Women's History Collections at the IISH: International Guide
This is an overview of individuals and organizations whose papers and records can be used as primary sources for women's and gender history. It is based on the IISH Index to the Archival Collections. It contains additional entries for women whose papers are part of the archives of their correspondents or relatives, and some introductory biographical and bibliographical notes. This guide lists international archives; for Dutch women and organizations please go to the Dutch Guide.
Please note: the literature cited is just a small selection of what is available at the IISH's library; consult the online catalogue.
Individuals
Emma Adler-Braun (1858-1935)
Writer, translator, socialist militant and feminist; married Victor Adler in 1878. Manuscripts by Emma Adler of her biography of Victor Adler (unpublished) and a letter from Julie Bebel to Emma Adler 1898 in the Victor Adler papers. See also Martha Tausk's papers.
Works: Die berühmten Frauen der französischen Revolution (1906); Jane Welsh Carlyle (1907).
Mathilde Franziska Anneke (1817-1884)
German writer, newspaper publisher, social activist and suffragist who fled to the USA and founded a private school for girls in Milwaukee.
Works: Mutterland (memoirs, 1982).
Lit: Erhard Kiehnbaum, 'Bleib Gesund mein liebster Sohn Fritz...' : Mathilde Franziska Annekes Briefe an Friedrich Hammacher 1846-1849 (2004); Anke Ortlepp, 'Auf denn, Ihr Schwestern!': deutschamerikanische Frauenvereine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1844-1914 (2004); Martin Henkel and Rudolf Taubert, Das Weib im Conflict mit den socialen Verhältnissen (1976).
Atatürk ve kadınlar
Documents concerning Atatürk and women, 1923-1991 in the Ismail Hakki Arar Papers, see documents and files concerning persons: file nr. 14.
Claire Auzias
French historian.
Works: Mémoires libertaires (1980); La Grève des ovalistes (with Annik Houel, 1982); Samudaripen, le génocide des Tsiganes (1999); Louise Michel (1999).
Berta Aleksandrovna Babina
Socialist Revolutionary, who spent many years in the labour camps of Kolyma. Her papers are part of the Vozvrashchenie Archives, the foundation of former GULag prisoners.
Anzhelika Balabanova (1878-1965)
Also: Angelica Balabanoff. Activist, writer, prominent member of the international socialist movement. See also the papers of Lidiia Dan, Alexander Berkman, Robert Grimm, Emma Goldman, Augustin Hamon, Joseph Lang, Theodor Liebknecht, Bruno Misèfari, Ernst Nobs, Rudolf Rocker, Martha Tausk and Filippo Turati.
Works: Iz lichnykh vospominanii tsimmerval'dtsa (1925); Erziehung der Massen zum Marxismus (1927); Wesen und Werdegang des italienischen Fascismus (1931); Ricordi di una socialista (1946); etc.
Minna Cauer (1842-1922)
Leader of the left wing of the German women's movement.
Lit: Else Lüders, Minna Cauer (1925); Gerlinde Naumann, Minna Cauer (1988); Dagmar Jank, 'Vollendet, was wir begonnen!' (1991).
Lilija Ja. Dalin (1898-1981)
Also: Lola Estrin. Menshevik; Trotskyist. See also the Lidiia Dan papers.
Lidiia Osipovna Dan (1878-1963)
Revolutionary; later Menshevik; expelled from the Soviet Union in 1922; representative of the Menshevik Delegation Abroad to the International Council of Social Democratic Women (ICSDW). See also the papers of Boris Gurevich-Ber, Anzhelika Balabanova, Friedich Adler, Pavel Aksel'rod, Samuel Estrin, Fedor Dan, Berta Mering and Nina Rubinstein.
Lit: Boris Sapir (ed), Iz archiva L.O. Dan (1987).
