Women's Library
The Women's Library - better the Women's Library @ LSE - in London (UK) , which is now integrated into the library of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), is the main library (with archive and Object collection), which is available on women and the women's movement in Europe. The focus of their holdings is on the 19th and 20th centuries and Great Britain . The library was established in the mid-1920s and its core inventory consists of more than 1,000 volumes that Ruth Cavendish Bentinck has collected since 1909 and donated in 1930.
Since 2013, the women's library has been under the care of the London School of Economics and Political Science, which it looks after as a special part of the British Library of Political and Economic Science, after having changed location several times in London . There it is also open to the public on the fourth floor.
History and stations of the women's library
Origins
This library has its roots in the London Society for Women's Suffrage of 1867, which was founded as a women's suffrage group. The foundation of the library was then the Cavendish-Bentinck book collection, which had existed since 1909 and was looked after and expanded from 1926 by the first librarian Vera Douie, who then worked for 41 years. In those years it was called the “Women's Service Library”, because the “London Society” had also been renamed in this way at the beginning of the First World War.
Women's Service House
A converted inn on Westminster's Marsham Street developed into the Women's Service House in the 1930s, a women's center near the Houses of Parliament . It was destroyed during the Second World War, so that the women's library no longer had a permanent location until 1957. Then it was housed in Wilfred Street near Victoria Railway Station and was named "Fawcett Library", as the "London Society" in memory of the non-militant leader in the women's rights struggle after Millicent Garrett Fawcett and her daughter Philippa in the "Fawcett Society." “Had been renamed.
Part of the university library
When it became increasingly difficult for the Fawcett Society to maintain the library, it was taken over by the “City of London Polytech”, which in 1992 was renamed “London Guildhall University”. It was completely inadequate in those years. Because of this, the university received a major grant for the renovation of a house on Old Castle Street in Aldgate in the East End of London, where the women's library was able to open its doors in 2002. Under the aegis of the university, which was renamed the London Metropolitan University (LMU) in 2002 , there was a series of exhibitions with a wide variety of women’s topics and intensive collaboration with groups and schools for 10 years.
In spring 2012 the LMU wanted to bring about a change in the situation. After a campaign to preserve the women's library, it became the property of the LSE, which wanted to preserve, maintain and develop it as a separate department within the "Library of Political and Economic Science". From January 2, 2013, it was given its own large reading room - also accessible to the public - and its own archive rooms.
Main themes of the stock
The overarching theme of the book collection is “Campaigns for women's rights and equal rights for women”.
Sub-topics are:
- Women's suffrage
- Prostitution and trafficking in women
- Women in the workplace and equal pay for women
- Women in public life
- Women in church
- Women's movement of the 1970s
- Peace campaigns
The women's library is a mixed collection of printed works, archive materials and spatial objects from the history of women's rights.
Rare books can be found in the collection donated by Ruth Cavendish Bentinck in 1930 as a donation of over 1000 books. The main themes in it are: legislation, housekeeping, fashion, education, health, work and literature.
Main components of the women's library
- The Women's Library owns collections and personal archives from many women's rights activists, such as B. from
Lesley Abdela, Adelaide Anderson, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson , Louisa Garrett Anderson , Margery Corbett Ashby , Lydia Becker , Helen Bentwich, Rosa May Billinghurst , Chili Bouchier, Elsie Bowerman , Josephine Butler , Barbara Cartland , Jill Craigie, Emily Wilding Davison , Charlotte Despard , Emily Faithfull, Millicent Garrett Fawcett , Vida Goldstein, Teresa Billington-Greig, Elspeth Howe, Mary Lowndes (see also “Artists' Suffrage League Papers”), Constance Lytton, Harriet Martineau , Edith How-Martyn , Angela Mason, Hannah More, Helena Normanton, Eleanor Rathbone , Claire Rayner, Sheila Rowbotham , Maude Royden, Beatrice Seear, Baroness Seear , Elaine Showalter , William Thomas Stead, Mary Stott, Louisa Twining and Henry Wilson.
- She also has many archives from organizations and women's rights campaigns, such as B. from
the "Fawcett Society", the "Artists' Suffrage League", the "Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp", the International Alliance of Women , Miss Great Britain , the "London Society for Women's Suffrage", the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies , the “National Women's Register”, the “One Parent Families”, the Gingerbread Charity, the campaigns for the abolition of the Contagious Diseases Acts , especially by the “Association for Moral and Social Hygiene”, the International Council of Women , the “Open Door Council ", the" Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service ", the" Six Point Group ", the" Women's Freedom League ", the" Women in Black "UK, the" National Federation of Women's Institutes ", the" Women's National Anti- Suffrage League "and the" Women's Tax Resistance League ".
Friends of the Women's Library
The Friends of the Women's Library have been supporting the library for more than 30 years. The members collect donations for the expansion of the collections and have already bought rare objects at auctions. They finance the digitization of sound recordings and sponsor exhibitions. They also organize visits to places and collections that are of particular importance to the history of women in Great Britain.
See also
Web links
The Women's Library website. Retrieved November 11, 2018
Individual evidence
- ^ Origin of the women's library , accessed on November 11, 2018.
- ^ Origin of the women's library , accessed on November 11, 2018.
- ↑ Friends of the Women's Library - Who we are , accessed January 17, 2015.