Women's History      

In the late 1800's, Dutch physician and feminist Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. By the time their successors finished their work in 1945, the Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and 15 languages.

          The broad scope of the collection allows scholars to trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of one country's movement on those of the others. In many cases, it also provides easy access to primary sources otherwise available only in a few rare book rooms.

          The Gerritsen Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs consists of two segments: the Periodical Series and the Monograph Language Series.

         Periodicals constitute 25 percent of the entire collection. For the years from 1860 through 1900, the period covered by most of the titles, there is no comparable resource.

          There are over 4,000 monographs and pamphlets, comprising 75 percent of the titles.