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Image credits: The Women's Library, London Metropolitan University - images references are at the end
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 organisational papers)
Museum (objects, banners, textiles)
Identifying images
Web Archive
Further information
The Women's Library, 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. The collections are the most extensive resource for women's history in the UK. The Library has extensive material on women in their role as mothers. This includes guides on pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing, legal advice for working mothers, single parent families and childcare services. In addition women's role as mothers and advice on motherhood is well documented across the collections. The Library holds the records of campaigning organisations such as Mothers in Action and the National Council for One Parent Families. The presscuttings, periodical and ephemera collections contain a large amount of useful information on motherhood.
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 motherhood include:
See also Sources on women and family and the home and Sources on sociology and social research
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:
Aldous, Joan. International bibliography of research in marriage and the family 1900-1964 Oxford: OUP, 1967 OS Reading Room 016.3068
Balaskas, Janet. Encyclopedia of pregnancy and birth. London: Macdonald, 1987 Reading Room 618.2
McFarlane, Alison and Mugford, Miranda. Birth counts: statistics of pregnancy and childbirth. London: HMSO, 1984 Reading Room 304.63
Milden, James Wallace. The family in past time: a guide to the literature. New York: Garland, 1977 Reading Room 016.3068509MIL
O'Reilly, Andrea. (ed). Encyclopedia of motherhood. 3 vols ; index. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, c2010 Reading room quick reference 306.874303 ENC
Weeks, Jeffrey (ed) Family directory: information sources for the family. London: British Library, 1986. Quick Ref 306.8507041
‘Women and family’ in Hannam, Hughes, Ann and Stafford, Pauline, British women's history: a bibliographical guide Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996. p77-84 Reading Room 016.30540941
The Women's Library's most recently published and newly available acquisitions
Periodicals
The Library holds a wide range of periodicals on women, including academic titles, popular magazines and campaigning newsletters. Some relevant periodical titles on motherhood are Home and family: journal of the Mother's Union, Journal of marriage and family, World congress of mothers news and information, Gingerbread. Further periodical titles on the subject can be identified through the online catalogue.
For further guidance on identifying periodicals click here.
Press cuttings and ephemera
The presscuttings 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 microfilmed cuttings, up to 1979, on motherhood on reels 13 and 47. The Library holds a sequence of biographical press cuttings drawn largely from obituaries
The Library's ephemera collection contains information relating to women's organisations, including leaflets, flyers, minutes of meetings, agendas and all kinds of campaign literature. It includes ephemera for home workers and associations for housewives and married women plus material on the Wages for Housework campaigns.
Zines and artist books
The Library's collections currently include more than 350 zines and 27 artist books some of which explore motherhood.
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. London Metropolitan Academic Liaison Librarians have provided a list of relevant e-resources.
Archives
A brief guide to the archives is available on The Women's Library's website. Further details of archives 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 the records of organisations, societies, campaigns, personal papers and letters, relate to motherhood:
5CMW Records of the Council of Married Women (1944-1971)
5MAL Maternity Alliance (c.1980-c.2005)
5MIA Records of Mothers in Action (1965-1989)
5MWA Married Women's Association (1943-1988)
5OPF Records of the National Council for One Parent Families (1917-2002)
7BJE Papers of Betty Jerman relating to ‘baby-snatching’ (1971-2002)
7HLN Typescripts of articles by Helena Normanton (1905-1995)
Archives containing elements on Motherhood
2IAW Records of the International Alliance of Women (1904-1991)
2NSE Records of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (1919-1946)
3AMS Records of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene (1824-2006)
3JBL Josephine Butler Letter Collection (c.1816-1935)
4NVA Records of the National Vigilance Association (1885-1971)
5HWA Records of Hackney Women's Aid (1974-c. 2000)
7EAW Papers of Elizabeth Wilson and Angela [Weir] Mason (1970-1991) (b.1936) feminist
7MEH Papers of Mary Eliza Haweis and family (1850s-1960s) (b.1848-d.1898); writer and illustrator
7MEP Papers of Margaret Pillow (1891-1924) (b.1859-d.1929); teacher
7TBG Papers of Teresa Billington Greig (1903-1964) ; (b.1877-d.1964); suffragist
8LWR Records of the Lincolnshire Women's Research Group (1930s-1980s)
Museum
This 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. Specifically the Museum Collection holds objects on childcare and birth as well as postcards on the working mother. Museum objects on this topic can be located in the catalogue using terms such as nurser*, mother, parent and child.
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.
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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 regularly collected web sites since then. 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 Motherhood are sites such as Breastfeeding Mums, Gingerbread, One Parent Families and Maternity Alliance.
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 on email twlinfodesk@londonmet.ac.uk, by telephone 020 7320 3515 or in person at the Information Desk when in the Reading Room.
Image references: Brittain, Vera. 1893-1970. "One of these little ones..." : a plea to parents and others for Europe's children. London : Andrew Dakers, 1943. Location: pamphlet 338.194 BRI ; Great Britain. Directorate of Army Education. To-day and to-morrow: recent changes in family life ; the family and the population problem ; family life in war-time ; . the neighbourhood in war-time. [London? : Directorate of Army Education], 1943. Location: UDC pamphlets box 292; Stopes, Marie Carmichael, 1880-1958. Wise parenthood : a sequel to "Married Love" : a book for married love. 4th ed. London : A.C. Fifield, 1919. Location: JB 613.94 STO
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