The following digital collections contain interviews with a wide range of women activists, from different generations and geographics, addressing diverse themes of social jusitce. We would love to hear about other oral history projects that should be listed here.
A History of Domestic Work and Worker Organizing, written by Jennifer Guglielmo, Michelle Joffroy, and Diana Sierra Becerra, is a digital timeline of the history of United States domestic worker organizing. The resource aims to “inspire domestic workers and organizers by providing easy access to their rich traditions of resilience, resistance, and mobilization.”
Black Women Oral History Project (Radcliffe Insitute for Advanced Study)
Oral histories created between 1976 and 1981 with 72 older African-American women from across the United States. Interviewees were born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and each had “made substantial contributions to improving the lives of African-Americans and all people, through professional and voluntary activities, in their communities and nationally.”
Chicana por mi Raza
Started in 2009, this on-going collection of oral histories with Chicanx and Latinx documents life stories of women who have pursued a life in the United States as minorities and worked on a range of social justice and women’s rights issues. The archive includes over 70 oral histories of women born, primarily, between the 1940s and 1960s, and from more than a dozen states.
Contextualizing Feminist Voices
These podcasts, recorded in 2021, aim to provide listeners with additional information on the Global Feminisms Project interviews. In each episode, a project collaborator briefly interviews an expert on one of the country sites.
Feminist Freedom Warriors
An on-going project, this archive of videos documents conversations between feminist activists who have been working over the years to address economic, anti-racist, social justice, and anti-capitalist issues across national borders. The conversations include Chandra Mohanty and Linda Carty with other feminist scholar-activists who have been “sister-comrades” in visions of social and economic justice. Among those interviewed are Angela Davis, Zillah Eisenstein, and, in December 2016, GFP interviewee Flavia Agnes.
Gender Matters
Global Feminisms Project staff members Abby Stewart and Marisol Fila were interviewed for an episode of the podcast Gender Matters. Their conversation with the host provides an introduction to the project and information about new and upcoming activities.
History Matters
A “gateway to web resources as well as a repository of unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence for high school and college students and teachers of American history.” The website contains useful materials for evaluating oral history interviews.
I’m Still Surviving
This is an accessible interactive website highlighting narratives of women living with HIV/AIDS. It may be particularly useful for teaching about women’s experience with HIV/AIDS. It was created by the History Moves collective, which “is a community collaborative project that explores how to put the public at the center of public history.”
Queer Newark (Rutgers University)
An on-going collection of audio-recorded oral history interviews with “trailblazers and legends” in the LGBTQ community in Newark, New Jersey.
Rutgers Oral History Archives
The Rutgers Oral History Archives contains personal narratives of New Jersey residents and individuals affiliated with the university who have served in the United States armed forces, influenced the university’s history, or have a story about New Jersey history.
Who Holds Up Half The Sky – Podcast on Chinese Feminism
Andreea Coscai’s Who Holds Up Half the Sky – Podcast on Chinese Feminism focuses on critical issues from censorship of Chinese feminists to the broader meaning of feminism and transnational solidarity. In this podcast, Andreea, a 2022 Bennington College graduate, also interviews GFP staff members Özge Savaş and Wang Zheng.
Voices of Feminism Oral History Project (Smith College)
Interviews with USA women activists in the late 20th century, including artists and writers, activists working on labor issues and in peace and anti-racism movements, lesbian rights advocates, grassroots anti-violence and anti-poverty organizers, and women of color reproductive justice leaders.
