Campaigning Women
Dora Russell papers at the Feminist Archive (South)
The Dora Russell Collection documents the journey through Europe of the Women's Peace Caravan in 1958. The collection includes souvenirs and photographs of their travels through Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
Records of the Equal Pay Campaign Committee at The Women's Library
This collection includes minutes and agenda of the Executive Committee (1944-1956), subcommittee (1947-1956) and Milestone Dinner Subcommittee (1955); correspondence and administrative files including press cuttings and newsletters (1943-1956); press-cuttings files (1943-1956); Finance files including audit accounts, balance sheets, cash books, correspondence and bank documents (1944-1956); Card indexes; rubber stamps; poster; publications of Committee and other groups (1944-1955).
Family life
Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex
This is a rich source of material on and by women. Mass Observation was a pioneering British Social research organisation dating between 1937 and the early 1950s. Papers include personal diaries and detailed questionnaire replies, reports and surveys on everyday life.
Committee on One Parent Families (Finer Committee) at the British Library of Political and Economic Science
Established by Richard (Howard Stafford) Crossman, Secretary of State for Social Services, on 6 November 1969, to consider the problems of one parent families and what help could be given to them. Collection includes committee minutes, committee papers, circulated documents, research sub-committee documents, evidence files, government evidence files, and subject files.
Politics
Jennie Lee Papers at the Open University
Jennie Lee was a Labour MP and wife of Aneurin Bevan. This collection contains personal papers on her relationships with family and friends and details of her education and teaching career, and political papers including her time as Minister for Arts under the government of Harold Wilson.
Collections relating to suffragettes in the Public Record Office
There is a wide range of sources on suffragettes within various departments such as Women's Suffrage Bills in the Cabinet Office; Home Office Registered Papers of complaints by suffragettes of the conditions under which they were conveyed to prison in police vans; Metropolitan Police correspondence and papers on suffragette demonstrations.
Education
Bedford College papers at Royal Holloway, University of London
Founded in 1849 by Elisabeth Jesser Reid, this was the first college in Britain to make provision for the university education of women. The collection includes papers of governing bodies and major committees, papers of administrative and academic departments, college publications, student registers and diaries of former staff.
National Union of Women Teachers at the Institute of Education
Extensive collection of records of the Union, 1904-1961, including minutes of the Council and various committees, conference reports, branch records, correspondence, press cuttings, handbills, pamphlets, posters and photographs.
Employment
Diaries of Miss G West, Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum
These diaries (1914-1917) cover her reaction to the outbreak of war in her home town of Selsby, mention the influx of Belgian refugees, her work as a VAD cook in Red Cross hospitals, at Farnborough Aircraft factory and as a Women Police officer in a munitions factory.
Women's Work of the Methodist Missionary Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies
The collection comprises the papers of the Women's Work of the Methodist Missionary Society from 1932, but also the papers of Women's Work of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society prior to 1932. It includes minutes (1858-1939); reports and correspondence from the overseas missionary districts; financial records including ledgers, cash books, and summaries of expenditure and income, and overseas schedules.
Arts
Women's International Art Club (WIAC) at the Chelsea College of Art and Design
The Women's International Art Club was founded in Paris in 1900. This collection documents the English activities of the WIAC from 1942-1976 when it ceased to exist.
Agatha Christie collection at the University of Exeter
A collection of several thousand letters, deposited by her literary agents Hugh Massie & Company. The correspondence is mainly about business matters, but not exclusively so, and contains many letters of Agatha Christie and her husband Professor Sir Max Mallowan. There are also many fan letters. The period covered is 1938 to 1976 (the year of Agatha Christie's death).
Health
Marie Stopes and Birth Control Collection at John Rylands University Library of Manchester
Marie Stopes (1880-1958) was the first woman to join the scientific staff of the University of Manchester, being appointed assistant lecturer and demonstrator in botany in 1904. In 1921 she founded the Mothers' Clinic for Birth Control in London, and she devoted herself to sex education and family planning. The collection includes approximately 160 early editions of books and pamphlets written by Marie Stopes, the remainder of the collection consisting of books from the library of the Society for Constructive Birth Control.
Louisa Martindale Collection at the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine
Louisa Martindale was born in 1872 and studied at the London School of Medicine for Women and in Vienna, Berlin and Freiburg, obtaining her M.D. in London in 1906. The collection consists of diaries, casebooks and notebooks describing Martindale's travels to doctors and hospitals around the world.