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Welcome to GIMMS
Government Information, Maps & Microform Services (GIMMS) is located on the second floor of Herman B Wells Library on the Indiana University Bloomington campus. Included in GIMMS are local, state, and federal government information and data resources, the largest map collection in Indiana, GIS services, and microform services.
This guide brings together a comprehensive list of GIMMS resources regarding women's suffrage in the United States.
For further information, or to request a consultation or IU Libraries instruction session, please contact us at libgimms@indiana.edu.
Government Information & Data Resources
Government Information & Data Resources
Primary Sources
- National Archives and Records Administration (NARA, or "National Archives")"The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. ... Those valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family's history, need to prove a veteran's military service, or are researching a historical topic that interests you."
- Women's Rights (NARA)NARA exhibit in celebration of the centennial of Women's Suffrage in the U.S. Emphasizes suffrage, but also contains information on women's rights and history in the US more generally.
- Women's Suffrage and the 19th Amendment (NARA)NARA exhibit includes images of original documents and links to teaching resources.
- National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection"[A] library of nearly 800 books and pamphlets documenting the suffrage campaign that were collected between 1890 and 1938 by members of NAWSA and donated to the Rare Books Division of the Library of Congress on November 1, 1938."
- National American Woman Suffrage Association Records"The collection consists of approximately 26,700 items (52,078 images), most of which were digitized from 73 microfilm reels. These records reflect NAWSA's multifaceted history, including the activities of precursor organizations involved in the abolition and women's rights movements, state and federal campaigns for women's suffrage, the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and international women's suffrage organizing."
- Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Right to Vote (Library of Congress)Exhibition at the Library of Congress of materials related to woman suffrage. Explore some of the items online.
- The 19th AmendmentNARA page on the 19th Amendment, which granted the right to vote to women.
Other Sources
- Women's Rights National Historic ParkVIsit the park in New York, or just read the many blog posts about women in history on their website to inspire your research.
- USA.gov
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Use USA.gov to find information on suffrage and women'ts rights posted to government websites as diverse as Congress, the Parks Service, the National Archives, the Library of Congress and more all at once.
Indiana
- Indiana Women's Suffrage CentennialThe Indiana Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission provides access to educational materials, visiting speakers, and grant opportunities to those interested in researching Indiana women, especially those involved in the suffrage movement.
- Indiana's First Woman's Rights Convention (Indiana Historical Bureau)Marker indicating the location of Indiana's First Woman's Rights Convention. Includes references for further reading.
- The constitutional rights of the women of Indiana : an argument in the superior court of Tippecanoe County, Ind., Judge F.B. Everett, presiding, January 10, 1895 byCall Number: ElectronicPublication Date: [S.l. : s.n., 1895?]One of the first female lawyers in Indiana, Helen Gougar sued the Tippecanoe County, Indiana election board when they refused to let her vote in the November 1894 election. She argued the case all the way to the Indiana Supreme Court. Though the courts ruled in favor of the election board every time, her arguments were published extensively in Indiana media. Here is the text of her original 1895 argument before the Tippecanoe County Superior Court.
- Records, 1913- byCall Number: Lilly LibraryPublication Date: 1913-Consists of the records of the League of Women Voters of Monroe County, Indiana. Included is a composition book, 1913-1919, which contains the minutes of the first meetings organizing the "Bloomington Branch of the Womans Franchise League." The collection is organized by year and roughly by month within each year. The later files, after 1959, in general include annual reports, correspondence, financial statements, minutes of meetings, newsletters, photographs, League of Women Voters publications, e.g., "Here is Your Local Government" and "A Guide to Bloomington Monroe County," brochures, flyers, and news clippings.
