Women and Labor Movements

Visit the Library

Interested in researching women and labor movements? Come visit Duke's Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscripts Library!

Before you arrive

Our reading room is currently closed to all non-Duke users. Duke users with a Duke Unique ID (DUID) and a Duke ID card can request an appointment to use the reading room starting September 14, 2020. Due to limited hours and seating in the reading room, Duke users are encouraged to submit a request to have material digitized. Duke graduate and undergraduate students can receive up to 250 pages of reference quality scans for free and should receive their orders within one week.

Where We Are

The Rubenstein Library is located on Duke University's West Campus, alongside the William R. Perkins Library and Bostock Library. You can get to the Rubenstein Library by entering through the tower entrance. Our reading room will is straight ahead, after you pass through the stone foyer.

Our physical address is:
411 Chapel Drive
Durham, NC 27708

Click here for additional information, including public transportation and accommodations.

"Women and Labor Movements" is an exhibit created by undergraduate students who participated in Duke's Story+ program in collaboration with the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture within the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. This project highlights the wealth of materials related to women, labor, and labor organizing within the Bingham Center and the Rubenstein Library. The acquisition of the Lisa Unger Baskin Collection in 2015 enhanced the historical context of these collections with a wide range of publications about women in labor movements as well as materials documenting women as workers over time, including a collection of letters and publications by labor activist Emma Goldman and her circle. The Baskin Collection, made up of more than 17,000 items, catalogs the enduring presence of women at work across five centuries. Central themes include early modern printed materials by or about women, suffrage and anti-slavery materials, history of medicine, women artists and makers, and women's literature. This combination of significant material from the Baskin Collection with long-held collections of the Bingham Center and other labor holdings of the Rubenstein Library offers a unique opportunity for scholars to make new connections among the histories and ongoing stories of women’s work in labor movements within and beyond the U.S.

This website offers an overview of Rubenstein Library materials connected to women and labor organizing. It showcases important collections including the records of the International Ladies Garment Workers Unions, the papers of Durham activist Theresa El-Amin, the Southeast Women's Employment Coalition Records, and the Lowell Offering, a newspaper published by and for employees of the Lowell, MA textile mills.

Students in the "Women and Labor Movements" project studied the intersection of feminism and labor organizing today as they examined expressions of these themes across archival collections. Each student explored a theme in depth and built an online exhibit showcasing how it is represented in Rubenstein Library collections: The World's Oldest Profession: Labor Organizing in Prostitution and The Working Mom.

Banner photos: Southeast Women's Employment Coalition Records, Box 4, Folder "Women in the Southern Economy: Who are We?" 1982-1984

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