Gender and sexuality - History - Modern History primary sources - Subject and Research Guides at Macquarie University

Library databases

Archives of Human Sexuality and Gender This link opens in a new window
This collection brings together approximately 1.5 million pages of primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world.
British and Irish women's letters and diaries This link opens in a new window
Date range: 16th Century to 20th Century
Geographical focus: Britain
Over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters by approximately 500 women.
London low life : street culture, social reform and the Victorian underworld This link opens in a new window
Date range: 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries
Geographical focus: London
Colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials. Ephemera and other literature relating to entertainment and pleasure in London, including women, gender and prostitution.
Manuscript women's letters and diaries: from the American Antiquarian Society, 1750-1950 This link opens in a new window
Date range: 1750-1950
Geographical focus: US
100,000 pages of the personal writings of women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
North American women's letters and diaries This link opens in a new window
Date range: 17th Century to 1960s
Geographical focus: North America
Includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. Also includes biographies and an annotated bibliography.
Travel writing, spectacle and world history This link opens in a new window
Date range: 19th and 20th Centuries
Geographical focus: US, World
Accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century... A wide variety of forms of travel writing are included, ranging from unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs.
Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Date range: 1600-2000
Geographical focus: US
Brings together primary documents, books, images, scholarly essays, book reviews, web site reviews, and teaching tools, all documenting the multiplicity of women’s activism in public life.

Online sources

Bess of Hardwick's Letters
Date range: 1550s-1607
Geographical focus: Britain
Transcripts and digitisations of original letters from Bess of Hardwick, a prominent woman from Elizabethan England.
The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth Century Australia
Date range: 20th Century
Geographical focus: Australia
A reference source relating to women in leadership positions in Australia with profiles of women. Also links through to oral history and other online resources where they exist.
CWLU Herstory Project
Date range: 1960s-
Geographical focus: US
A historical archive relating to the Chicago Women's Liberation Union.