Sediqeh Dowlatabadi
(or Sédighé Dolatabadi). Pioneer of the women's movement in Iran. The feminist movement in Iran came into being at the end of the nineteenth century, when a small group of women attempted to put universal suffrage, political freedom, emancipation and participation in social life on the agenda. The movement continued it's work until the beginning of the twentieth century and came to a halt in the years 1906-1909 during the Constitutional Revolution. During this period periodicals were published and schools for girls were founded. The movement had also succeeded in making the issue of emancipation and women's participation in social life a part of every political discourse. One of it's pioneers was Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi. During her active period, she energetically founded schools, and published books and periodicals. She was one of the women who came to play an active part in the political institutions of Iran. Her archive contains unique materials: her memoirs, personal notes, correspondence with the authorities and private persons, and documents relating to her journal Zaban-e zanan (The Women's Patois) 1919-1921, 1942-1945. For more biographical information go to the introduction to the Collection Sédighé Dolatabadi.
Lit: Mahdokht San'ati and Afsaneh Najmabadi, Sediqe Dowlatabadi (1998).
Raja Dunaevskaja (1910-1987)
Also: Raya Dunayevskaya. Née Rae Spiegel. Philosopher, writer, political activist, feminist. Born in Russia; emigrated to the United States as a child; became involved in radical activities. Turned to Trotskyism and was secretary to Leon Trotsky in Mexico 1937-1938; advocated a humanist interpretation of Marxism after her break with Trotskyism in the 1950s; active in the women's liberation movement.
Works: Marxism and Freedom (1958); Philosophy and Revolution (1973); Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution (1982); Women's Liberation and the Dialectics of Revolution (1985); etc.
Lit: Guide to the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection (at Wayne State University, 1988, with suppl).
Luce Fabbri (1908-2000)
Anarchist publicist of Italian origin; lived with her father, Luigi Fabbri, in Argentina and Uruguay.
Works: I Canti dell'attesa (1932); Camisas negras (1935); La Libertad entre la historia y la utopía (1962, new ed 1998); etc.
Ruth Fischer (1895-1961)
Born Elfriede Eisler, sister of Hans Eisler; politician and writer; co-founded the Kommunistische Partei Österreichs in 1918; was leader of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands; removed from this party in 1926; fled to Paris in 1933 and to the USA in 1941.
Works: Stalin and German Communism. A study in the origins of the State Party (1948); Die Umformung der Sowjetgesellschaft. Chronik der Reformen 1953-1958 (1958); Abtrünnig wider Willen: aus Briefen und Manuskripten des Exils [Briefe von und an Ruth Fischer und Arkadij Maslow]; etc.
Lit: Sabine Hering, Kurt Schilde, Kampfname Ruth Fischer: Wandlungen einer deutschen Kommunistin (1995).
Henriette Fürth (1861-1938)
German women's rights activist and social democrat.
Works: Die geschlechtliche Aufklärung in Haus und Schule (1903); Die Mutterschaftsversicherung (1911); Die Hausfrau (1914); Die Regelung der Nachkommenschaft als eugenisches Problem (1929); etc.
Lit: Angelika Epple, Henriette Fürth und die Frauenbewegung im deutschen Kaiserreich (1996).
Helen Garvy
Also: Helen Garvi. Graduate of Radcliffe College, Harvard; helped found the Harvard SDS chapter; elected Assistant National Secretary for 1964/1965 and in charge of editing the SDS Bulletin and monthly news magazine and of much coordination with the local chapters and Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP) community organizing projects; afterwards she worked in an SDS community organizing project for two years; in 2000 she completed a documentary film about the SDS called Rebels with a Cause.
