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The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Research Materials in
Womens' Studies
Printed Collection
In 1936 the Huntington Library accepted a gift from Josephine P. Everett
of about 500 titles concerning women and women's history. These books, and
volumes presented later by the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Committee, formed
the core of the collections in women's studies and provided the impetus
toward collecting in this area. There are now over 2,000 reference volumes
specifically on women, but other significant material may be found among
the 320,000 volumes in the reference collection, which includes recent books
in the field of women's studies.
The Library's rare printed materials number over 400,000 and document the
role of women from 1455 to the present. For women's studies, the greatest
strengths of the collections are in the areas of the western frontier and
the fight for suffrage.
The rare printed materials include an outstanding collection of English
Renaissance books and English literary and theatrical texts from the renaissance
through the 19th century. In these fields the printed materials combine
with extensive manuscript holdings to document the history of women who
acted and wrote for the theater.
Photograph Collection
The photographic archives pertain largely to California and the West,
especially to Indian tribes and to the development of Southern California.
There are photos of suffrage leaders, collections of photos assembled by
women, and 1,200 negatives by the woman photographer Frances B. Johnston
which record diplomatic and political activities in Washington D.C. between
1890 and 1910. The Johnston collection includes many remarkable portraits
of prominent women.
Manuscript Collection
As the field of women's studies has evolved, so has the use of the Library's
manuscript resources. The changes in the field have expanded the number
of collections used by women's studies scholars well beyond the 120 collections
surveyed in Women's History Sources (ed. Andrea Hinding, 1979). Women's
achievements from the 18th century to the 20th can be documented: suffrage
through the use of the numerous collections donated by the Susan B. Anthony
Memorial Committee and the papers of English reformer Frances Power Cobbe;
literary activities through collections including those of Elizabeth Robinson
Montagu, Annie Fields, and Mary Austin; religious leadership as documented
in the papers of Mary Baker Eddy and her Christian Science disciple Augusta
Stetson; and the women's club movement as found in the Clara Burdette and
Caroline Severance collections. Scholars can also use the Huntington's collections
to document the achievements of women in less familiar areas--business,
political movements, labor, science, the western experience. The five-volume
series of guides to the Huntington's manuscript materials should also be
consulted. Guide to American
Historical Manuscripts in the Huntington Library, Guide
to British Historical Manuscripts in the Huntington Library, Guide to Literary Manuscripts in the Huntington
Library, and Guide to
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (2
volumes) are available in many libraries or from the Huntington Library
Press.
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