Archives Alive!: Iowa Women's Lives Collection
Contextualizing your document
A prize winning 4-H scrapbook describing a young woman's time in 4-H, including extensive details and postcards from a club trip to Chicago, November 1930.
A collection of diaries of an Iowa City seamstress who supported herself with her craft prior to her marriage in 1896.
Papers, travel journals, and autobiographical writings of an artist who helped establish a Master's degree in Graphic and Plastic Arts at The University of Iowa in 1924.
You'll find these and other items/collections currently available for transcription in DIY History, the University of Iowa Libraries' crowdsourced history project. These items (and more!) give voice to local women and help tell stories of women's history in Iowa and beyond. Your work transcribing and researching the historical context surrounding these documents adds life and perspective to these stories.
Resources for individual collections
The following resources can help get you started exploring the historical context surrounding the production of Eve Drewelowe's written documents, currently available for transcription in DIY History.
Getting started:
- Check out the University of Iowa Libraries Eve Drewelowe Papers Collection Collection Guide .
Primary sources:
- What art was Drewelowe working on when the document was written? Browse or search for contemporaneous works in the collections available in the Iowa Digital Library.
- Where was Drewelowe traveling? Where was her art work exhibited? You might find the answer to these and other questions in digital copies of Drewelowe's resumes from the 1960s-1980s.
Secondary sources:
- Shannon, L.E. (2013). Eve Drewelowe: Feminist identity in American art. Women's History Review, 22(2), 295-309. Full text available through Libraries subscription.
For more information:
- Search or browse Art specific resources and databases. See 'Art Resources' box available on the Art Library homepage for suggestions.
- Need help searching Art specific resources and databases? Contact Art Librarians and Library Staff for assistance.
- Try searching for more information (book, articles and more) in InfoHawk+ (available on the Libraries homepage). Try using keywords from your document (names, dates, art titles). Haven't found keywords yet? Check this out.
Perspectives
Women's History resources might provide a good perspective for thinking about the broader historical context surrounding your document. The following is a short list of resources to help you get started.
American Women's History: A Very Short Introduction by Susan Ware. E-book available through Libraries subscription. If accessing off-campus you may have to sign in with your hawkid and password. Some electronic collections (especially books) place limits on the number of individual readers that can access a resource at a given time. If you have trouble accessing this title, even after you've entered your credentials, we may have reached our limit of readers for the day/time for this title. If in doubt, always feel free to contact a Librarian.)
Check out the US Women's History LibGuide created by University of Iowa Librarian, Janalyn Moss. Janalyn's guide highlights digital collections, databases, newspapers, websites, and more that can help you explore the topic of US Women's History as it relates to your document. Janalyn is a library ninja. If you have questions related to Women's History or History in general, she's a great resource. Here's how you can contact Janalyn directly.
American Women Project. Provides a searchable and accessible online version of American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States.
- Susan Ware's 'Introduction' provides an overview of site content and describes perspectives taken in Women's History studies that may help you think about framing your own research.
When Everything Changed by
Gail Collins, New York Times columnist and bestselling author, recounts the astounding revolution in women's lives over the past 50 years, with her usual "sly wit and unfussy style" (People). When Everything Changed begins in 1960, when most American women had to get their husbands' permission to apply for a credit card. It ends in 2008 with Hillary Clinton's historic presidential campaign. This was a time of cataclysmic change, when, after four hundred years, expectations about the lives of American women were smashed in just a generation. A comprehensive mix of oral history and Gail Collins's keen research--covering politics, fashion, popular culture, economics, sex, families, and work--When Everything Changed is the definitive book on five crucial decades of progress. The enormous strides made since 1960 include the advent of the birth control pill, the end of "Help Wanted--Male" and "Help Wanted--Female" ads, and the lifting of quotas for women in admission to medical and law schools. Gail Collins describes what has happened in every realm of women's lives, partly through the testimonies of both those who made history and those who simply made their way. Picking up where her highly lauded book America's Women left off, When Everything Changed is a dynamic story, told with the down-to-earth, amusing, and agenda-free tone for which this beloved New York Times columnist is known. Older readers, men and women alike, will be startled as they are reminded of what their lives once were--"Father Knows Best" and "My Little Margie" on TV; daily weigh-ins for stewardesses; few female professors; no women in the Boston marathon, in combat zones, or in the police department. Younger readers will see their history in a rich new way. It has been an era packed with drama and dreams--some dashed and others realized beyond anyone's imagining.
Call Number: Main Library HQ1421. C64 2009ISBN: 9780316059541Publication Date: 2009-10-14
America's Women by
Collins chronicles a history-spanning book rich in detail, filled with fascinating characters and 400 years of women--dolls, drudges, helpmates, and heroines.
Call Number: Main Library HQ1410. C588 2003ISBN: 0060185104Publication Date: 2003-09-23
What We Wore by Call Number: Main Library GT 615. M44 1984ISBN: 0688022286Publication Date: 1984-02-01
