Spanish Civil War: Poster, Farm Woman
Fergui. Communist propaganda poster for farm women. Posters of the Spanish Civil War. Southworth Collection. University of California at San Diego, http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/newadd22.html

This poster, commissioned by the Spanish Communist Party, reminds rural women of their importance in the war effort, and specifically that the food they grow in the fields supports their men in battle. The image portrays this message clearly. The woman smiling broadly holds up a tool of farming;... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Poster, Factory Woman
Communist propaganda poster recruiting women industrial workers. La Cucaracha: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. http://lacucaracha.info/scw/diary/1938/december/

This poster is from the Spanish Communist Party. You can see in the bottom left-hand corner of the poster "Sector Sur" (Southern Sector) and as well as "Secretaria de Agit-Prop." Agit-Prop was a contemporary art movement that focused on politics and revolutions, and was very prominent in the... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Photograph, Women Fighting
Photograph of women who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Workers Solidarity Movement, http://struggle.ws/ws98/ws54_mujeres_libres.html

During the Spanish Civil War, women on the Republican side wore jeans and fought alongside men. The expressions on the faces of the women in this photograph display a blend of excitement and dedication. Most female combatants were phased out after the first year of the... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Photograph, Civilian Refugees
Photograph of civilian refugees from the Spanish Civil War. Shots of War: Photojournalism during the Spanish Civil War. Mandeville Special Collections Library. University of California at San Diego, http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/swphotojournalism/Civil

Spain experienced a high number of civilian causalities and large-scale destruction of infrastructure during the Spanish Civil War as many weapons, especially German and Italian bombs, were tested. This image, taken in April 1938, in Luchon, France, depicts civilian refugees fleeing from Franco's... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Drawing, Bakery
Arèvalo, Mercedes. Drawing of bakery scene from Spanish Civil War. They Still Draw Pictures. Mandeville Special Collections Library. University of California at San Diego, http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/tsdp/frame.html

Historians have recently taken up the study of how war has affected children. Due to the use of bombs and the high number of civilian casualties, children throughout the country were affected. The website They Still Draw Pictures... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Song, Women’s Anthem
"Mujeres Libres' Anthem." In Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women, Martha A. Ackelsberg. 1991.

Extreme gender divisions existed in Spain for the majority of people in the 1920s and 1930s. Women were generally responsible for household chores and childcare while men were the primary breadwinners. Wage discrimination was prevalent in both the countryside and the city. Women’s lives centered... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Letter, American Volunteer
Rolfe, Mary. Mary Rolfe to Leo Hurwitz and Janey Dudley, 25 November 1938. In Madrid 1937: Letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the Spanish Civil War, eds. Cary Nelson and Jefferson Hendricks. Routledge, 1996. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/m

Concerned with the prospect of another European country falling to fascism, supporters of the Spanish Republican government from around the world flocked to its aid. To these anti-fascists, Spain was the latest battleground in the European war against fascism, and Spain offered a chance, at... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Political Speech, Dolores Ibárruri
La Pasionaria [Dolores Ibárruri]. "Farewell Address" (speech, Barcelona, Spain, November 1, 1938). http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/scw/farewell.htm.

Dolores Ibárruri was born in Gallarta, Spain, on December 9, 1895, into a family of miners. She experienced poverty as a child and eventually became a seamstress. In 1916, she married a miner, an active trade unionist who was later imprisoned for leading a strike. After reading the works of Karl... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Motto, Republican
"¡NO PASARÁN! [THEY SHALL NOT PASS]" (motto, Spain), quoted in They Shall Not Pass, D. Ibarruri. New York: International Publishers, 1983.

Dolores Ibárruri, a seamstress and mother, joined the Communist Party (PCE) after reading the works of Karl Marx. Ibárruri wrote articles for the miners’ newspaper, El Minero Vizcaino, using the pseudonym Pasionaria (passion flower). Ibárruri soon became an important local political... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Letter, American Aid
de Palencia, Isabel. Isabel de Palencia to María Cruz Martínez, 1936. Spanish Civil War Oral History Project. University of South Florida Libraries. http://www.lib.usf.edu/ldsu/digitalcollections/S39/images/a015.jpg.