Emma Goldman (1869-1940)
One of the most famous Russian anarchists, who became one of the US 'Founding Mothers'. Go to a Dozen Portraits of Emma Goldman to view a selection of portraits from the Goldman papers and other IISH collections. See also the Emma Goldman Papers microfilm publication, the Freedom Archives, the FBI file on Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and the papers and records of A. Bakels, Alexander Berkman, the Charles William Daniel Company, the CNT London Bureau (España), Senya Fléchine, the Fraye Arbeyter Shtime, Martin Gudell, Augustin Hamon, Max Nettlau, Pierre Ramus, Vernon Richards, Rudolf Rocker, Helmut Rüdiger, Oscar Swede, William Charles Owen, Boris Yelensky and Vasilii P. Zhuk.
Works: Anarchism and Other Essays (1910); My Disillusionment in Russia (1923); Living my Life (1932); etc.
Lit: Voltairine de Cleyre, In Defense of Emma Goldman (1894); Richard Drinnon, Rebel in Paradise (1961); Alix Shulman, To the Barricades (1971); José Peirats, Emma Goldman (1978); Candace Falk, Love, Anarchy, and Emma Goldman (1984); Alice Wexler Emma Goldman (1984); Alice Wexler Emma Goldman in Exile (1989).
Web: The Emma Goldman Papers (at the University of California at Berkeley, with the cooperation of the IISH).
Gertrud Guillaume-Schack (1845-1903)
Activist who stood up for the interests of prostitutes, helped by the organization of her English counterpart, Josephine Butler; one of the founders of the Verein zur Vertretung der Interessen der Arbeiterinnen. See also the Max Nettlau papers.
Works: Ein Wort zur Sittlichkeitsfrage (1881); Über unsere sittlichen Verhältnisse (1882).
Natalie Herzen (1844-1936)
Also: Natal'ia Aleksandrovna Gertsen. Daughter of Alexander Herzen; briefly involved with the underground activities of Mikhail Bakunin and Sergei Nechaev in Russia in the early 1870s.
Lit: Michael Confino (ed), Daughter of a Revolutionary (1973).
Jeanne Humbert-Rigaudin (1890-1986)
French neo-malthusianist, libertarian and pacifist.
Works: En pleine vie (novel, 1930); Le Pourrissoir (memoirs, 1932); Sous la cagoule (prison memoirs, 1935); Les Problèmes du couple (1982); etc.
Lit: Roger-Henri Guerrand and Francis Ronsin, Le sexe apprivoisé: Jeanne Humbert et la lutte pour le contrôle des naissances (1990).
Rozalija Ch. Idel'son (1848-1917)
Born in Vil'no, was married to a Russian General, died in St. Petersburg during World War I. She was in charge of the Russian Library in Zürich in the early 1870s, founder of the Women Club for Logical Speech for Russian women in Zürich (1872), whose object was mutual help in the field of education and development. Rules of the club and Idel'son's correspondence are in the papers of her husband Valerian Nikolaevich Smirnov.
Lit: cf the publications from the archive by Boris Sapir, Vpered! (2 vols, 1970), and Lavrov (2 vols, 1974).
Sara Jacobs-Veber (1900-1976)
Secretary to Leon Trotsky from June 1933 until February 1934 and from May 1938 until January 1939; active in the American Trotskyist movement.
Fanny Jezierska (1887-1945)
Polish born scientist, communist, translator of Comintern publications and works by Lenin 1925-1929; died in the USA.
Marie Juchacz (1879-1956)
German socialist and anti-fascist; lived in the USA 1941-1949; member of the German-American Council for the Liberation of Germany from Nazism; member of the Council for a Democratic Germany; active in the Jewish Labor Committee and the Arbeiterwohlfahrt USA-Hilfe für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus.
Works: Sie lebten für eine bessere Welt (1955).
Lit: Fritzmichael Roehl, Marie Juchacz und die Arbeiterwohlfahrt (1961); Christa Hasenclever and Doris Arft, Marie Juchacz (1979).
Luise Kautsky-Ronsperger (1864-1944)
Social democrat, translator of works by Boudin and Lafargue and Marx, friend of Rosa Luxemburg, wife of social democratic writer and Marxist theorist Karl Kautsky. Read more in an introduction to the Kautsky papers. See also the papers of Benedikt Kautsky, Henriëtte Roland Holst, Mathilde Wibaut, Martha Tausk, Paul Hertz, and Henriette Ide-Bottenheim.
