Duke University Collection Online Exhibit: “Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work”
Most genealogists are familiar with tools like ArchiveGrid which allow users to search for manuscripts and private papers in the catalogs and finding aids of libraries and historical institutions across the globe. Inclusion in such online databases improves accessibility, but some institutions take additional steps by digitizing collections and publicizing the collection in public events. Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library has recently done this very thing with the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection called “Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work.”
The purpose of the collection is to make “the true breadth of women’s contributions visible” by showcasing material from several centuries and countries that show “that women have long pursued a startling range of careers and vocations and that through their work they have supported themselves, their families, and the causes they believed in.” The collection spans roughly 700 years and includes books, artwork, manuscripts and various miscellanea that shows women working outside of the standard archetype of housewife, teacher, or midwife. The collection shows women as business owners, printers, social activists, authors, scientists and more. Many of these items have been digitized and placed on the exhibit website. Of particular interest from a genealogical perspective is the inclusion of such items as a Maine seamstress’s account book from 1839-1846 naming her helpers and some of her customers, a medical certificate detailing the horrifying injury of an enslaved woman named Alsy from Westmoreland County, Virginia, and an 1848 book called The Married Woman’s Private Medical Companion…” written by a woman who was later arrested under the Comstock Laws for assisting with illegal abortions in New York but committed suicide before she could stand trial.
While some items are digitized for the online exhibit, available for viewing on the exhibit’s website, the exhibit itself appears to be only a portion of the more than 11,000 items available to use by researchers in the collection. For instance, books that appear in the online exhibit are not full book images, only specific pages have been digitized. This is only meant to be a sampling so researchers are encouraged to visit the collection in person. “This exhibition and accompanying catalogue provide a first glimpse of the diversity and depth of the collection, revealing the lives of women both famous and forgotten.” As such, it is a collection that would be well worth the attention of genealogists looking to search for details on the lives of their female ancestors and to gain context of the world they were living in.
The online exhibit page can be found at https://exhibits2.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/introduction