LIBA 102: Women at Work

Key Concepts & Key Words

Text: The Bread Givers by Anzi Yezierska

The American Dream: what is it to be an American? to become an American? assimilation, acculturation, citizenship, immigration, education, factories or faculty work, new world, traditions, financial independence, self-sufficiency, labor, work, working class, urban.

Time Period: late 1890s; early 20th centaury or twentieth century; the Progressive Era; World War II; the Great Depression

Secondary Sources

Finding Print Books

Quick link to Library Catalog

Library Maps >> Find your call number

Finding e-Books

Google book search http://books.google.com/books

Search eBooks in our catalog http://umiss.lib.olemiss.edu/screens/ebook.html

Online reference books in Credo Reference

Finding Articles

Academic Search Premier (ASP): an EbscoHost generalist database; easiest starting place for all academic research. >>TIP: choose "Databases" above search box and add the 2 databases below so you can search all 3 at once (ASP, Literary & American Hist...)

Literary Reference Center: an EbscoHost database focusing on literature.

America History & Life: an EbscoHost database focusing on American History.

JSTOR: Includes journal content, primary sources, images, and more across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Google Scholar: outside the library click "Scholar Preferences" and search & choose University of Mississippi, OR go through the library database page link.

TUTORIAL: Using primary resources (1:21)

Primary Sources on Turn of Citizenship & Working Women

Annual Report of the Inspector of Factories and Workshops of the State of New Jersey (1883-1904) (New Jersey State Library)

Reports include the names of factories visited; type of manufacture; number of men, women and children employed; number of children dismissed for being underage; accidents investigated.

Aspiration, Acculturation, and Impact: Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 (Harvard University)

Ellis Island Photographs from the Collection of William Williams, Commissioner of Immigration, 1902-1913 (New York Public Library)

Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904 (Library of Congress) View films and exhibits.

Lewis Wikes Hine: Documentary Photographs, 1905-1938 (New York Public Library)

Depictions of social conditions, labor, and immigrants in New York

Library of Congress

Search holdings by using key words like “women workers” or “immigrants New York.”

New York City Tenement Museum

Click on History and examine both “Research” and “Collections” pages.

Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire (Cornell University)

Site includes original text documents; interviews with survivors and witnesses; and photographs & illustrations.

Virtual Oral/Aural History Archives (California State University at Long Beach)

Follow the links to “Women’s History” and “Women’s Lives, Women’s Work 1900-1960.”

Women Working, 1800-1930 (Harvard University)

Includes publications, diaries, institutional records, magazines, manuscripts, photographs, and trade catalogs.

Womens Bureau, US Bureau of Labor

UM Archives on the Great Depression

UM Resources on Great Depression:

Conduct an advanced search in the library catalog. One option is to search the subject term “New Deal, 1933-1939” and restrict the dates to after 1928 and before 1943. This search will uncover primary source publications from the Great Depression era in the Main Stacks, Government Documents, Microfilm, and Special Collections.

The Archives & Special Collections holds the following related collections:

Memories of Mississippi Essay Collection. To coincide with a 1990s exhibit, the University Museums solicited this collection of essays by Mississippians on their memories of the Great Depression. Finding aid available in Special Collections (1 box).

**Pat Harrison Collection. A Mississippi Democrat, Pat Harrison served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1919 and in the U.S. Senate from 1919 to 1941. He was chairman of the Committee on Finance and worked closely with President Roosevelt to pass New Deal legislation. Finding aid available online at http://purl.oclc.org/umarchives/MUM00222/ (51 boxes).

**Farm Security Administration Collection. During the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration hired photographers to document poverty in American rural communities. This collection contains images shot across Mississippi from 1935 to 1945. Finding aid available online at http://purl.oclc.org/umarchives/MUM01717/ (2 boxes).

**Patrons should provide notice at least two business days prior to prospective visits so that staff may transfer requested boxes from the Library Annex (an off-site facility) to the Special Collection Reading Room. Please contact Special Collections at (662) 915-7408 to specify requested material.

Selection of Online Resources for the Great Depression

“New Deal Network” (Federal and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute)

http://newdeal.feri.org/index.htm

“The Great Depression: Collection Connections” (Library of Congress)

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/themes/great-depression/collections.html#

“Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection 1940-1941” (Library of Congress)

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html

“By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA 1936-1943” (Library of Congress)

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html

“America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945” (Library of Congress)

http://memory.loc.gov/fsowhome.html

Studs Terkel: Recordings from Hard Times

http://www.studsterkel.org/htimes.php

Print copy of book Hard Times in UM Libraries: call number

Other Print books:

Down & out in the Great Depression: letters from the "forgotten man" edited by Robert S. McElvaine

Over 100 titles from the library catalog

Also try this Google search for more Great Depression Oral Histories,
or this Google search for Oral Histories on the Dust Bowl

UM Archives Resources on World War II:

The Archives & Special Collections has created a War Subject Guide which describes World War II related primary source publications and manuscript collections: http://apollo.lib.olemiss.edu/guides/archives_subject_guide/wars

Conduct an advanced search in the library catalog. One option is to search the keyword “World War II” and restrict items to dates after 1938 and before 1946. Or, conduct a subject search on “World War, 1939-1945” and restrict items to dates after 1938 and before 1946. These searches will uncover primary source publications from the World War II era in the Main Stacks, Government Documents, Microfilm, and Special Collections.