Works: Rosa Luxemburg. Ein Gedenkbuch (1929).
Lit: Luise Kautsky zum Gedenken. Nachrufe von F. Adler und O. Lerda-Olberg. Berichte aus Amsterdam: A. van Scheltema, aus Birkenau: Dr. med. L. Adelsberger. Briefe aus und über Buchenwald von B. Kautsky (1945); Ursula Langkau-Alex, 'Freundschaft über Grenzen hinweg. Luise Kautsky und Henriëtte Roland Holst'. In: Grenzgänger. Persönlichkeiten des deutsch-niederländischen Verhältnisses (1998).
Ellen Key (1849-1926)
Swedish feminist, author of Love and Marriage. Letters to Ellen Key by Julia von Vollmar are in the Julia von Vollmar-Kjellberg papers.
Works: Missbrauchte Frauenkraft (1898); Das Jahrhundert des Kindes (1902); Die Frauenbewegung (1909); Rahel (1912).
Aleksandra Michailovna Kollontai
Also: Aleksandra Michajlovna Kollontaj. Twenty six letters to Marcel Body (1926-1936), in the Marcel Body papers
Works: Obshchestvo i materinstvo (Moskva: Gosizdat 1928); Rabotnitsa-mat' (1918); The Workers Opposition in Russia (Chicago 1921) etc.
Lit: Barbara Evans Clements, Bolshevik feminist: the life of Aleksandra Kollontai (1979).
Anna Kulishtsev
Also: Anna Kuliscioff, ps. of Ania Rosenshtein. Feminist, revolutionary, terrorist. See the Filippo Turati papers and Filippo Turati papers (microfilms)).
Works: Il Monopolio dell' uomo (1890).
Lit: Carteggio (correspondence with Filippo Turati, 3 vols, 1949-59); Allessandro Schiavi, Anna Kuliscioff (1955); Anna Kuliscioff e l'età del riformismo (1978); Claire LaVigna, Anna Kuliscioff (1991); Marina Addis Saba, Anna Kuliscioff (1993); Lettere d'amore a Andrea Costa (1996).
Ida Markovna Lazarevich (1901-1973)
Also: Ida Mett and Ida Lazarewitch-Gilman. Russian born militant anarchist and writer who lived in France since 1925.
Works: La Commune de Cronstadt (1949); La Médecine en URSS (1953); Le Paysan russe dans la Révolution et la post-révolution (1968).
Alla Aleksandrovna Lebedinskaia
Russian writer, who was arrested in the 1930s and suffered long-term imprisonment in the GULag-archipelago.
André Léo (1824-1900)
Pseudonym of Léodile Champseix. Journalist, playwright, socialist, communard and feminist; longtime compagne of Benoît Malon. Her correspondence, memoirs and manuscripts are in the Lucien Descaves papers.
Works: Les Deux filles de monsieur Plichon (1865); Jacques Galéron (1865); La Femme et les moeurs (1869); Légendes corréziennes (1870); La Guerre sociale (1871); En chemin de fer (1898); Coupons le câble! (1899).
Lit: André Léo (1987).
Ekaterina A. Lindfors
Also: Jekaterina Lindfors. Born in the province of Chernigov, Russia ca.1880, grew up in Kiev, studied in Zürich.
Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)
Foremost Polish Marxist; at the outbreak of WW I, together with Clara Zetkin "the only men in the German Social-Democratic Party". See also the papers of Fanny Jezierska and Karl Kautsky.
Works: Sozialreform oder Revolution? (1899); Massenstreik, Partei und Gewerkschaften (1906); Die Akkumulation des Kapitals (1913); Die Russische Revolution (1922); Einführung in die Nationalökonomie (1925); etc.
