General Overviews and Histories

Beverly Jones and Judith Brown, published by New England Free Press, “”Toward a Female Liberation Movement,” by Beverly Jones and Judith Brown,” Roz Payne Sixties Archive, accessed September 27, 2022. Roz Payne and unidentified others, “Homemade Radical Feminist Book,” Roz Payne Sixties Archive, accessed September 19, 2022, https://rozsixties.unl.edu/items/show/710.

Digital Archives And Resources

Lesbian Avengers – Born more than twenty-five years ago, during another surge of hardcore misogyny, and anti-gay, white Nationalist hate, the Lesbian Avengers kicked off with a daring action supporting a multicultural curriculum, and encouraging elementary school children to “Ask about Lesbian Lives.” This simple, but taboo-busting gesture launched an extraordinary movement that spoke to lesbians everywhere. Their most visible legacy is the Dyke March, still organized in cities across the globe. Our goal, as a documenting the Avengers, is to celebrate Avenger accomplishments, and to encourage new activists to go forth and wreak havoc for the sake of dyke lives.

Trouble & Strife was an independent radical feminist magazine published in Britain between 1983 and 2002. This website hosts an archive of material previously published in the print version of Trouble & Strife.

Poster for DYKE, A Quarterly

Back cover, DYKE, A Quarterly. Lesbian t-shirts.

DYKE, A Quarterly of Lesbian Culture and Analysis
Published in New York City during the 1970s. Editors Liza Cowan and Penny House created a magazine that was as beautiful as it was radical, and as personal as it was political. The digital archive provides primary source documents about lesbian feminism to scholars everywhere. DYKE A Quarterly is now available for research at The Museum Library of The Museum Of Modern Art in New York City. The issues as well as ephemera, letters, and collateral material are available for research at The Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College.

OFF OUR BACKS: University of Maryland Archival Collections
JSTOR Digital Archive: https://www.jstor.org/journal/offourbacks
Off Our Backs was a non-profit feminist news journal by, for, and about women, published from 1970 until 2008. It was the longest continuously published surviving feminist newspaper in the United States. The paper was run by a collective where all decisions were made by consensus. Although based out of Washington, D.C., the newsjournal covered local, national, and international topics pertaining to women’s, feminist, and lesbian issues and culture. The mission of Off Our Backs was “to provide news and information about women’s lives and feminist activism; to educate the public about the status of women around the world; to serve as a forum for feminist ideas and theory; to be an information resource on feminist, women’s, and lesbian culture; and to seek social justice and equality for women worldwide.” The collection includes material from the entire history of the newspaper, but the bulk of the collection dates from 1990-2006. The collection consists of correspondence, publications, financial records, personnel records, meeting minutes, subject files, directories, reports, drawings, photographs, posters, newsclippings, electronic records, microfilm, and memorabilia.

“Lavender Menace,” worn during an action by Radicalesbians at the Congress to Unite Women, 1970, Lesbian HerStory Archives

Lesbian HerStory Archives: Since 1979, the Lesbian Herstory Archives has collected personal papers and organizational records donated by Lesbian individuals and groups. The more than four hundred collections that compose the Archives’ Special Collections help document and preserve a diverse cross section of Lesbian herstory. You can now search an index of these collections.

Feminist Zine Archive, Chapman University
Writings and artwork depicting feminism and women’s issues from women’s studies classes at Chapman University.
– Selected zines:
– Jackson, Charlie; Duboise, Sara; Bethea, Elena; and Sison, Rachel, “The Feminist Burn Book on Rape Culture” (2018). Women’s Studies, Feminist Zine Archive. 61. https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/feminist_zines/61
– Yasmeen; Irene; Lexi; and Domi, Jackie, “Radical Feminism & Intersectionality” (2018). Women’s Studies, Feminist Zine Archive. 38.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/feminist_zines/38

New York Radical Feminists records, 1969-2011, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University
The New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) was a radical feminist group founded by Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt in 1969. Collection contains organizing and theory documents as well as photographs from the New York Radical Feminists, as well as groups associated in some way with the NYRF or NYRF members dating from 1969-2011.

