{"id":7254,"date":"2025-03-02T15:10:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T23:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/?p=7254"},"modified":"2026-05-11T05:37:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T12:37:29","slug":"the-womens-library-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/the-womens-library-in-london\/","title":{"rendered":"The Women\u2019s Library in London"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Genevieve Hammang <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by: Adina Vega<\/p>\n\n\n

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Exterior<\/a> of the Women\u2019s Library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In honor of Women\u2019s History Month in the U.S., it\u2019s worth taking a closer look at some of the work that made this kind of celebration possible and the efforts that have gone into preserving that history. One remarkable example of this preservation can be seen in the Women\u2019s Library<\/a> in London, the oldest and largest library of British women\u2019s activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1926, this library was founded by the London and National Society for Women\u2019s Service in the wake of Parliament\u2019s 1918 decision to grant limited voting rights to women \u2013 just two years before those rights were made equal to those of men. The library was established for two purposes: to preserve the history of the women\u2019s suffrage movement and to serve as a resource for newly enfranchised women to participate in public life. Today, it also provides a history of British feminism from the late 19th century to the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internationally renowned collection contains important writings, artifacts, and campaign ephemera from more than 500 personal and organizational archives. It includes over 60,000 books and pamphlets, 3,500 periodical titles, 500 zines, extensive press-cutting press cutting collections, and over 5,000 objects. Among these are 100 suffrage and modern campaigning banners, photos, posters, badges, textiles, and ceramics. The collection is organized by theme, including women\u2019s suffrage and the history of the London Society for Women\u2019s Service; interwar campaigning; prostitution and trafficking; black and Asian women; women and work; women in public life; women and the family; women and religion; women and peace campaigning; the Women\u2019s Liberation Movement of the 1970s and 80s; women and the environment; women and internationalism; the Sadd Brown Library; and the Rare Books collection, which comprise the original core of the collection.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Suffrage banner design<\/a> by Mary Lowndes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of particular note is the UNESCO-recognized collection. These eight documents from the Women\u2019s Library and the Parliamentary Archives include the Mary Lowndes album of suffrage banner designs<\/a> and extracts from suffragette Emily Wilding Davison\u2019s prison diary<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors can also explore the Women\u2019s Library\u2019s many digital collections<\/a>. These feature more than 1,000 interwar feminist pamphlets, the \u201cSisters Doing it for Themselves\u201d oral history project interviewing leaders of organizations in women\u2019s voluntary sector, artifacts from the Endell Street Military Hospital, the Women\u2019s Library Poster Collection, and the \u201cThese Dangerous Women\u201d oral history project for the Women\u2019s International League for Peace and Freedom 100th anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While currently part of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Women\u2019s Library has changed names thrice in its nearly 100-year history, from the Women\u2019s Service Library to the Fawcett Library in 1953 (in honor of activist Millicent Garrett Fawcett) to the Women\u2019s Library as of 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From its inaugural opening to 1967, the Women\u2019s Library was overseen by Vera Douie, its first full-time librarian. Under her direction, the small service library became a globally recognized resource for women\u2019s activism. Though born to a wealthy family, she renounced her family and their wealth, preferring to live on a librarian\u2019s wage throughout her career. Particularly in the early days, the collection was developed through donations from members and authors \u2013 and when author George Bernard Shaw refused to donate, Douie sold his rejection letter to pay for a new copy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Vera Douie<\/em><\/a> in the 1920s.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Women\u2019s Library in London is just one of many libraries by and for women around the world. The lessons these archives offer are important \u2013 lessons about the successes and failures of past activism and about how difficult it is to make sure a good thing gets done. They are all the more important in the midst of not just ongoing attacks on women\u2019s rights, but a hostile government takeover by American fascists. The history of activism in the name of protecting our right to exist without oppression continues today and will continue long into the future.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by: Genevieve Hammang Edited by: Adina Vega Exterior of the Women\u2019s Library. In honor of Women\u2019s History Month in the U.S., it\u2019s worth taking a closer look at some of the work that made this kind of celebration possible and the efforts that have gone into preserving that history. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":7255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts","category-special-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7254"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7260,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7254\/revisions\/7260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/slasc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}