I. TIMELINE

1900 America 1900 is the companion site to the PBS film of the same title.

1900 Female missionaries associated with Oberlin College are among those killed during the Boxer Rebellion in China.
Women Physicians: 1850s-1970s [Drexel University College of Medicine] includes the newspaper article, "Boxers Clipped Chickens' Wings to Warn Christians of Fire."

1900 Images of Early African American Life, David Levering Lewis and Deborah Willis discuss the collection of photographs that were featured in "The Exhibit of American Negroes" at the 1900 Paris International Exposition.
African American Photographs Assembled for the 1900 Paris Exposition [Library of Congress] offers access to over 480 images. A search for women returns over 150 images.

1900 Remembering the Galveston Storm of 1900 is part of National Public Radio's Lost and Found Sound series. See also CNN's In-Depth Special, A Centennial Remembrance: The Galveston Hurricane.

1901 Lizzie Black Kander's The Settlement Cook Book is published.
Michigan State University's Feeding America digital archive offers access to The Settlement Cook Book in several formats.
The Settlement Cook Book is featured in Angela Fritz, Lizzie Black Kander & Culinary Reform in Milwaukee, 1880-1920, Wisconsin Magazine of History 87 (Spring 2004): 36-49.

1902
Charlotte Hawkins Brown founds the Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina.
The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum web site offers a brief overview of Brown's life and information about the museum.

1902 Elizabeth Cady Stanton dies.
The Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers Project web site includes Anthony's letter to Ida Husted Harper upon the death of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

1902 Mary Harris "Mother" Jones organizes West Virginia for the great anthracite coal strike of 1902.
The Mother Jones Collection [American Catholic History Center, The Catholic University Of America] includes the correspondence of Jones and John Mitchell and a small collection of photographs.

1903 Maggie Lena Walker becomes president of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia.
The Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site includes a photo gallery, timeline, and a brief overview of Walker's life.

1903 National Women's Trade Union League of America founded, 1903 Women Working, 1800-1930, Harvard University Library] provides an overview and numerous primary sources in digital format.

1904 The 1904 World's Fair: Looking Back and Looking Forward, an online exhibit from the Missouri Historical Society, includes Gerhard Sisters' Photographs.

1904 Forty Irish orphans from New York are adopted by Mexican families in Arizona.
Listen to the Talking History interview with Linda Gordon (Oct. 8, 2001), author of The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (Harvard University Press, 1999).

1904 Helen Keller graduates from Radcliffe College.
The American Foundation for the Blind offers a wealth of sources about Helen Keller. See in particular On Education and Portrait of Helen Keller at her Radcliffe Graduation, 1904.
Dorothy Herrmann discusses her book, Helen Keller: A Life (Knopf, 1998) in a Booknotes interview.

1904 Ida Tarbell's The History of the Standard Oil Company Read digital edition) is published.
Preview a new edition of Tarbell's All in the Day's Work: An Autobiography (University of Illinois Press, 2003).

1904 Mary McLeod Bethune founds the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Negro Girls, now Bethune-Cookman College.
The Mary McLeod Bethune, Educator site offers a history of Bethune-Cookman College, an interview with Bethune, photographs, and lesson plans.

1904 The National Child Labor Committee is formed.
National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) [Women Working, 1800-1930, Harvard University Library] provides an overview of the NCLC, primary sources in digital format, and links to additional web resources.

1905 Mary Colter designs Hopi House.
Preview Arnold Berke's Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002).

1905 Nampeyo demonstrates pottery-making at the Grand Canyon Hopi House.
A Nampeyo Showcase [Arizona State Museum] includes images and descriptions of 19 pottery vessels, a timeline, and a section on ancestral Hopi pottery.

1906 The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire [Bancroft Library] includes nearly 14,000 images and 7000 pages of text. One option would be to select "Browse," then "Women--California--Correspondence."