Lit: Luise Kautsky (ed), Briefe an Karl und Luise Kautsky (1923); biographies by Paul Fröhlich (1939), Peter Nettl (1967), Gilbert Badia (1975), Elzbieta Ettinger (1986), Stephen Bronner (1987), Richard Abraham (1989), Donald Shepardson (1996); etc.
Eleanor Marx (1855-1898)
Youngest daughter of Karl Marx, some of whose works she published. See also the papers of Karl Marx.
Works (with her husband, Edward Aveling): The Factory Hell (1885); The Working-Class Movement in America (1888); Shelley's Socialism (1888).
Lit: Chushichi Tsuzuki, The life of Eleanor Marx (1967); Yvonne Kapp, Eleanor Marx (2 vols, 1972-76); Emile Bottigelli (ed), Les Filles de Karl Marx (1979); John Stokes (ed), Eleanor Marx (2000).
Berta Borisovna Mering (1885-1970)
Member of the 'Bund'; Menshevik; left the Soviet Union in 1919/1920 to live in Paris; active in helping political prisoners in the Soviet Union; after the Second World War in charge of an organization for the relief of children, subsidized by the Jewish Labor Committee.
Malwida von Meysenbug (1816-1903)
Writer, feminist, sympathizer of the 1848 Revolution. This is a microfilm collection of her letters to Natalie Herzen.
Works: Memoiren einer Idealistin (1899); Gesammelte Werke (1922).
Lit: Berta Schleicher (ed), Im Anfang war die Liebe (letters to Olga Monod-Herzen, 1926); Gaby Vinant, Un Esprit cosmopolite au XIXe siècle (1932); Stefania Rossi (ed) Briefe an Johanna und Gottfried Kinkel (1982); Barbara Leisner, Malwida von Meysenbug (1998).
Louise Michel (1830-1905)
French teacher and writer; took part in the Paris Commune in 1871. She was sentenced to deportation to New Caledonia where she gave lessons to the aboriginal population. Read more about this tireless propagandist of the anarchist cause and prolific writer in an online Introduction to her life and work . She still generates considerable interest: five of her works have been republished since 1999. See also the Lucien Descaves papers.
Works: La Misère (1882); Contes et légendes (1884); Mémoires (1886); L'Ere nouvelle (1887); Le Monde nouveau (1888); Le Claque-dents (1890); Prise de possession (1890); La Commune (1898); Avant la Commune (1905); A travers la vie et la mort (poems, 1982); etc.
Lit: Fernand Planche, La vie ardente et intrépide de Louise Michel (1946); Edith Thomas, Louise Michel (1971); Paule Lejeune, Louise Michel (1978); Bullitt Lowry and Elisabeth Gunter (eds), The Red Virgin (1981); Yves Murie, Victorine (1999); Xavière Gauthier (ed), Je vous écris de ma nuit (correspondence, 1999); etc.
Federica Montseny
Spanish anarchist, journalist and novelist; minister of health and public assistance in the republican government of 1936-37. Letters and other documents in the archives of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and the Federación Española de Deportados e Internados Políticos (FEDIP). See also the papers of José Ester Borrás, Frits Brupbacher, Max Nettlau, Luigi Fabbri, Luce Fabbri, Heleno Sana, Rudolf Rocker, and André Prudhommeaux.
Works: Seis años de mi vida (1978); Escrits politics de Federica Montseny (1979); El exodo. (Pasión y muerte de españoles en el exilio) (1977); Qué es el anarquismo? (1976); Militant anarchism and the reality in Spain (1937); Mi experiencia en el ministerio de sanidad y asistencia social. Conferencia pronunciada. el 6 junio de 1937, en [...] Valencia (1937); Cien dias de la vida de una mujer (1949) etc. etc.
A list of titles in the La Novela Ideal and La Novela Libre series published by La Revista Blanca contains many works by Montseny.
