American History

Finding Black Female Authors in the Women’s Studies Archive

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Black Female Authors

|By Rachel Holt, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources|

Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Octavia E. Butler and Toni Morrison are just a handful of names of influential Black female novelists whose writing has arguably changed the modern world. Historically, however, women of colour were largely excluded from publishing due to poor literacy, lack of financial means, racism and prejudice. The odds were more often than not stacked against them.  As a result, discovering such authors can be tough, so I would like to use the opportunity of Black History Month to showcase four wonderful examples of Black female authors who can be found in Gale’s Women’s Studies Archive: Rare Titles from the American Antiquarian Society, 1820-1922.

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Beyond Notting Hill Carnival: Re-visiting the life of Claudia Jones

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│By Dr Lucy Dow, Gale Content Researcher│

Once again this year, the Notting Hill Carnival was sadly cancelled due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In this blog post I will explore the life of Claudia Jones, often credited with starting the Notting Hill Carnival. Using Gale Primary Sources, I will look at what was written by and about Jones during her lifetime, and how she is remembered.

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Rediscovering China and the World in the Nineteenth Century

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Anson Burlingame and relevant handwritten letters

│By Liping Yang, Publishing Manager, Digital Archive and eReference, Gale Asia│

US–China relations have been somewhat strained in recent years – a situation that may not be easily resolved by Joe Biden’s administration. This difficult period in the history of American and Chinese relations started when the US raised tariffs on Chinese imports, triggering China to impose retaliatory tariffs on US products. This trade conflict later escalated into a confrontation on many fronts, including technology. Many people have been racking their brains about how to ease the tensions. We can draw inspiration from the past by examining interesting historical records which show positive diplomatic relations between the two nations. Many such records are included in Gale’s digital archive collection China and the Modern World: Imperial China and the West Part 1, 1815-1881.

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Birth Control: A History in Women’s Voices

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Birth Control pills

│By Rebecca Bowden, Associate Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

Earlier this year Gale launched Voice and Vision, the second part of Women’s Studies Archive. The first part, Issues and Identities, traced the social, political and professional achievements of women throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; central to the archive are the issues that have affected women’s lives, and the campaigns and activism undertaken by women, from suffrage to pacifism. Voice and Vision builds on the many narratives and topics covered in Issues and Identities partly by placing greater emphasis on sharing women’s own voices – much of the material is written by women, for women. Voice and Vision also expands upon the scope of the first module, challenging researchers to grow their understanding of central issues and explore new avenues of investigation in relation to women’s stories. But what does this mean in practice? How do the materials in Voice and Vision work alongside those available in Issues and Identities? What new possibilities does it bring to the table? In this blog post we use birth control to explore these questions and understand the different viewpoints and opportunities provided by Voice and Vision.

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Decolonising the Curriculum with Archives Unbound

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│By Megan Bowler, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool│

This post explores how Gale’s Archives Unbound series can be used to help with the urgent and vital task of decolonising the curriculum. Archives Unbound includes twenty-one unique collections focused on African American history, as well as numerous other collections which document the lives and experiences of other ethnic and social minorities around the world. (All Archives Unbound collections are available at the University of Liverpool, as we have access to Gale Reference Complete.) In light of the Black Lives Matter protests and growing discourses around ethnicity, colonialism and education, I was particularly drawn to exploring a collection focused on the federal surveillance of African Americans, including of Malcolm X and of the group he set up, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. This group argued that education was a vital element in the fight for civil rights.

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