Susan B. Anthony dies.
The Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers Project web site includes the text from Eulogy Delivered by the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw at Susan B. Anthony's Funeral.

1907 Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women.
Preview Ellen Carol DuBois' Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage (Yale University Press, 1999). Dubois discusses the book with Terry Gross Fresh Air (11 March 1998).

1907 Marian and Edward MacDowell found the MacDowell Colony, an artists' retreat.
Robin Rausch's The House That Marian Built: The MacDowell Colony of Peterborough, New Hampshire, is one of the topical essays in American Women: A Gateway to Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States.
A Century of Creativity: The MacDowell Colony, 1907-2007

1908 Lewis Hine Photographs for the National Child Labor Committee, 1908 - 1912.
The National Archives' ARC database includes 483 of Hine's photographs.
Search hints are available.

1908 Muller v. Oregon (Supreme Court upholds maximum hour law), February 24, 1908 [Women Working, 1800-1930, Harvard University Library]

1909 International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) organizes strike by 20,000 New York City shirtwaist makers.
Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl [American Social History Project, Center for Media and Learning] is the companion site to a film that tells the story of two fictional New York City immigrant teenagers who worked in the garment industry in the first decade of the twentieth century. The site includes text (e.g., lyrics for the song, "Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl"), images, and audio from an oral history interview.

Kheel Center Labor Photos database includes images of the strike, as well as images of ILGWU activities covering most of the twentieth century. Access note: Researchers have to set up a free account before searching the database.

II. RESEARCH SOURCES

Historical Overviews

Tompkins, Vincent, ed. American Decades: 1900-1909. Detroit: Gale Research, 1996.

Advertising

Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 [online]. [Durham, NC]: Digital Scriptorium, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, 2000 [cited 12 March 2001]. Available from: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/.

Advice Literature

Peterson, Kelsy. The Glory of Woman: Prescriptive Literature in the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture [online]. Durham, NC: Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, Duke University, 2003 [cited 21 November 2005]. Available from: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/prescriptive-lit/.
Researchers can browse this extensive, annotated bibliography by date.

Women Working, 1800-1930 [online]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, 2004- [cited 21 November 2005]. Available from: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/.
Select "Browse the Collection," then "Conduct of Life" to retrieve digital editions of books published from 1800 to 1930. Results display in reverse chronological order.

Clothing

Digital Dress Costume Collections allows researchers to search four collections simultaneously. Enter 1900-1909 to search for items from 1900 to 1909.

Wisconsin Historical Museum Children's Clothing Collection [online]. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, updated 26 June 2001 [cited 10 December 2001]. Available from: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/collections/online/.
Tour the collection by decade (then by gender and type of clothing).

Historic Films

American Memory [Library of Congress] offers several film collections from this time period, including Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904, The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906, Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897-1916.

Historical Statistics

Historical Census Browser
Researchers can examine state and county topics for individual census years and over time, as well as generate maps of selected data.

Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1975.
Also available online in two parts: Part 1 and Part II.

Statistical Abstract of the United States [online]. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1879- .
A valuable online tool for locating historical statistics for a given year.

Manuscripts: Diaries & Letters

Many academic libraries offer access to the commercial digital collection, North American Women's Letters & Diaries. This collection offers numerous search options, including the ability to search by "year written." See a brief tutorial on searching this collection by time period.

Delia Kingsley [online]. In Women Working, 1800-1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Library, 2005.
Kingsley's diary from 1906 to 1910 describes her activities as a Massachusetts school teacher, as well as her romantic interests, travels, and daily life.

Louise Marion Bosworth (1881-1982) [online]. In Women Working, 1800-1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Library, 2005.

Newspapers

The National Digital Newspaper Program will create a digital collection of historically significant newspapers from all states and U.S. territories published between 1836 and 1922.

Quilts

Browse the Quilt Index by time period (e.g., "1901-1929")

The Quilts section of American Women's History: A Research Guide includes additional links to digital collections.