Lit.: Mary Nash, Federica Montseny: dirigente anarquista, feminista y ministra = Federica Montseny: a feminist and anarchist leader (1994); Shirley F. Fredricks, Social and political thought of Federica Montseny, Spanish anarchist (1923- 1937) (Manuscript diss. 1972); Jeanette Diepenbroek, Het gloeiend anarchisme van Federica Montseny (Scriptie Amsterdam UvA, 1998); Pilar Aymerich, Marta Pessarrodona, Frederica Montseny: un retrat (1998), etc. etc.
Video: Frederica, palabra de mujer (1996)
Liudmila Sergeyevna Novikova (1934-)
Family papers collected by Liudmila Novikova, member of the foundation of former GULag prisoners Vozvrashchenie.
Lígia A. d'Oliveira, (1917-)
Libertarian activist.
Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960)
Suffragist and internationalist socialist; founder of the East London Federation of the Suffragettes/Workers' Suffrage Federation and its paper Woman's Dreadnought/Workers' Dreadnought 1914-1924; launched the Communist Party, British Section of the Third International in June 1920; participated in several antifascist and pacifist organizations.
Works: The Suffragette (1911); Soviet Russia As I Saw It (1921); India and the Earthly Paradise (1926); Save the Mothers (1930); The Suffragette Movement (1931); The Home Front (1932); The Life of Emmeline Pankhurst (1935); The Ethiopian People (1945); etc.
Lit: David Mitchell, The Fighting Pankhursts (1967); Richard Pankhurst, Sylvia Pankhurst (1979); Barbara Castle, Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst (1987); Jane Marcus (ed), Suffrage and the Pankhursts (1987); Patricia W. Romero, E. Sylvia Pankhurst (1987); Barbara Winslow, Sylvia Pankhurst (1996); etc.
See also the Pankhurst photo collection (online catalogue under "Special Collections")
Mariia Reichel-Ern
A friend of Alexander Herzen. Unpublished autobiographical notes 'Aus meinem Leben' in the papers of her husband, Adolf Reichel.
Hildegart Rodríguez (1914-1933
Spanish socialist and feminist writer and birth control campaigner.
Lit: Joan LLarch, Hildegart: la virgen roja (1979); Eduardo de Guzmán, Aurora de sangre: (vida y muerte de Hildegart) (1972); Rosa Cal, A mi no me doblega nadie : Aurora Rodríguez: su vida y su obra (Hildegart) (1991); Alison Sinclair, 'The World League for Sexual Reform in Spain: founding, infighting, and the role of Hildegart Rodríguez', Journal of the History of Sexuality 12 (2003) 1, 98-109
Nina Rubinstein (1908-1996)
Writer and photographer; worked for Amnesty International and similar organizations; moved in Menshevik circles in Paris and New York. Nina Rubinstein Papers.
Works: Die französische Emigration nach 1789 : ein Beitrag zur Soziologie der politischen Emigration (orig. publ 1933; new ed. 2000).
Dora Winifred Russell
Writer, socialist, feminist, campaigner for many radical causes; second wife of Bertrand Russell.
Works: The Tamarisk Tree (memoirs, 3 vols, 1975-1985).
Video: A Voice on the Side of Life (1984).
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966)
American nurse, birth control activist, labor organizer and writer.
Lit: Emily Douglas, Margaret Sanger (1970); David Kennedy, Birth Control in America (1970).
Lissy Schmidt, (1959-1994)
Pseudonyms: Milena Ergen and Petra Sert; journalist. Participated in the catholic peace movement Pax Christi; published on Turkish issues; sympathized with the Kurds and their struggle for freedom; was shot near Suleymania in Iraq on 3 April 1994.
Works: Wie teuer ist die Freiheit? (1994).
Lit: Bilder und Texte aus dem Leben von Lissy Schmidt (1994).
