Browse Items (90 total)

Lydia B Denny was kidnapped and forcebily commited to an asylum by her husband from whom she was attempting to divorce on grounds of physical abuse. Her personal statement, followed by letters she wrote while committed, illustrate the ways in which members of the larger society, including those in the medical and legal systems, became agents of abuse against women in the 19th century. Although other websites have tagged this manuscript with terms like "battered woman" or "Reuban Swan Denny" (her husband), I find these terms take away from the power Lydia found to resist not only the social pressures of an abusive marriage but also the oppresive legal system that attempted to label her insane.

This collection of drawings from Gilman's personal collection explore themes of depression, death and motherhood. Although Gilman never officially published these works, her personal drawings offer an insight into her mind that many other, more edited works, cannot. Given that these drawings have no official context, one can read their own interpretations into each one.

This is a section of a LIFE magazine article titled "An intimate revolution in campus life", it focuses on the issues of campus relationships in co-ed dorms, specifically at Oberlin College. It also includes photographs of Oberlin students in relationships spending time together in campus spaces and dorms.

This source is a 1969 letter from Carleton College President John William Nason to Carleton Student Association President, Stephen K. Melges. In the letter Nason responds to Melges regarding arguments pro the switch to co-ed housing on campus, and generally disapproves of the idea. The letter was sent to all members of the Committee on Social Policy.

This source is a page printed in the April, 1969 edition of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly. The section is titled "Alumnae Comments on Coeducation for Smith" and includes quotes from alumnae regarding their stances on Smith as a potentially coeducational school in the future. The quotes are taken from answers to a questionnaire that was sent to 1,500 alumnae by the College Planning Committee.

This source is a section of a New York Times article titled "Mrs. Raushenbush Emerges Unscarred in Sarah Lawrence Confrontation" published on March 23rd, 1969. It details the stance of Sarah Lawrence College President, Mrs. Raushenbush, on student sexuality, emotions, and sex in regard to co-ed dormitories.

This 1943 photograph by Marjory Collins shows women factory workers attending morning mass in Buffalo, New York, immediately after completing the overnight third shift. They sit and stand in the dim interior of a church, their coats are still on, and their scarves are tied tightly around their heads. These suggest exhaustion and the cold of early morning. This photograph shows a moment of transition between industrial labor and religious service, making clear how wartime work schedules shaped daily life for women employed in defense industries.

Interpretation Note
Collins' photograph offers a counter-narrative to the polished images of wartime labor circulated by the Office of War Information. Instead of depicting heroic productivity, this photograph shows fatigue, ordinariness, and the effort to maintain community and spiritual continuity amid punishing hours. The women's quiet postures echo Kate Eichhorn's point that some of the most revealing traces of women's history appear in the ordinary moments and materials that official narratives tend to ignore. In that sense, the photograph functions much like the feminist archives Eichhorn describes, because it shifts attention to lives usually kept at the margins and shows that even everyday acts can speak volumes about the pressures women faced. Ultimately, Collins' photograph reminds us that women's work in defense plants was a patriotic duty, but it was also a grueling cycle that reshaped home life, religious practice, and whatever small pockets of rest remained.

This photograph, taken by Lewis Hine for the National Child Labor Committee in 1909, shows a young girl standing between two long rows of spinning machinery in the Globe Cotton Mill in Augusta, Georgia. She is wearing a work apron and boots, her clothes are dusty with cotton lint, and her posture is still as she faces the camera. The mill floor is littered with fibers, and the narrow aisle shows the confinement of the workspace. The original caption records the overseer's remark that she was "regularly employed," which presents her labor as routine within the operations of the mill.

Interpretation Note
Hine's photograph serves as both image and argument. At first glance, it simply shows a young girl at work in a factory, while the caption that says "regularly employed" uses institutional language to make child labor exploitation look routine and even respectable. By quoting the overseer's own words, Hine lets the justification speak for itself, exposing how employers normalize the practice of child labor, even as the photograph itself contradicts every syllable of that claim. This tension fits with Marlene Manoff's point that archival labels and descriptions affect how evidence is read, so the wording attached to the photograph carries as much weight as the photograph itself. It also echoes Saidiya Hartman's observation on the archive of marginalized people, as the girl's experiences and circumstances are absent, replaced by the overseer's authoritative framing. By placing the photograph and the caption together, Hine's photograph invites us to ask who gets to define labor, whose narratives are preserved (and whose are excluded), and how those decisions that were made long ago still influence the way future viewers understand women's and children's industrial labor in industrial settings.

This 1914 photograph by Lewis Hine shows workers leaving the Opelika Cotton Mill in Alabama at the noon whistle. Among them is Velma Smith, identified by Hine as "a tiny little spinner with a steady job all day." The image shows Velma running toward the camera while adult workers move past her. Hine's caption provides extensive detail. Velma's father refused to let her keep any of her own wages. Velma's mother had worked in mills before age 12, and multiple members of the family were employed at the mill. The caption also notes that Velma was seen starting work before dawn and suggests that her claimed age of 12 was likely falsified.

Interpretation Note
This photograph presents industrial labor as a family economy structured by dependency and necessity. At first glance, the scene appears almost ordinary, with workers leaving for a break and a child running. However, Hine's caption turns it into clear evidence of generational exploitation. His narrative draws attention to the economic pressures that bound entire families, even very young children (likely under 12), to mill work. Details in the caption about withheld wages, uncertain ages, and shifts that began before dawn show how mills and families together shaped a child's working life. Terry Cook suggests that archives grow out of the social pressures and assumptions of their time, shaping what gets saved and how people make sense of it. With that in mind, Hine's photograph feels like a product of its own system that turns the ordinary routines of mill work into proof of the social and economic conditions he wanted to expose. The photograph also hints at how child labor was viewed then, since Velma's job is shown as normal work rather than as a loss of childhood or schooling. Altogether, it shows how records created within a certain worldview can end up supporting the accepted ideas about labor in early 20th-century industrial settings.