PREPUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENT

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“Women have created new forms of transnational citizenship—different from the diplomatic or commercial activities that most men have pursued internationally. New access to the historical content in this project will be transformative for scholars and students, allowing us to see, for the first time, that many of the global interactions that shape our world today were first forged by women.”—Kathryn Kish Sklar, from the Introduction

Backed by a global editorial board of dozens of leading scholars, Women and Social Movements, International is a landmark collection of primary materials drawn from a large array of international sources, including hidden archives and personal collections. Together for the first time, these resources illuminate a vast area of modern history. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the conference proceedings at which pivotal decisions were made, Women and Social Movements, International will let you see how social movements were born. Tracing the global history of women’s international agendas, the project will reveal new insights into women's enormous influence on the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.

At the collection’s heart are approximately 150,000 pages of in-copyright and previously unpublished primary-source content. To make research comprehensive and convenient, there are also links to important, vetted primary resources freely available on the Web. Everything—the for-fee materials and the free content—is Semantically Indexed for cross-search and browse capabilities powerful enough to drive scholarship, making Women and Social Movements, International an indispensable tool for research and teaching in history, political science, sociology, women’s studies, law, and across the humanities.

Included are approximately 50,000 pages of proceedings of international meetings for twenty-five women’s organizations, beginning with the 1840 World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London and ending with the Beijing Conference for Women in 1995. Coverage of “Beijing + 15,” which took place in 2010 and reviewed implementation of the original Beijing Platform, will also be included. The proceedings themselves are dwarfed by tens of thousands of pages of reports, journals, manuscripts, letters, photographs, diaries, and ephemera. Associated with many meetings are reports from different national committees, allowing you to compare multiple perspectives. About five percent of the materials are in languages other than English.

Women and Social Movements, International provides an unparalleled survey of the legal impediments to women over time and across cultures. In nineteenth-century Western culture, women prided themselves on being different from men. Faced with resistance from national political parties and organizations, they sought to further their agendas by enlisting women from around the world—they became well organized on an international scale and pioneered major policies, such as what became Wilson’s Fourteen Points. This gendered tradition of global activism extended through the entire twentieth century, as women remained identified with issues of peace, child labor, poverty, literacy, disease prevention, and more. Only by understanding the tradition of women’s activism can we have a full perspective on modern history as a whole.

The collection lets you study people whose names are not well known but who are increasingly the focus of contemporary scholarship. You discover that many of these women played pivotal roles in organizations and global movements that have had an enormous impact on modern social history. For example, Sarah Pugh, best friend of Lucretia Mott, was barred from the 1840 World’s Anti-Slavery Convention. Through these documents you see Pugh emerge as a key figure in the international antislavery movement; you discover Madeleine Z. Doty as a correspondent for The Ladies Home Journal in Moscow during the Russian Revolution; and Dorothy Kenyon is shown to be a major figure in the transition from the League of Nations to the United Nations. The personal correspondence of these and other international leaders brings a fresh understanding of the world we inherited from them.

About seventy-five percent of Women and Social Movements, International is composed of in-copyright works, with materials licensed from the organizations themselves and from leading publishers. Some 30,000 pages are unpublished manuscript and other materials, including letters and diaries from some of the most prominent protagonists. Original essays by leading scholars complement the primary sources and provide new frameworks for understanding. An enhanced Dictionary of Social Movements details the historical impact of major international organizations and their leaders.

Partner Archives

Conferences, Meetings, and Organizations Covered

Publication Details

Women and Social Movements, International is an online collection available to academic, public, and school libraries worldwide via subscription or outright purchase of perpetual rights. No special setup or software is required—all you need is an Internet browser. For more information, to request a free trial or price quote, please email sales@alexanderstreet.com.