Interested in researching the stories of women and gender minorities this Women's History Month? The Boston Public Library has the databases to help! This list focuses on academic research and archival materials about women and queer people. However, you don't have to be an academic to use these databases. Learning about these topics is important for everyone (and not just in March)!
Gale OneFile: Gender Studies
Available with your library card | Accessibility Information
This full-text Gender Studies database provides academic journals, trade journals, magazines, photographs, and news on topics related to women, gender, and family. It includes almost 400 journals, ranging from Feminist Legal Studies to Midwives Magazine. Gale also has a "topic finder" feature that lets you find new topics or keywords and discover new connections found in the top search results. This can help in the early parts of your research as you're finding background information and narrowing down your research topic. Gale has lots of video tutorials on how to write citations, accessibility support, taking notes in the database, and more.
Gale Primary Sources: Archives of Sexuality & Gender
Available with your library card | Accessibility Information
This is the largest archival database available focused on Gender and Sexuality studies. This collection connects researchers with documentation of LGBTQ+ history through fully-searchable newsletters, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other types of primary sources. Topics covered include the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement, the history of HIV/AIDS, and changes in gender roles over time.
Our subscription contains:
- LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part I
- LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II
- Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
Once you log into the database, you will see six buttons on the right-hand side of the page, including Collections and Publications. These allow you to search in specific sets of archival material. The Learning Center provides plenty of search tips, help with citations, research examples, and more.
North American Women's Drama
Available with your library card | Accessibility Information
This database features over 1,500 plays by over 100 women from the U.S. and Canada. Many of these plays are rare, difficult to find, out of print, or previously unpublished. While this database has obvious appeal to theater buffs, the plays extend beyond the stage to demonstrate the social conditions of women from Colonial times to the present day. Topics include women's suffrage, domestic violence, racial and gender stereotyping, employment discrimination, and more. Every play is indexed and searchable. The database also includes ephemera and reference materials. Playwrights include Gertrude Stein, Alice Childress, Elizabeth Wong, Caridad Svich, Susan Glaspell, and Cherríe Moraga.
Credo Reference
Available with your library card | Accessibility Information
Credo Reference works like Wikipedia for students and researchers. It compiles encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference materials into one convenient place. They have a useful "mind map" feature that connects you to related terms. Credo also links to other BPL databases, so you can quickly find results for the same search in Gale, JSTOR, EBSCO, and other databases. They even have research quick tips videos that can help you as you're just getting started. You can check out their Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies page to browse related topics, too.
JSTOR
Full version available with your library card | Accessibility Information
While not solely dedicated to Gender Studies, JSTOR is a go-to database for finding over 12 million peer-reviewed articles, academic books, images, and digitized archival collections. Another BPL blog post called Research 101: JSTOR covers the basics of using this database. You can see a list of JSTOR's feminist and women's studies specific resources on their website, but there is a wealth of information in other publications, too. Some JSTOR content is open access and can be used without a library card.
Digital Transgender Archive
Available without a library card | Accessibility Information (on the bottom of the page)
The Digital Transgender Archive is a centralized online collection and archival finding aid dedicated to trans and gender non-conforming history. The collection includes contributions from over 60 institutions from all over the world. To help you begin your research, DTA has an awesome Starter's Guide and a Race & Ethnicity Research Guide to help research trans and gender nonconforming people of color. The website also has primary source sets that are useful for researchers and educators alike.
Discovering American Women's History Online
Available without a library card | Accessibility Information
This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. While this database is now a little outdated (it was last updated in 2016), it is still a great tool to find digitized women's history collections.
The database offers the following features:
- Detailed descriptions and links to more than 700 digital collections
- Quick access to basic and advanced searches on every page
- Options for browsing by subject (300+ entries), place, time period, and primary source type
- Options for narrowing search results by subject, time period, place, and primary source type
Contact us!
If you still have questions about these databases or need more help with your research, our Research Services Department is here to help. We can also help you find more databases that hone in on your research topic, whether that's lesbian history, home economics, independent press, Black feminism, or something else. Feel free to email us at ask@bpl.org. We look forward to hearing from you!
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