Subscription Databases

Databases with Primary Sources

Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Gender, Sex, and the Family
This database provides access to searchable handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate both how Americans actually behaved and how they felt they ought to behave. The collection provides a window into American social history by bringing together the instructional, prescriptive, behavioral, and etiquette literature that defined standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
North American Women's Letters and Diaries includes 150,000 pages of diaries and letters from over 1,325 women.

Digital Transgender Archive
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science.
Europeana
Europeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. It promotes discovery and networking opportunities in a multilingual space where users can engage, share in and be inspired by the rich diversity of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage.

Local Primary Sources

UWM Archives

(414) 229-5402 | askarch@uwm.edu

The Archives Department includes primary sources on Milwaukee-area women's history. Our collections are particularly strong on women's secondary, post-secondary, and avocational education; social and welfare leadership; art and literary persons; nursing history; the everyday experiences (diaries and family papers); lesbian issues; and feminist organizations. Some notable collections include:

National Organization for Women. Milwaukee Chapter: Records. Milwaukee Mss 176.

Records of the Milwaukee (Wis.) chapter of NOW consisting of board minutes, bylaws, newsletters, and subject files concentrating on such issues as abortion and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The collection also documents the Scott Enk case in which Enk charged the Milwaukee Chapter with sex discrimination in attempting to revoke Enk's membership. View finding aid.

Women's Coalition, Inc. Records. Milwaukee Mss 177.

Minutes, newsletters, miscellaneous print and near print materials of an umbrella group of women's organizations in Milwaukee (Wis.) whose activities included advocating for battered women, “Take Back the Night” rallies, running a women's crisis line, and fighting for other feminist goals. Their subject files concern topics such as women's health issues, the Equal Rights Amendment, sex role stereotyping, legal issues, and pornography. See especially issues of Common Ground newsletter in box 2, folder 1. View finding aid.

Lesbian Alliance of Metro Milwaukee Records, 1989-2013. UWM Manuscript Collection 289.

The Lesbian Alliance of Metro Milwaukee was founded in 1989 after the Milwaukee County Board recanted its resolution to honor Lesbian and Gay Pride Week. The issue was followed closely by some lesbians, who felt that the lesbian perspective was underrepresented in media coverage pertaining to this resolution, as well as in other issues pertaining to the lesbian and gay communities. As a result, a group of women decided to form a lesbian organization in Milwaukee. Since its founding, LAMM has been a vital force in Milwaukee, advocating for the rights of lesbians and for the empowerment of women, fostering networking among lesbian/gay groups, and serving as an information clearinghouse. Its focus includes membership services, such as programs and benefits; special events; fundraising; and public policy work, including election endorsements, campaign assistance, public relations, and political networking. View finding aid.

Women Against Rape Records, 1975-1993 UWM Manuscript Collection 352.

Minutes, correspondence, proposals, newsletters, news clippings, case files, print materials, and artifacts from Women Against Rape (WAR). WAR's activities included advocating for adult and child survivors of rape and sexual abuse, establishing an anti-rape unit in the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD), and educating professionals, children, and the public on sexual violence prevention and intervention. The bulk of the records date from 1979 to 1984. View finding aid.

UWM Special Collections

(414) 229-4345 | libspecial@uwm.edu

Special Collections include American nursing history, art and architecture, aviation history, Civil War regimental histories, contemporary fine-press printing and the book arts, gay and lesbian study, Irish literature, Jewish studies, labor and radical movements, local small-press publishing, Native American literature, manuscript collections, printing and publishing history, social justice, UWM authors and Women’s Studies. Notable publications include:

The Amazon

Milwaukee: Amazon Collective, May 1972 - March 1984.
Call Number: (SPL) HQ1101 .A42x
Published in Milwaukee from 1971-1984, this periodical produced by the Amazon Collective billed itself as "a Midwest journal for women," and was one of the founding organizations in the Women’s Coalition of Milwaukee. The Amazon covered Milwaukee's feminist events and issues and provided a forum for feminist writers and poets. Its early format of 2-4 mimeographed pages per month expanded into a 24-56 page newsprint edition published bi-monthly. Its circulation grew from 200-300 in 1974 to a peak of 1,500 in 1980. A collective of 5-10 women administered Amazon through most of its twelve years.
Paid My Dues

Milwaukee: Woman's Soul Productions, 1974-1980.
Call Number (SPL) ML82 .P3x
Founded by Dorothy Dean in 1974, Paid My Dues was a bi-monthly women's music journal, established to serve as a networking and informational vehicle for the newly emerging women's music industry. Paid My Dues printed songsheets, discographies, and technical information, as well as biographical profiles on famous and obscure women songwriters and musicians. Paid My Dues led to the formation of Women's Soul Productions, which produced numerous concerts featuring local artists as well as national figures in the women's music industry: Cris Williamson, Casse Culver, Meg Christian, and others.
Common Ground

Milwaukee: Women's Coalition, 1976-1985.
Call Number: (SPL) HQ1101 .C58x
Monthly newsletter of the Women's Coalition, an organization established in 1972 as an umbrella organization encompassing many of Milwaukee's feminist groups, including its initial founding organizations National Organization for Women-Milwaukee, Women's Crisis Line, and The Amazon feminist periodical. Jamakaya, noted Milwaukee journalist and activist, has posted an online history of the Coalition. http://www.jamakaya.com/wcbkin.htm#Intro
Irregular Periodical

Milwaukee: Bread & Roses Women's Health Center, 1979-1986.
Call Number: (SPL) RG14 .U6 I7x
Newsletter of Milwaukee's first woman-owned and operated health clinic, Bread and Roses.
Hag Rag

Milwaukee: Hag Rag, 1986-1993.
Call Number: (SPL) HQ75 .H34x
Hag Rag was a bi-monthly, lesbian-feminist newspaper focusing on news, non-fiction, political analysis, and commentary of interest to lesbians and radical feminists.

UWM Libraries Digital Collections

The Digital Collections at the UWM Libraries include over 170,000 photographic images, maps, and books drawn from the collections of the American Geographical Society Library, the Archives, Special Collections, and the Curriculum Collection.

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LGBT+ Digital Collections Portal

QZAP Queer Zine Archive
QZAP was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground queer communities. QZAP is headquartered in Milwaukee.
UW Gender & Women's Studies Collection
The Gender and Women’s Studies Collection brings together, in digital form, primary and secondary materials relating to the the exploration of politics, history, and society from a transnational and multicultural women’s perspective. Although this collection is still in its infancy, future additions may include archival as well as published materials and may be drawn from a variety of formats: books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, audio and video, and more.

WGS Instructor Guide

Historical Newspapers