HST 498 (SEC 4): Undergraduate Research Seminar US Gender and Sexuality History: Home

Prior to your arrival in Special Collections, complete and submit online the Researcher Registration Form.  The form also explains our rules and protocols.

• Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association. 1897-1917. This digital collection contains mostly printed programs, minutes, and other material documenting the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA).  It also includes the handwritten minutes of the Equity League in Jackson, Mississippi.
• Lily Thompson Collection.  1897-1938.  Lily Thompson was the corresponding secretary of the Mississippi Woman Suffrage Association and became its president in 1912.  She was also an officer on the Equity League of Jackson, Mississippi, a local woman suffrage association.  While many of the items in the collection are available online in the MWSA digital collection listed above, the Thompson Collection contains a large scrapbook of clippings, manuscripts, and ephemera related to the suffrage movement which has not been digitized.  3  boxes.
• Minutes of the Annual Convention of the Mississippi Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy.  1899-2006.  Call Number:  E483.5 A15 M7.
• Browning Club Collection.  1895-2011.  Browning Club was founded by women in Oxford, Mississippi in 1895 to expand the knowledge of women in literature, culture, music, and the arts.  Through fundraisers, it has donated to both local and global organizations and causes and has become involved in community and political affairs.  6 boxes.
• Women's Book Club of Oxford, Mississippi Collection. 1895-2009.  The Women's Book Club of Oxford, Mississippi was founded in 1895 to discuss books and plan service projects.  The collection includes meeting minutes, correspondence, programs, and other material documenting their activities.  11 boxes.
• Southern Women Legislators Collection.  1980-1998.  The collection contains research files on women in southern state legislatures.  Mississippi legislators are in Boxes 3 & 4.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.
• John Rankin Collection. 1900-1953.   A Democrat from Tupelo, Mississippi, John Rankin served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1921-1952.  Rankin's wife voted for him in the first federal election in Mississippi that permitted women to participate at the polls.  Series 3, Box 2, Folders 2 through 9 contain files from his 1920-1924 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives.  Series 4, Box 5, Folder 25 "Speeches 1924 -- Women of Mississippi."  Series 1, Box 37, Folder 30 "Congress -- Women"; Box 139, Folders 4 & 5 "Woman's Suffrage" for 1920 and 1921 and Folder 6 "Women 1924."  342 boxes.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.
• Pat Harrison Collection.  1883-1943.  A Democrat, Pat Harrison represented Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1919 and in the U.S. Senate from 1919 to 1941.  Box 105, Folder 10 "Women's Suffrage -- 1919-1925."  116 boxes.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.

• Marge Baroni Collection.  1955-1985.  A white Catholic resident of Natchez, Mississippi, Marge Baroni's convictions led her to publicly support the Civil Rights Movement.  She was a founding member of the Adams-Jefferson Improvement Corporation, a community action group whose initiatives included Head Start, a credit union, and job training, among other programs.  Over a period of ten years, Baroni also worked for Charles Evers, state NAACP director who became the elected mayor of a multiracial community in the state. 21 boxes.
• Fannie Lou Hamer Collection.  An African American sharecropper from Sunflower County, Fannie Lou Hamer became a major figure in the civil rights movement, becoming a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and she challenged U.S. Representative Jamie Whitten's seat in Congress in 1964.  From the late 1960s until her death in 1977, she devoted herself to helping impoverished black and white members of her community with projects such as the Freedom Farm Cooperative.  1965-1978.  4 boxes. 
• Dorothy Quaye Chapman Reed Collection.  1968-2021.  Reed graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1974 as one of the early African American women enrolled on campus.  She subsequently served as a University of Mississippi Admissions Counselor until 1977.  31 boxes.
• Freedom Riders Oral Histories digital collection.  2001.  An online collection of oral histories with 42 participants in the Freedom Rides of 1960 to test the Supreme Court's ruling which declared segregation in interstate and rail stations unconstitutional.  The interviews were collected in 2001 in Jackson, Mississippi at the fortieth anniversary commemoration of those rides.
• League of Women Voters of Mississippi Collection.  1946-2001.  Membership of this organization declined within Mississippi in the 1960s as the national organization increasingly moved to support the civil rights movement, although the group worked to keep the public school system open and gradually began enrolling African American members. 36 boxes.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.
• American Association of University Women (AAUW) Collection.  1906-1992.  A nonprofit organization that uses advocacy, education, and research to promote equity for women and girls.  This collection holds material related to the Mississippi Division and its branches within the state.  129 boxes.
• Citizens' Council digital collection.  An regional organization promoting segregation that was founded in Indianapolis, Mississippi after the Supreme Court ruling in 1954 struck down segregation in public schools. 

