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Image credits: The Women's Library, London Metropolitan - see image references below
See our collections on display in our free exhibitions "All work and low pay: the story of women and work" and "Cycling to Suffrage: The Bicycle and Women's Rights, 1890-1914" and related events
Key class numbers and search terms
Key references, latest academic works and acquisitions
Periodicals
Press cuttings and ephemera
Zines and artist books
Electronic resources
Archives (personal and organisations' papers and oral histories)
Museum (objects, textiles and visual materials)
Identifying images
Web Archive
Further information
Founded in 1926 as the Library of the London Society for Women's Service, exists to document and explore women's lives in Britain in the past, now and in the future. Printed material, ephemera, archives, oral histories and museum objects together form The Women's Library collections.The Library holds a range of material on travel and exploration by women during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as numerous individual accounts and biographies of women travellers. As women travelled for a variety of reasons material held in the collections on empire, emigration, overseas settlement, missionary work and war also includes detailed descriptions of travel by women. In addition the Sadd Brown Library, of women and the Commonwealth is another useful source for women, travel and overseas settlement.
Key class numbers and search terms
The printed collections of The Women's Library are arranged in the Dewey Decimal Classification and listed on the online catalogue, available in the Reading Room and via the website Key class numbers and search terms for women and travel include:
Key references, latest academic works and acquisitions
The Library holds the following guides and bibliographies, useful for identifying further information and material on the subject:
Birkett, Dea. Off the beaten track: three centuries of women travellers. London: National Portrait Gallery, 2004 Reading Room 910.82
Robinson, Jane. Wayward women: a guide to women travellers. Oxford: OUP, 1990 Reading Room 016.91082
'Women and the wider world' in Hannam, June, Hughes, Ann and Stafford, Pauline, British women's history: a bibliographical guide Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996 p101-105 Reading Room 016.30540941
The Women's Library's most recently published and newly available acquisitions.
Press cuttings and ephemera
The press cutting collections cover the whole of the 20th century and are particularly valuable for identifying contemporary comment where retrospective online newspaper coverage is unavailable. The Library holds cuttings, up to 1979, on women travellers and explorers at UDC press cuttings 91:396.5. Biographical press cuttings supplement the printed biographies collection for information on twentieth century women travellers and are drawn largely from obituaries
Electronic resources
Electronic resources (online journals and databases) are currently only available to London Metropolitan University staff and students, and can be accessed via the online catalogue with their institutional identification and password.
Archives (personal and organisational papers and oral histories)
A brief guide to the archives is available on The Women's Library's website. Further details of archive collections available for research can be found in the archive and museum catalogue or in the hard copy catalogues available in the Reading Room on the shelves adjacent to the Information Desk. The following archives, including records of organisations, societies, campaigns, personal papers, letters, and oral histories, relate to women and travel:
1BWE Records of the British Women's Emigration Association
1CIL Records of the Colonial Intelligence League
1FME Records of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society
1SAX Records of the South African Colonization Society
1SOS Records of the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women
2SWH Records of the Scottish Women's Hospitals
4TAS Travellers Aid Society
5GFS Girls Friendly Society
7BSH Strachey Papers
7DDO Papers of Daisy Dobson
7DNC Papers of Doris Nield Chew
7EDO Papers of Elizabeth Dowse
7HBE Papers of Helen Bentwich
7VJH Papers of Vera (Jack) Holme
9/17 Autograph Letter Collection: Women Travellers
9/30 Autograph Letter Collection: Letters of Eliza Tabor
Church Missionary Society Archive: section II Missions to women on microfilm
Museum (objects, textiles and visual materials)
The museum collection comprises postcards, photographs, posters, banners and badges. Further details of museum objects available for research can be found in the archive and museum catalogue or in the hard copy catalogues available in the Reading Room on the shelves adjacent to the Information Desk. Specifically the Library holds photographs of women on the Western Front and women attending international conferences. Useful search terms include travel, and overseas; forms of transport such as plane, caravan, train; women's organisations which enabled international meetings such as the World Congress of Women, and place names such as France, America and the Western Front
Museum (objects, textiles and visual materials)
This Collection includes badges, postcards, photographs, posters, textiles, some ceramics and other objects. Further details of museum objects available for research can be found in the archive and museum catalogue or in the hard copy catalogues available in the Reading Room on the shelves adjacent to the Information Desk.
Identifying images
Images can be found throughout The Women's Library's collections. Many digital images are available on Flickr, Vads, the archives catalogue (click on the number in the left hand side) and Mary Evans Picture Library. Use Mary Evans Picture Library's fast service for a non-watermarked high resolution images suitable for publication. If you require an image which has not been digitised you are welcome to use our reprographic service. Normal copyright conditions will apply.
Web Archive
This collection of web sites about Women's Issues is maintained by the British Library in collaboration with the Women's Library, London Metropolitan University. The collection was established in 2005 and has been regularly added to ever since. It includes sites of women's organisations and campaigns, research reports, government publications and statistics pertaining to women, personal sites of women, such as blogs, and women focused e-zines. Specifically relevant to travel are sites such as
Further information
The staff of The Women's Library can help you find material relating to your subject area; please don't hesitate to ask. You can contact the Information Desk staff prior to your visit via email twlinfodesk@londonmet.ac.uk, telephone 020 7320 3515, or by asking at the Information Desk in the Reading Room on the day of your visit.
Image references
Cover of The imperial colonist. London : British Women's Emigration Association, 1905 image available from MEPL 10126252 ; Chitty, Letitia. Abroad: an alphabet of flowers with illustrations. Chorley Woods, Herts : CTU, [CA 1945] ;
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