duran and Marie Verone. No trace of this priceless collection Vincent donated was ever found again. Researchers interested in this subject think that the collection has been lost or destroyed later. The documents collected by the Marbel and Chulliat Libraries also suffered the same fate. In contrast, the collections of two important feminist activists, Helene Brion (1882-1962) and Gabrielle Duchene (1870-1954), were preserved. The archives of Helene Brion, who was tried at a military court for her peace-loving activities during the First World War, are at the French Institute of Social History, and the archives of Duchene, who was the head of the French branch of the International League of Women for Peace and Freedom for many years, are affiliated with the University of Paris Nanterre. It is housed in the Nanterre International Library of Contemporary Documentation, specializing in 20th century history.

The three most important representatives of first-wave women-centered archives and libraries are (1926) Fawcett Library, (1931) Marguerite Durand Library and (1935) IAV (The International Archives for the Women's Movement).

The two great pioneers of woman-centered archivism in the USA are Maud Wood Park and Mary Beard. American historian, archivist and suffragist Beard made extraordinary efforts to establish the "World Center for Women's Archives" between 1935 and 1940, under the influence of Rosika Schwimmer, one of the important feminists of the time. Beard, who is also involved in the suffrage movement, has works that can be considered pioneering in history and women's history. Beard's dreamed up archive center set out with the mission of reaching all women of the world and recovering all documents related to women's history by going beyond the borders of the USA. Apart from document recovery, this center would reveal the decisive and creative roles of women in history, together with women researchers from all over the world, and paved the way for the emergence of a new civilization.

A large part of the archives collected in this process were donated to the Schlesinger Library, the important women's archive center in America. This archive formed the basis of the current collections of the library. Maud Wood Park, a feminist activist like Beard, donated to Radcliffe College in 1942, at the age of 71, her private archive, which she had accumulated over a lifetime, including documents related to the suffrage struggle. The collection, donated by Wood Park, was named the Women's Rights Collection a year later. She continued to enrich himself on this basis. In this process, it is interesting that the collections of the moderate suffragists were accepted, while the archives of the radical suffragists were rejected for a long time. However, when the documents of the members of the National Woman's Party entered the collections, this biased policy came to an end. Thus, with the contributions of Maud Wood Park and Mary Beard, these collections were opened to the public in 1943.

Three Dutch feminists in 1935, to coincide with Mary Beard; Johanna Naber, Rosa Manus and Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot founded the IAV, the International Archive Center for the Women's Movement. The international character of the suffragist movement, especially in the first quarter of the 20th century, made this center a worldwide document collecting institution. Initially, Rosa Manus donated the private archives of Dutch suffragist Aletta Jacobs. Manus became the first president of the IAV: In addition to her work as a Suffragist and pacifist, her job at the institution was to compile archives. 90 percent of the donations received in the first years were donations from the international women's movement. Manus arranged the IAV's relations with the Women's Library in London and the Marguerite Durand Library in Paris. The library ceased to exist on July 2, 1940, two months after the Nazi armies invaded the Netherlands, confiscating all of the institution's collections, books, and even furniture and curtains. Shortly before this event, Rosa Manus had brought the documents she had accumulated over 30 years to the building. The Germans cited the fact that it was an international organization as the reason for closing the IAV. The "justification" for this archive theft was that German women wanted these collections. At the end of the war, the Soviet armies took the archives to Moscow. Even after 63 years, no one has learned about the documents of the IAV. After a long and grueling adventure, in 2003, the archives stolen by the Nazis were able to return to Amsterdam.

Although her attempt to establish the World Women's History Archive Center was unsuccessful, Mary Beard's vision was later realized in different ways. Women-centered archives were established in every country. The archives of pioneering feminist women of the 19th and 20th centuries were no longer scattered or forgotten. These archives were systematically collected, catalogued, then microfilmed and made available to researchers.