Primary Sources: The American South: Women

"The Archives for Research on Women documents the experiences of women and men participating in women-centered activist and advocacy activities in Georgia and the Southeast throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. It also documents the experiences of women at Georgia State University.

Collections include the personal and professional papers of individual activists as well as the records of activist organizations, and the personal and professional papers of GSU administrators and faculty, as well the records of its Women’s Studies Institute, and women-centered committees and organizations."

"The Black Women Oral History Project collection consists of audiotapes and transcripts of the oral histories of 72 African-American women from across the United States. The interviews discuss family background, marriages, childhood, education and training, significant influences affecting their choice of primary career or activity, professional and voluntary accomplishments, union activities, the ways in which being black and a woman had affected their options and the choices made. For each oral history, the interviewer cooperated with the memoirist to record as full an account of her life as possible."

"The collection includes two engagement books that document the daily activities of this coed, providing an interesting view of college life and dating culture in the early twentieth century. Short entries show that Cunningham was an active young woman who dated often while living at home with her parents. She described a variety of activities including studying, attending sorority and fraternity and other school functions, going to see movies, and dating. Some entries reveal that the popular Miss Cunningham often had dates with several eligible young men in a single day, enjoying respectable outings such as church, bridge gatherings, the picture show, and chaperoned dances. She later married Merrill Smith, one of the young men discussed in these diaries."

"The Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women’s Movement Archives is dedicated to documenting the second wave of the women’s movement in Georgia, and in particular, efforts in the state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

Collections include the personal papers and artifacts of individuals active in the 50+ organizations affiliated with the ERA Georgia Coalition; records of the ERA Georgia Coalition member organizations; personal papers and artifacts from other organizations and supporters of the ERA in Georgia; oral history interviews with ERA and women’s movement activists."

"Eliza Lucas was born into a moderately wealthy family in South Carolina. Throughout her life she shrewdly managed her money and greatly added to her family’s wealth. These two letters from an unusually intelligent financial manager offer a glimpse into the commercial revolution and social worlds of the early eighteenth century."

"The Maid of Cotton (MOC) beauty pageant was sponsored by the National Cotton Council, Memphis Cotton Carnival, and the Cotton Exchanges of Memphis, New York, and New Orleans from 1939-1993. The contest was held annually in Memphis, Tennessee until the National Cotton Council and Cotton Council International moved to Dallas, Texas. Beginning with the 1985 pageant (held December 1984) the competition was held in Dallas. The pageant was discontinued in 1993 due to lack of funds, a sponsor, and changes in marketing strategies. The records include files on contestants, photographs, and scrapbooks."

"The collection contains many of the works, both published and unpublished, many in the dialect of Southern African Americans, written by Martha Young of Greensboro, Alabama, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, as well as correspondence, photographs and pictures, genealogical information on the Tutwiler and Young families, and other miscellaneous items. Martha Young was the granddaughter of Henry Tutwiler and niece of Julia Tutwiler."

In this unfinished correspondence and undated personal notes, Rosa Parks recounted living under segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, explained why she refused to surrender her seat on a city bus, and lamented the psychological toll exacted by Jim Crow.

"The Market Revolution brought a hardening of gender roles in both the North and the South, but the South tended to hold more tightly to the expectation of “separate spheres.” In this sermon, Rev. Aldert Smedes of Raleigh, North Carolina, praises the virtues of women and explains the duties of a Christian woman."

"Susan D. Nye of Amenia, N.Y., came to Raleigh, N.C., in 1815 to teach in the Female Department of Raleigh Academy. In 1825 she married Adam Hutchison of Augusta, Ga., a widower with children. After her husband's death, circa 1833, Susan D. (Nye) Hutchison and her children and stepchildren moved to Amenia for a year, then to Raleigh and Salisbury, N.C. Mrs. Hutchinson taught during her three years in Salisbury and when the family moved to Charlotte, N.C., in 1839, Mrs. Hutchison opened a school of her own. The collection includes a typescript copy of a journal, 1815, and extracts from journals, 1826-1841, of Susan Davis Nye Hutchison. The journal for 1815 describes the journey from New York to North Carolina and social and work life in Raleigh. The extracts from the journals for 1826-1841 describe life in Augusta, Ga., household concerns, Adam Hutchison's financial difficulties, illness, and death, and Mrs. Hutchison's widowhood. Mentioned are the activities of her children and their education, visits to the poor and to prisoners, and attendance at church services."

"This digital collection contains archival and published materials relating to women's issues, including political and social rights of women, as well as women's activism across the South. "

"On January 21, 2017, the Women's March on Washington took place in the nation's capital, and sister marches were held across the nation and worldwide. A concerted effort is underway to document the marches, with repositories in each state collecting materials about local marches, as well as the March on Washington. The Women and Gender Collections at Georgia State University is documenting the Atlanta March for Social Justice and Women, the Women's March on Washington, and any other march that Georgians attended.

The Women’s Marches Collection is comprised of records, oral histories, photographs, audio and video files, and ephemera (signs, flyers, stickers, clothing, and buttons). The oral histories and photographs will be shared with the National Women’s March on Washington Project."

"The northern Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper presented an unflattering portrait of southern white womanhood in a May 1863 illustration. The depiction contrasted sharply with the view promoted by plantation elites of virtuous southern white mothers and wives who obeyed and deferred to men. The panel on the left showed southern women “hounding their men on to Rebellion.” The panel on the right depicted them “feeling the effects of Rebellion and creating Bread Riots.” The latter panel referred to the Richmond bread riot, which took place on April 2, 1862 when several hundred women frustrated by food shortages and high prices broke into shops and stores to steal food."

"While some planters in the eighteenth-century Chesapeake began to build spacious mansions and rely on the labor of increasing numbers of white and black dependents, most white southerners lived in far humbler circumstances. In Maryland most small farmers were tenants, renting their land from larger landowners. Landless men and women worked as agricultural tenants, laborers, or domestic servants. Elizabeth Sprigs, a servant in a Maryland household, financed her passage from England in exchange for a term as an indentured servant (a frequent practice in the seventeenth century but more rare by the eighteenth). She wrote to her father in 1756 and complained bitterly of the brutal treatment by her master and the harsh privations of daily life, begging him to send clothing."