• The Citizens' Council: Official Paper of the Citizens' Councils of America (Jackson, MS: 1955-1961). Call Number: HS1 C5 OVRS. Serial continued under title The Citizen.

• The Citizen: Official Journal of the Citizens' Councils of America [Jackson, MS: 1961-1989]. Call Number: HS1 C5. Serial preceded by title The Citizens' Council.

• Franklin E. Moak Collection.  1943-1997.  Dr. Franklin E. Moak served as the Dean of the Division of Student Personnel at the University of Mississippi from 1964 until 1981. Boxes 1 through 7 document sororities and fraternities on campus.  87 boxes.
• University Small Manuscripts.  Series 6:  Greeks, 1858-2001 contains a miscellaneous assortment of publications and manuscript material related to fraternities and sororities at the University of Mississippi.

For additional material, consult the Sources on UM page of the Secret Societies & Fraternal Organizations Subject Guide which contains a list of additional collection material as well as UM Greek publications.

• This Month in Mississippi (Jackson, MS:  Mississippi Gay Alliance, 1983-1984, 1986-1991).  Call Number:  HQ75 T35.
• Queer Mississippi Oral History Project.  Interviews with LGBTQ+ individuals born, raised, or who have spent significant time in Mississippi.

For additional material, consult the LGTBQ Subject Guide which contains a list of additional collection manuscript collections, primary and secondary source publications, and Blues music items

• League of Women Voters of Mississippi Collection.  1946-2001.  Box 3, Folder 6 "Jackson League, Equal Rights Amendment, 1973-1977" with the possibility of additional material subsumed in more general files from this time period.  36 boxes.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.
• Southern Women Legislators Collection.  1980-1998.  Box 1, Folder 58 "Information on the Equal Rights Amendment in the Florida Legislature."  6 boxes.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.
• Southern Women Legislators digital collection.  A search for "Equal Rights Amendment" in the left-hand search bar will bring up 20 oral histories with women legislatures across the South that discuss this topic. 
• Jamie L. Whitten Collection.  1927-1995.    A Democrat from Charleston, Mississippi, Jamie L. Whitten served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1941 until 1995.  Series 35: Subject Files, Box 61 has folders dating from 1960 through 1989 "Equal Rights Amendment."  Series 21, Box 2, Folder "Contents of Special Letters Scrapbook 1983" includes a letter dated 15 November 1983 from U.S. Representative Patricia Schroeder to Whitten on the ERA.  637 boxes + additional items.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.
• Thomas G. Abernethy Collection.  1924-1975. A Democrat from Okolona, Mississippi, Thomas G. Abernethy served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1943 to 1973.  Box 220, Folder "Amendment to the Constitution Relative to Equal Rights for Men & Women."  454 boxes.  Note:  This collection is stored off-site.  You must submit box requests to Dr. McWhite (slmcwhit@olemiss.edu) at least 3 business days prior to your intended visit to Special Collections.
• American Association of University Women (AAUW) Collection.  1906-1992.  A nonprofit organization that uses advocacy, education, and research to promote equity for women and girls.  This collection holds material related to the Mississippi Division and its branches within the state.  Boxes 96 and 97 have several ERA related folders from the 1970s and 1980s.  Additional material on the subject might be found in that time period's branch files, minutes, programs, board of director meetings, and correspondence.  129 boxes.