Nataliia Sedova (1882-1962)
Nataliia Ivanovna Sedova was born in Russia, studied science, and lived among the radical Russian emigré community in Geneva. She moved to Paris, where she met Leon Trotsky. She went to live with him; they had two sons. In 1917 they went back to Russia, where Nataliia went to work for the Arts Department of the Commissariat of Enlightenment. As head of its Museum Department, Sedova played an important part in protecting Russia's cultural heritage from destruction and decay. In 1929 Trotsky and she were expelled from the Soviet Union. After wandering through Europe, they went to live in Mexico, where Trotsky was murdered in 1940. Her two sons had already died, one in a camp in the Soviet Union, and the other, under suspicious circumstances, in Paris. In the Leon Trotsky papers. See also the Sara Jacobs-Veber papers.
Works: Vie et mort de Léon Trotsky (1951).
Lit: André Breton et al, Hommage à Natalia Sedova-Trotsky (1962); Jean van Heijenoort (ed), Correspondance: 1933-1938 (with Leon Trotsky, 1980).
Molly Steimer (1897-1980)
Pseudonym of Marthe Alperine. Anarchist, political activist. She was born in Russia, emigrated to the United States in 1913 but was deported back to Russia in 1921, where she worked to support imprisoned anarchists. She went to Germany in 1923, where she continued her relief work. Emigrated to Mexico in 1941, where she died in 1980. See the Senya Fléchine papers; see also the papers and records of Alexander Berkman, Freedom, Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker and Boris Yelensky.
Lit: Paul Avrich, An Anarchist Life (1980); Mollie Steimer: toda una vida de lucha (1980); Abe Bluestein, Fighters for Anarchism (1983).
Martha Tausk (1881-1957)
Austrian socialist and feminist. See also a short introduction to her life.
Gaby Tiedemann (1951-1995)
Left-radical, who commited herself to armed struggle against capitalism; one of the founders of the Bewegung 2. Juni, which later merged with the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF). Dissociated herself from terrorism in the 1980s.
Flora Tristan (1803-1844)
Writer, socialist and feminist, internationalist labour organizer.
Works: Pérégrinations d'une paria (2 vols, 1838); Promenades dans Londres (1840); L'Union ouvrière (1843); L'Emancipation de la femme (1846); Le Tour de France (diaries, 1973).
Lit: Jules Puech, La vie et l'oeuvre de Flora Tristan (1925); Charles Gattey, Gauguin's Astonishing Grandmother (1970); Dominique Desanti, Flora Tristan (1972); Pierre Leprohon, Flora Tristan (1979); Laura Strumingher, The Odyssey of Flora Tristan (1988); Gerhard Leo, Aufruhr einer Paria (1990); Sandra Dijkstra, Flora Tristan (1992); Stéphane Michaud (ed), Flora Tristan (correspondence, 1995); Susan Grogan, Flora Tristan (1998); etc.
Müzehher Vâ-Nû (born 1912)
was born in Lâzkiye, Syria in 1912; novelist and journalist; pseudonym Nihal Karamagarali (her mother's name); wrote hundreds of articles, stories, novels, plays; these were published in Tan (Dawn) 1944-1945 and in the 1950s and 1960s in Dünya (The World), in Akşam (The Evening) and Cumhuriyet (The Republic). See the Vala Nureddin Papers
Works: Bir dönemin tanikligi (1975?), a memoir of her own and her husbands life as a journalist and author.
Gertrud M. Tuckwell (1861-1951)
Was active in the British trade union movement: president of the Women's Trade Union League in 1904; cofounder of the National Federation of Women Workers in 1906. The archive contains documents collected by Gertrude Tuckwell: reports and comments on factory bills, documents relating to lead poisoning, industrial law cases, regulations, sweating and related subjects; documents concerning the Women's Trade Union League 1895-1918; documents concerning conferences on women's labour; copies of publications by Tuckwell; press clippings concerning Tuckwell. See Industry and trade unionism: the Gertrude Tuckwell Collection 1890-1920 Women Collection.
