Published by Primary Source Microfilm

"The Suffragette Fellowship Collection is an extremely valuable source of information relating to the militant aspect of women's fight for the vote. It is particularly useful for the papers and information it contains on some of the lesser known women of the movement and on the Women's Freedom League." -- Margaret Barrow, Author of Women 1870-1928 (London, 1981)

Series One: Rare Political, Reforming and Professional Journals for and by Women

Journals and magazines are an astoundingly rich source for study of the social and political history of women and their place in society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This collection from the British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale and the British Library at Bloomsbury forms a solid basis for new and established courses in women's studies and is of great value for undergraduate work as well as providing new opportunities for advanced research.

The wide range of titles included covers every aspect of emancipationist activities. Key political issues are discussed in the areas of education, work, religion, temperance and social reform and the revolutionary impact of World War I on women's lives can be seen.

Part One: Includes 22 titles, 1870-1928
17 reels

Part Two: Includes 38 titles, 1858-1936
21 reels

Part Three: Women's Workers' Quarterly Magazine, 1891-1923
Anti-Suffrage Review, 1908-1919
The Freewoman, 1911-12
Four other titles, 1870-1930
17 reels

Series One: 55 reels

Series Two: Popular Women's Magazines

Popular women's magazines form one of the most influential means of mass media communication during the 19th century. They emerged in a market when emancipation, education and employment mores demanded that women, regardless of age, social class or activities, should be catered to separately.

Women's periodicals provided a new form of self-expression. They reflected the interests and obsessions of their intended readership and identified with the women's concern to improve her own appearance, to increase the efficiency of her household, to broaden her social awareness and to be kept entertained and amused.

Woman was one of the most successful middle-class magazines of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and one of the most frequently cited. It gives first-hand evidence of contemporary views on the role of the women in the home, on child rearing and on the British class system.

The Englishwoman's Review was one of a handful of journals that transformed household management from an art into a science, seeking to advise, educate and amuse.

Myra's Journal of Dress and Fashion was one of the best and most informative of fashion journals. The first to introduce colored fashion plates, it was the most significant middle-class women's magazine of its time. It is crucial for students of fashion, social history and middle-class consumerism.

The 19th century witnessed the advent of women's fiction on a mass-market basis. Romantic fiction became embedded in popular culture and melodrama dominated the popular theater.

Women's attitudes, the attitudes of magazine proprietors to women and the views on Empire, sex and society can all be gleaned from the pages of these journals. Shifting opinions can be traced, in particular relating to women's role in society. A perfect example of the Georgian magazine for women, La Belle Assemble was thought-provoking, informative, literary and self-consciously intellectual.

Comprehensive, varied and stylish, it did not accept that women were in any way inferior, and it maintained high standards for over 40 years. Editors such as Caroline Norton, noted poet, writer and legal reformer, ensured its popularity with the intellectual women of high society.

Part One: Woman, 1890-1912
21 reels

Part Two: The Englishwoman's Review and Drawing Room Journal,1857-59;
Myra's Journal of Dress and Fashion, 1875-1912
21 reels

Part Three: The Ladies' Pocket Magazine, 1826-1939; The Ladies' Treasury, 1858-69 and others
19 reels

Part Four: La Belle Assemble and Continuations, 1806-48
9 reels

Series Two: 70 reels

Complete collection: 125 reels