Despite the fact that the Spanish Civil War followed the Great Depression and World War I, many individual Americans chose to get involved in the cause. Although this happened throughout the United States, there was an especially large group of interested people in Florida. This letter from Isabel... [more]

Spanish Civil War: Flier, American Aid
Flier for performance in Florida to benefit the children of Spain. Spanish Civil War Oral History Project. University of South Florida Libraries. http://www.lib.usf.edu/ldsu/digitalcollections/S39/images/s028.jpg.

Despite the fact that the Spanish Civil War followed the Great Depression and World War I, many individual Americans chose to get involved in the cause. Although this happened throughout the United States, there was an especially large group of interested people in Florida. This flier announces a... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, “Chinese Character”
Lay, G. Tradescant. “Remarks on Chinese Character and Customs.” Chinese Repository 12 (1843): 139-142.

This article was published in a Protestant missionary journal, based in Canton, that operated from 1832 until 1851. Its readership included both the foreigners living in Canton and home religious communities in Britain and the United States. It is worthwhile noting that the title of the article... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Newspaper, Confucian Women
North China Herald and Supreme Court and Consular Gazette, “The Natural History of a Chinese Girl,” July 18, 1890.

This excerpt is part of a serial article entitled “The Natural History of a Chinese Girl,” which ran between July 4, 1890, and July 18, 1890. The North China Herald and Supreme Court and Consular Gazette was a secular newspaper published in Shanghai between 1870 and 1941, enjoying a wide... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, Christianity and Confucianism
“The Ethics of Christianity and Confucianism Compared.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 17 (1886): 377-378.

This selection is the ninth of ten sections in an article comparing Confucianism and Christianity. The article was published in a missionary journal printed in the cities of Fuzhou and Shanghai. The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal operated between 1868 and 1912. It was read by... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, Foot Binding 1
“Small feet of the Chinese females: remarks on the origin of the custom of compressing the feet; the extent and effects of the practice; with an anatomical description of a small foot.” Chinese Repository 3 (1835): 537-539.

This article was published in a Protestant missionary journal, based in Canton, that operated from 1832 until 1851. Its readership included both the foreigners living in Canton and home religious communities in Britain and the United States. The author begins the piece with the shocking statement... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, Foot Binding 2
Dudgeon, J., M.D. “The Small Feet of Chinese Women.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 2 (1869): 93-96.

This article was published in a missionary journal printed in the cities of Fuzhou and Shanghai. The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal operated between 1868 and 1912. It was read by English-speakers living in the major cities of China as well as abroad. The article takes up a subject... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, Foot Binding 3
Kerr, J.G., M.D. “Small Feet.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 2 (1869): 169-170; G., H. “Correspondence: Small Feet.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 2 (1870): 230-232.

This article and corresponding letter were both written in response to J. Dudgeon’s piece, “The Small Feet of Chinese Women,” The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 2 (1869): 93-96. This journal was printed in the cities of Fuzhou and Shanghai between 1868 and 1912. It was read by... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Photograph, Foot Binding
Photograph of Northern Chinese woman, late Qing period. In Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet, Dorothy Ko. Berkeley: University of California Press; The Bata Shoe Museum Foundation, 2001.

This photograph presents a very different vision of foot binding from that depicted by Western observers in the 19th century. Whereas Western visitors to China seemed most interested in the bound foot unbound, as deformity or fetish, this photo shows the bound foot as it had meaning in Chinese... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, Chinese Education 1
“Schools for the Education of Chinese Girls.” Chinese Repository 3 (1834): 42-43.

This article was published in a Protestant missionary journal based in Canton that operated from 1832 until 1851. Its readership included both the foreigners living in Canton and home religious communities in Britain and the United States. In this article, the editors introduce a letter “from the... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, Chinese Culture
“Domestic Life of Woman.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 17 (1886): 153-154.