New York Radical Feminists, Pacifica Radio Archive

Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Radical Women National Office Records,1976-1998.
The Radical Women National Office records (1976-1998) documents the activities of the national office of the organization, based in Seattle, Washington. They were collected and maintained by Clara Fraser, the co-founder and officer of Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party. This collection documents the evolution and collective actions of nationally recognized socialist feminist leaders from 1976-1998. This collection provides access to communication among the local and national RW organizers as well as materials concerning mass work such as the protection of Roe vs. Wade, the Seattle City Light fight for affirmative action for tradeswomen electrical workers, the collaborative 1997 Feminist Brigade to Cuba, the landmark Freeway Hall Case, and drafts of RW literature such as the Radical Women Manifesto.

Redstockings of the Women’s Liberation Archives for Action
The Redstockings Women’s Liberation Archives for Action is a mostly volunteer, grassroots effort, for using and spreading the principle of history for activist use. Through our catalog, and our larger collection, we have been disseminating and restoring to public awareness some of the founding documents of the Women’s Liberation Movement (the WLM), as well as materials that take stock of all the freedom organizing of the 1960s. The Archives for Action emphasizes the distinct power of engaging with primary sources to learn from, analyze, and advance the gains won from past freedom struggles. Note: log-in is required.

Feminist Theory Archive, Brown University
Established in 2003, the Feminist Theory Archive documents the work of influential feminist theorists and scholars of difference who have examined sex and gender at the center of theoretical study.

National Organization for Women Papers, Harvard – Schlesinger Library
Records of the National Organization for Women (1966- ), the largest feminist organization in the United States.

Records of the Tully-Crenshaw Feminist Oral History Project, 1961-2001, Harvard
A collection of interviews conducted by and with past officers and members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) regarding the formation of NOW and their roles in the organization. All participants in the project were active in NOW during the late 1960s and 1970s. Bulk of material from 1990-1993.

Papers of Pauli Murray, 1827-1985, Harvard – Schlesinger Library
Correspondence, writings, photographs, etc., of Pauli Murray, lawyer, activist, and first African-American woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.

Chicago Women’s Liberation Union Record, 1954, 1967-1978 – Chicago History Museum
Correspondence, memos, committee minutes, membership lists, announcements, position papers, newsletters, and topical files of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, which was formed in 1969 as a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, feminist organization building on a multi-issue women’s liberation movement.

E.R.A. Central (Chicago, Ill.) records, 1970-1976, Chicago History Museum
Correspondence, minutes, reports, newsclippings, mailing lists, circulars, and newsletters of the Chicago headquarters of E.R.A. Central, a coalition of women’s and other organizations that advocated the Illinois Legislature’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) to the United States Constitution, and the organization’s reference files of miscellaneous documents and publications.

Broomstick magazine records 1972-2005 UCLA
Founded in 1978 by Maxine Spencer and Polly Taylor in the San Francisco Bay area, is an independent, self-published radical feminist magazine dedicated to supporting and promoting women and lesbian activism and art for an audience of women over forty.

Valley Women’s Center Records, Smith College – Neilson Library
The records of the Valley Women’s Center provide excellent documentation of how a group of local feminists organized at the grassroots level to address a wide range of problems particular to women, as well as the struggle to resolve internal conflicts and differences of opinion. The energy and optimism of the women’s liberation movement in the early 1970s is almost palpable, as are the frustrations when the organization begins to encounter difficulties….

Liberation News Service Collection, 1969-1978 ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives.
News packets, correspondence, and administrative records, 1969-1978, from the Liberation News Service (LNS), a press agency for alternative and radical media based in New York City, New York. Founded in 1967 as an anti-war news service, the LNS expanded its coverage to the gay and lesbian liberation movement in 1970, with the help of gay journalist Allen Young.

Marxist-Feminist Group Records 1973-2000, Smith College – Neilson Library
Founded in the early 1970s by several women dissatisfied with the sexist treatment they received as members of the Union of Radical Political Economists, the Marxist-Feminist Group reflected the radical politics and increasingly radical feminism of its founders. The collection contains Marxist-Feminist Group biographies and meeting materials, including notes, presentations, publications, articles, and mailing lists.