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Feminist Movements, 1880s to the Present

Guide to primary sources documenting feminist movements at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture in the Rubenstein Library.

Woman Suffrage in the U.S.: Manuscript Collections

William Watts Papers
Prominent SC newspaper editor intimately associated with a range of public affairs including the legislation around suffrage in SC. Papers include several letters from the National Women's Party and copies of his addresses on the subject.
Bedinger-Dandridge Family Papers, 1752-2000
Correspondence and papers, esp. 1915-1916, of Caroline Dansk Dandridge and her daughter, Serena Dandridge reflect their active interest in suffrage and include minutes of a West VA Equal Suffrage Association meeting. Pictured above on right, via Duke University's Rubenstein Library.
Clement Claiborne Clay Papers, 1811-1925
Collection includes the addresses and writings of Virginia Clay-Clopton who was an outspoken suffragist and member of the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association.
Mary Cowper Papers, 1895-1969
Collection documents Cowper's life as an active suffragist and as instrumental in the formation and early years of the NC League of Women Voters.
George Gifford Papers, 1860-1920
Gifford was a journalist and politician. His papers includes several letters (some from Lucy Stone) during the 1860s and 70s and a pamphlet on the woman suffrage mass convention in Augusta Maine, 1874.
Hemphill Family Papers, 1784-1958
The Hemphill men were public figures (minister, editor, politician) and the women were involved in a variety of social organizations. Collection includes several letters (including one from Alice Stone Blackwell) re: woman suffrage from 1894-1910 and several printed items from 1889-1907.
Southgate-Jones Family Papers, 1794-2008
Mattie Logan Southgate Jones was the president of the Durham Equal Suffrage League and Chair of the 5th District of the Equal Suffrage Association of NC.
Stanley Wohl Papers, 1762-1974
Collection includes letters from and photographs of Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone (who is also represented in the Blackwell family papers - see "Women's Suffrage in the U.K." below).
Matilda Young Papers, 1932-1933
Papers of Alva Belmont's traveling companion includes a memoir by Belmont who was a nationally known suffragist. Matilda Young, pictured above on left, image via Library of Congress.

Selected Published Primary Sources

Handbook and Proceedings of the Annual Convention, 16th-52nd, 1884-1921. by National American Woman Suffrage Association
The National American Woman Suffrage Association was established in 1890 to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States.
Alabama woman ridicules idea that suffrage amendment would give vote to Negro women by Ervin M. Carr
Publication Date: 1919
Birmingham, Ala. : Alabama Equal Suffrage Association
Extending the right of suffrage to women : hearings before the Committee on Woman Suffrage, House of Representatives, Sixty-fifth Congress, second session on H. J. Res 200 by United States. Congress House Committee on Woman Suffrage
Publication Date: January 3, 4, 5, and 7, 1918
Committee on Woman Suffrage was a committee of the United States Senate from 1882-1921 that was established to consider the ratification of the 19th amendment.
The woman voter of North Carolina : where she votes and where she does not! : a state-wide survey of official presidential and congressional vote cast in the November election, 1916, before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, and official presidentia
Publication Date: 1924?
Compiled by Mary Henderson
North Carolina Democratic Executive Committee
How it feels to be the husband of a suffragette
Publication Date: 1915
Illustrations by May Wilson Preston.
New York, George H. Doran company.
Socialism, feminism, and suffragism : the terrible triplets, connected by the same umbilical cord, and fed from the same nursing bottle by B.V. Hubbard
Publication Date: 1915
The author is B. V. (Benjamin Vestal), 1854-1934
Chicago : American Publishing Company, 1820 City Hall Square Building
Are women people? : a book of rhymes for suffrage times by Alice Duer Miller
Publication Date: 1915
Alice Duer Miller is also the author of "Blue arch" and "The modern obstacle."
Panko, or, Votes for women : the great card game : suffragists v. anti-suffragists by Peter Gurney
Publication Date: 1910?
Pictures by E.T. Reed

Women's Suffrage in U.K.

Blackwell family papers
Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner and lay preacher, emigrated to the United States from England in 1832, with his wife Hannah (Lane), eight children, and a governess. The correspondence contains mostly routine letters to Blackwell family members from other family members; including Alice Stone Blackwell, Anna M. Blackwell, Elizabeth Blackwell, Emma Blackwell, Helen Blackwell, Henry B. Blackwell, and Lucy Stone. Collection mostly contains research materials for both suffrage in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Charlotte Despard letters
Charlotte Despard (1844-1939) was a noted English suffragist. She was founder and president of The Women’s Freedom League. The collection contains four letters: three are written in Depard’s hand and signed and the fourth is a Postcard to C.H. Grinling speaks of canvassing (7 March 1903).
Emmeline and Fredrick Pethick-Lawrence papers
Emmeline and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence were British socialist activists best known for their involvement with the suffragist movement. Their home became WSPU’s London headquarters. In 1912, they were arrested along with other WSPU leaders on charges of conspiracy to commit damage after a window smashing campaign in West London.
Frances Power Cobbe letters
rances Power Cobbe was an Irish writer, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist, and leading women's suffrage campaigner. Cobbe wrote the first letter to Mrs. Madden, undated but probably in 1886, regarding vivisection along with the poor treatment of horses. She wrote the second, undated, letter to Miss Galtz[?], regarding a planned visit.
New family papers
The New Family papers is a collection that contains a scrapbook for the 1913 Suffrage Pilgrimage, describing the route from Birkenhead to London. This is accompanied by 78-page narrative of the trip, which is keyed to the photographs in the scrapbook. Additionally, this collection has Alice Margery New's "Suffrage Quotation Book" that contains signatures of suffragists, including those of Constance Lytton and Emmeline Pankhurst, is also present. The Emma Goldman papers are part of the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection.
Woman's suffrage realia collection
This collection contains 43 woman's suffrage movement buttons, pins, pencil, and badges, along with a contemporary hair pins tin used to hold 32 of the items. There are materials from suffrage movements in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Also includes two "Votes for Women" souvenir and program paper napkins for a march and a demonstration in London.