- The role of Quakerism in the Indiana women's suffrage movement, 1851-1885 towards a more perfect freedom for all byCall Number: ElectronicPublication Date: 2013As white settlers and pioneers moved westward in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, some of the first to settle the Indiana territory, near the Ohio border, were members of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers). Many of these Quakers focused on social reforms, especially the anti-slavery movement, as they fled the slave-holding states like the Carolinas. Less discussed in Indiana's history is the impact Quakerism also had in the movement for women's rights. This case study of two of the founding members of the Indiana Woman's Rights Association (later to be renamed the Indiana Woman's Suffrage Association), illuminates the influences of Quakerism on women's rights. Amanda M. Way (1828-1914) and Mary Frame (Myers) Thomas, M.D. (1816-1888) practiced skills and gained opportunities for organizing a grassroots movement through the Religious Society of Friends. They attained a strong sense of moral grounding, skills for conducting business meetings, and most importantly, developed a confidence in public speaking uncommon for women in the nineteenth century. Quakerism propelled Way and Thomas into action as they assumed early leadership roles in the women's rights movement. As advocates for greater equality and freedom for women, Way and Thomas leveraged the skills learned from Quakerism into political opportunities, resource mobilization, and the ability to frame their arguments within other ideological contexts (such as temperance, anti-slavery, and education).
- Indiana Woman's Suffrage Association Record Book, 1851-1886 (Indiana Historical Society)The Indiana Historical Society is a great resource for people interested in researching Indiana history. The volume described here and that is available to researchers in person "contains minutes of the annual and semi-annual conventions, treasurers' reports, and the preamble and constitution of the Woman's Rights Association of Indiana."
Maps & GIS Resources
Maps and GIS Resources
- Women's Suffrage: How the West Led the Way (StoryMaps)"A story map collaboration between Utah Division of State History and Better Days 2020 for the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment."
- Mapping the Suffragist Years (Library of Congress)Blog post from the Library of Congress Maps Division highlighting maps relating to woman suffrage.
- ‘‘The Map Proves It’’: Map Use by the American Woman Suffrage Movement (by Christina Dando, U. of Nebraska, Omaha)"In the early twentieth century, American suffragists used ‘‘a suffrage map’’ showing the spread of women’s suffrage on posters, pamphlets, and broadsides. The map was part of a shift in tactics used by the suffrage movement: leaving the parlours and taking to the streets, the suffragettes were claiming public space. This article explores the verbal and graphic rhetoric of these persuasive maps, as well as the politics of their placement, exploring how suffragettes moulded and used these traditionally masculinist ways of knowing to advance their cause while simultaneously marginalizing women of colour. Their adoption of maps represents an early example of critical cartography, an adoption of ‘‘the master’s tools’’ to advance their own interests."
Microform Services
Why microforms?
Many of our materials are available on microform, sometimes only so. Do not be afraid! GIMMS equipment views and scans microfilm, microfiche, and microopaques. Images can be scanned in PDF, TIFF, JPEG, PNG and BMP formats and saved to CD, flash drive, or any Internet file storage service. Scans can also be printed like any other document.
Selections from our Collection
- History of WomenPublication Date: New Haven, Conn. : Research Publications, [l975-1979].Large collection of materials before 1920 on the subject of women in the United States. Periodicals in the collection are individually cataloged. Other materials can be identified in the guide available in GIMMS at the same call number, HQ45, as the reels.
- Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association records, 1894-1923 byPublication Date: Bethesda, MD : University Publications of America, ©1999.Reproduced from documents in the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.
- Grassroots women's organizations. Women's suffrage in Wisconsin byPublication Date: Frederick, MD : University Publications of America, c1989.pt. 1. Records of the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association, 1892-1925
pt. 2. The papers of Ada Lois James, 1816-1952. - NAACP administrative file. Subject file -- Suffrage, woman, Nov. 27, 1914-July 29, 1915, 1919-1921Partial Contents:
Susan B. Anthony Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Gay Amendment to the U.S. Constititution
Jones Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
House Bill No. 717, Legislature of Tennessee, Chapter 139, Laws of Tennessee
News clippings. - NAACP administrative file. Subject file -- National Women's Party, Oct. 27, 1920-May 9, 1921Publication Date: Frederick, MD : University Publications of America, [1986?].Correspondence which documents the efforts of NAACP leaders to interest the suffragist movement in the cause of black voting rights.
- Address of President Wilson at suffrage convention, Atlantic City, N.J. byPublication Date: Washington : U.S. GPO, 1916.
- Address of President Coolidge before Daughters of American Revolution, Washington, D.C. byPublication Date: Washington : U.S. GPO, 1926.[text; on women's suffrage and importance of voting]