This article was published in a missionary journal printed in the cities of Fuzhou and Shanghai. The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal operated between 1868 and 1912. It was read by English-speakers living in the major cities of China as well as abroad. In this article, the editors... [more]

Western Views of Chinese Women: Missionary Journal, Chinese Education 2
Farnham, J. M. W. “Women’s Work for Woman.” Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal 16 (1885): 218-219.

This article was published in a missionary journal printed in the cities of Fuzhou and Shanghai. The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal operated between 1868 and 1912. It was read by English-speakers living in the major cities of China as well as abroad. In this paper, Mrs. Farnham... [more]

Early Modern Period: Manual, Witch Hunters
Kramer, Heinrich. Malleus Maleficarum. Translated by Rev. Montague Summers. London: J. Rodker, 1928.

Perhaps the most spectacular manifestation of early modern European discrimination against women was the conviction of thousands of women for witchcraft. Over three centuries, more than 40,000 people were executed as witches, 75 percent of them female. The greatest witch hunts occurred from the... [more]

Early Modern Period: Diary, Mendez Pinto
The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, the Portugese. London, 1663. Reprinted and translated by Henry Cogan. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892.

One of the most important results of the early modern period was the spread of European culture generally, and Christian religion particularly, throughout the globe. The selection below, taken from the diaries of Mendez Pinto, a Portuguese sailor captured by the Chinese, illustrates the early... [more]

Early Modern Period: Fiction, Gargantua and Pantagruel
Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Edited by Donald Douglas. New York: The Modern Library, 1928.

The following passage comes from one of the most famous literary works of early modern Europe: François Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, first published in four volumes between 1532 and 1552. A satirical chronicle of the journey through France of the giant Gargantua and his son,... [more]

Early Modern Period: Advice Book, Women’s Roles
The Whole Duty of a Woman: or a guide to the female sex. . . London, 1696. Also available online through Early English Books Online.

The following selection comes from a late 17th-century English advice book for women. Such advice books became extremely popular across early modern Europe as material comforts increased and people felt a need to act more “civilized.” With their practical tips for everyday living, along with their... [more]

Early Modern Period: Painting, The True Woman
The True Woman. Seventeenth-century engraving. In A History of Women: Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, Davis and Farge, eds. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993.

This is a 17th-century French engraving entitled The True Woman. Although its author and its circulation to the public in general is not precisely known, engravings such as this one were ever more popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the power of the newly-invented printing press... [more]

Early Modern Period: Autobiography, Glückel of Hameln
Glückel of Hameln. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln. Translated by Marvin Lowenthal. New York: Shocken Books, 1977.

The following passages offer us a glimpse into the margins of early modern European society. Glückel of Hameln (1645-1724) was born into the Jewish community of Hamburg, a thriving German commercial center. When Glückel was four, the city expulsed its Jewish residents, forcing her family’s exile.... [more]

Early Modern Period: Letters, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Montagu, Mary Wortley. The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Volume 1. Edited by her great-grandson Lord Wharncliffe. London: George Bell and Sons, 1887.

The following are excerpts from the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), a noted English essayist and one of the earliest advocates of women’s rights. She is perhaps best known for her letters from Constantinople, which she wrote to various friends and family members while living... [more]

Early Modern Period: Painting, Susanna and the Elders
Gentileschi, Artemisia. Susanna and the Elders. Schloss Weissenstein, Pommersfelden, Germany, 1610. http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/g/gentiles/artemisi/susanna.html.

Susanna and the Elders, a 17th-century Italian painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, portrays the biblical story of Susanna, a virtuous Jewish woman preyed upon by two judges, important members of the community. Without her knowing, the men spied on her while she bathed. Overcome with lust,... [more]

Sati: Letter, Francois Bernier
Bernier, Francois. Travels in the Mogul Empire, AD 1656-1668. Translated by Archibald Constable on the basis of Irving Brock’s version. Edited by Vincent A. Smith. 1934. Reprint, Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1994.

During the 17th century, Louis XIV of France sought to strengthen the power of the monarchy in France and to enhance France’s position in world politics. In 1664, Jean Colbert, his finance minister, established the French East India Company to develop French trade with India. Besides providing... [more]