Julia von Vollmar-Kjellberg (1849-1923)
German feminist; in touch with feminists in many countries; translated Scandinavian literature into German. The archive contains letters by Julia von Vollmar to Ellen Key, 1884.
Margarete Wels
Member of the Deutsche Luftfahrt-Verband; manager of the antiquariat Bessmertny-Wels & Co in Berlin. Clara Zetkin (1857-1933)
German socialist and feminist. See also: Women and Class Struggle
Wienke Zitzlaff
Born in Oldenburg, Germany 1931; elder sister of the later member of the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) Ulrike Meinhof; campained for the rights of handicapped people and became a teacher and headmaster of a special school; became a fighter for more humane conditions in prisons; later co-founder of the Sappho-Stiftung, an initiative for alternative housing projects for elderly lesbian women, and after her retirement working as a volunteer in an international women's café.
Organizations
Coordination Nationale d'Associations pour le Droit à l'Avortement et à la Contraception (CADAC)
Founded in 1990 the CADAC is a French cooperative body in which political organizations and trade unions participate; its aim is to defend such fundamental women's rights as those to abortion and to contraception; the related Collectif National pour les Droits des Femmes was founded in 1996.
The Women's Movement in the Communist Party of the Sudan
Documents concerning the communist women's movement 1979-1986. In the archive of the Communist Party of the Sudan (1969-1999).
International Abolitionist Federation
International Bureau for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic
Congres publications ca. 1875-1975 concerning prostitution and traffic in women, by the International Abolitionist Federation, the International Bureau for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic and several other organizations. The documents are held in the IISH library; search the online catalogue for 'International Abolitionist Federation'.
International Council of Social Democratic Women ICSDW
International Conferences of Socialist Women were held from 1948 on under the auspices of the Committee of the International Socialist Conferences (COMISCO), the predecessor of the Socialist International (SI). In 1955 the International Council of Social Democratic Women (ICSDW) was established as one of the three associated organizations of the SI; it changed its name into Socialist International Women (SIW) in 1978.
Several publications, including the ICSDW's Bulletin (1955-69), are in the IISH library; consult the online catalogue.
International Union of Family Organisations IUFO
The IUFO had its seat in Paris and aspired to promote the interests of large families. Some documents, 1959-1965, 1967, 1972.
Liaison Committee of Women's International Organisations
Cooperation of international women's organizations to promote the appointment of women in the bodies of the League of Nations and, in general, the influence of women in international affairs. After the Second World War it divided into territorial groups (New York, Paris, Geneva and Australia). It received consultative status at the United Nations in 1948. Records, 1925-77.
Sociedad de Socorros Mutuos 'Protección de la Mujer'
Founded in 1888 in Santiago de Chile; started under the name Sociedad de Socorros Mutuos "La Emancipación de la Mujer" but changed its name two years later to avoid libertarian associations; one of the first mutual societies for women in Chile with Maria Prudencia García as its first leader; a fund was set up to support and protect its members; built a mausoleum for its members in 1894; organized evening classes for women in 1898; established a sanatorium which offered the permanent medical care of a female doctor in 1913; maintained friendly relations with the Sociedad de Artesanos 'La Unión' de Santiago and a few other societies.
Women's International Democratic Federation
Documents, 1950-1985. See also Dora Russell's papers.
Many publications, including the organization's serials and a history (1945-65), are in the IISH library; consult the online catalogue.
Some Special Collections
A Dozen Portraits of Pétroleuses
After the suppressing of the Paris Commune (1871), photographer E. Appert made portraits of hundreds of prisoners. This selection shows twelve pétroleuses - female arsonists.
The Madres de Plaza de Mayo
The IISH has a collection of the Mothers' publications, which can be found through the online catalogue. In the papers of Liesbeth Den Uyl documents can be found of the Stichting Steun aan Argentijnse Moeders (SAAM), a Dutch support group of the Mothers, whose president she was.