This blog was written by Sarah Admans, graduate trainee librarian at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) Wohl Library 2024/25. It has been curated in celebration of Women’s History Month 2025.
The IHR has a large collection of primary material focusing on women and their lived experience. This blog showcases a small selection of this exciting range of sources within the library. From memoirs and diaries to oral histories and collective community recollections, the works provide important platforms that uncover women’s voices within history. They are useful sources for new approaches to women’s history seen in the historiography of recent decades. For readers who are already interested in women’s history and those new to the topic, I hope this inspires you to visit our collections to discover more.
This blog aims to highlight the vast scope of women’s lived experience. It showcases women who had remarkable lives and achieved significant successes. It also acknowledges other lives which are more ‘ordinary’. Yet, the diversity of voices in this collection is intended to emphasise that, while many women have shared experiences, each one is an individual with a distinct and important life. The collection is a celebration for everything women have achieved and continue to aspire to. In an age when ‘feminism’ is increasingly depicted as a bad word, and women’s rights are simultaneously shrinking in many countries, these voices serve as an important reminder of why equality is so important and remains a goal worthy to strive for.
Author: Jane Cholmeley
Find in the Library: BL.650/Sil/Cho
Feminist | Business | Memoir
In this memoir, Jane Cholmeley details her experience as the co-founder of the feminist bookshop the Silver Moon in 1980s Britain. At a time when misogynistic and homophobic ideas were at the forefront, creating a safe place for female writers was vitally important. Cholmeley also includes the recollections of 18 past members—this range of voices gives us a greater sense of the impact this feminist bookshop had within society. This memoir emphasises the power of ideas and how a few women were able to create social change.
Author: Kafayat Okanlawon
Find in the Library: B.851/Oka
Prose | Intergenerational | Self-expression
This is a collection of poetry and prose by Black British women and girls aged 4 to 86. Kafayat Okanlawon has curated over 100 deeply personal pieces that highlight a significant range of different voices and experiences. The book provides a space for these stories to be heard, breaking them free from the censorship of the “Eurocentric-white-hetero-patriarchy”. It explores themes of “Womynness, Blackness, belonging and unbelonging, struggle, survival, healing, and resilience”. Marai Larasi encapsulates the importance of this work, describing it as, “a breathing archive, a speaking monument and a living memorial”.
Authors: Angela Wanhalla and Lachy Paterson
Find in the Library: CLD.4315/Pat
Māori women | 19th Century | Own voices
He Reo Wāhine highlights the experience of Māori women in colonial New Zealand through their own words. From speeches, letters, memoirs, petitions, and more, Wanhalla and Paterson have drawn from over 500 texts to provide a much needed insight into Māori women’s lived experiences from their own perspectives. The sources are grouped into key themes: land sales, war, land confiscation and compensation, politics, petitions, legal encounters, religion, and other private matters. Utilising the colonial archives, this volume helps to redress the lack of scholarship on Māori women.
Author: Muhammadi Begum, trans. Zehra Ahmad and Zainab Masud, ed. Kulsoom Husein
Find in the library: BC.7696/Muh
Migrant | 1930s Britain | Diary
This is the diary of Muhammadi Begum, a young Muslim woman who arrived in England from Hyderabad in the early 1930s to attend Oxford University. Begum provides a rare account of her everyday life and personal experiences: from her discussions with fellow intellectuals, to life with her husband, to having a child, and laments over poor British cuisine, we are able to gain a real sense for what her life would have been like. Within the wider context of the growing Indian independence movement, this primary source provides valuable insights into both social and colonial Indian histories.
Author: Lily Xiao Hong Lee
Find in the Library: CLC.4625/Lee
Tibetan | Oral histories | 20th Century
This collection includes a fascinating range of life stories which highlight the rich and diverse lived experiences of Tibetan women. The author strongly focuses on personal experience and uses interviews to present oral histories where Tibetan women are given space to tell their stories in their own words. We hear accounts from 20 women from different backgrounds, including a princess, a poor peasant single mother, an opera performer, and an Everest mountaineer. This collection provides valuable insights into the lives of Tibetan women and into social and cultural histories.
Author: Charlie Craggs
Find in the Library: E.7852/Cra
Empowering | Trans women | Letters
To my Trans Sisters is an anthology of over 70 letters written by successful trans women who share the lessons they’ve learned on their journeys to womanhood. The letters were collected and edited by the trans activist Charlie Craggs, who founded the award-winning campaign ‘Nail Transphobia’. From politicians and scientists to actors and musicians, the broad range of voices gives important representation to trans women from around the world. This collection serves to celebrate, empower, and educate.
Author: Tayo Agunbiade
Find in the Library: CLB.2541/Agu
Nigerian | Activism | New Perspectives
Through publishing women’s narratives, this work aims to redress imbalances in Nigerian historiography, which has been largely male dominated. Tayo Agunbiade uncovers a wide range of voices from the archives to highlight women’s important contributions to activist campaigns and protests between 1922 and 2022. From movements against colonial administrations to more contemporary resistance against environmental pollution, the book emphasises Nigerian women’s far-reaching and essential impact on African and global histories.
Author: Angie Leventis Lourgos
Find in the Library: US.1845/Lou
Midwest USA | Abortion | Women’s Rights
Within the context of the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the re-election of Trump, this book serves an important social history, which highlights the experiences of real women and the ‘life-altering’ effects of politics. Through interviews conducted with women from across the Midwest, journalist Angie Leventis Lourgos gives a voice to those impacted by harsh policies and increasingly polarised opinions. Intertwining heartbreaking personal stories with factual context, Lourgos firmly keeps women’s humanity at the forefront throughout the book.
Authors: Julie A. Gallagher, Barbara Winslow
Find in the Library: UF.095/Gal
Historiography | Diverse Perspectives | Collection
This book is a collection of 18 autobiographical essays written by women scholars from nontraditional backgrounds who have won the Prelinger Award. The essays highlight the challenges the authors have faced, from poverty and abuse to financial instability and genocide. This work highlights the importance of different voices that act to enrich scholarship and effect social change.
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