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Introduction to History: Women in Colonial AfricaThis webpage provides resources to help you find more information on the themes and topics of the course. As the quarter progresses additional links and information will be added to this page. Most of the databases on this page are restricted to UW students, staff and faculty. These are marked with a lock Have questions or need research help? Please contact Theresa Mudrock, the history librarian, via email at mudrock@u.washington.edu |
Background Info for Assignment 1
You might find some of the following reference sources (encyclopedias & biographical dictionaries) useful for finding out information about an author, missionary group or event.
American National Biography
- Encyclopedia of Western colonialism since 1450
Suzzallo Reference -- JV22 .E535 2007- Historical dictionary of South Africa
Suzzallo Reference -- DT1772 .S38 2000- Historical dictionary of the British empire
Suzzallo Reference -- DA16 .H56 1996- Literature of travel and exploration
Suzzallo Reference -- G465 .L565 200319th Century Travel Accounts
The following are some tools and techniques you can use to find late 18th and 19th century Western travel and missionary accounts of southern Africa. Generally you will not be able to determine if there is sufficient discussion of women in the account without browsing through the book or article. Keep in mind that when searching for 19th c. books and articles, you often need to consider the terminology and geographic names (e.g. Cape Colony) used during the time.
- Using the UW Libraries Catalog
There is no one consistent way of identifying all the relevant travel and missionary accounts dealing with South Africa available in the library. No matter what type of search you do, you'll always need to cherry pick for relevant material. Included in the library are original 19th c. publications, reprints of 19th c. publications, compilations of primary sources and microfilmed versions. Use the following strategies to identify possible books to use for the first assignment:
- Using the Advanced Keyword Search option, type in south africa and travel and limit your search to publications published between 1800 and 1899. You can also do the same limited search using south africa and mission*. [the (*) acts as a wildcard to find all words begining with the root word such as missions, missionary, missionaries]
- Using the Advanced Keyword Search option, change the search box from "Any Field" to "Subject" and type in south africa and sources. "Sources" is a special subject term used by the Catalog to identify primary sources. Other special subject terms that can be used are "correspondence" and "diaries."
- Using the Advanced Keyword Search option, change the search box from "Any Field" to "Subject" and type in south africa and mission* without limiting the publication years. This search, though it finds many secondary sources, also finds reprints of missionary accounts.
- Using Google Books
Google has now digitized tens of thousands of 19th c. books, a few of which deal with southern Africa. Keep in mind that the UW Libraries may actually have a print copy of a digitized work -- a printed copy can be easier to read and scan through. Use the following strategy:
- Use the Advanced Search option. Limit your search to "Full view" -- this will only retrieve those books that are completely digitized. In the Subject search box type in south africa. In the Publication Date box limit your search to works originally published between 1800 and 1899. To narrow your search further type in other terms such as women one of the general search boxes.
- Using
This is a database of digitized 18th and 19th century American magazines. Many magazine articles will be shorter than 10 pages. Because it is a fulltext search you will want to use the following strategy to limit your search to more relevant materials:
- Use the Advanced search option. Change the search box to "Document Title" and type in south africa. Change the "Date range" from 1800 to 1899. To narrow your search further type in other terms such as women in the next search box.
- Using British Periodicals & Empire Online databases (on trial thru Oct. 31, must be used on campus)
These two databases are being tested during October. British Periodicals is similar to American Periodicals Online and can be searched the same way. Empire Online is a varied collection of primary sources dealing with the British empire and includes facsimilies of handwritten documents such as ship ledgers as well as digitized versions of full-length travel and missionary works. Keep in mind that because Empire Online is only on trial, you have to go through documents page by page.
Finding primary sources on South African education
The following are some tools and techniques you can use to find articles and books on South African education during the 20th century.
- Using the UW Libraries Catalog
Using the Advanced Keyword Search option, type in south africa and education and limit your search to publications published before 1980. You can also search for bantu and education again limited by publication year.
- Browsing through South African PublicationsThe UW Libraries has a small number of South African magazines and newspapers that you can browse through to find articles related to education. Most are available on microfilm in the Newspapers and Microforms collection on the ground floor.
- Bantu World (South Africa), 1932-1946
Microform & Newspapers - A10335- Bona, 1964-1994 (successor to Zonk, incomplete)
Microform & Newspapers - A10558- Cape Times, 1944-1980
Microform & Newspapers - A4120- Contact (Cape Town), 1958-1965
Microform & Newspapers - A7372- Drum (South Africa), 1951-1965
Microform & Newspapers - A9742- The Forum (Johannesburg), 1944-1951, 1952-1962
Baker Auxilliary Stacks - 051 FOM (request from storage via the catalog)- Zonk, 1951-1964 (incomplete)
Microform & Newspapers - A10557
- Finding Older Journal, Magazine and Newspaper Articles
There are a number of databases you can use to find articles published during the 20th century prior to 1980. Some databases cover most of the 20th century, others can be used to identify articles published during the 1970s. Most of the articles will be from the American or British perspective. Articles that are not available at the UW can be requested via Interlibrary loan.
Use the advanced search option in PAIS. Type in south africa in one box and education in another box. Limit the date range from "Earliest" to "1975." To find out if the UW owns the item, click on the "Check for UW holdings" button and work your way through the steps. PAIS covers journal articles as well as books and selected government documents.
Type in "south africa" in one box and education in another box. Limit the dates as appropriate. To find out if the UW owns the item, click on the "Check for UW holdings" button and work your way through the steps.
JSTOR is a collection of back issues of electronic journals from all fields. To search most efficiently in JSTOR, use the search box labelled "article title", type in south africa and education or bantu and education. Click on "article" and then use the date range, e.g., 1950 to 1960.- Newspapers
When searching digitized newspapers, again it is usually best to use a advanced search option so that you can search for keywords in the article title. You will also want to limit your search by date. Since newspapers tend to use more everyday language you may want to also include searches such as south africa and school* or south africa and student*.
Researching South Africa: other tools & techniques
The following are additional tools and techniques you can use to find articles and books on South Africa for your poster. You can also use many of the tools and techniques described in earlier sections of this page.
- Research steps
- Identify the key concepts included in your research topic/question
- Think of other related terms or synonyms for the concepts
- Choose what types of sources would be the most useful for your topic -- academic journal articles, advertisements, magazine articles from the 1920s, etc.
- Choose the databases or other sources (e.g., Bantu World) that will cover those types of sources
- Create search statements that can be used to search library databases. Search statements use the AND connector to link concepts. E.g., if my topic were the role of women in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa:
- My main concepts: anti-apartheid - women - south africa
- My synonyms and related words: apartheid, ANC, African National Congress, bantu women's league, ANCWL - females, woman, winnie mandela, dulcie september, lilian ngoyi - cape town, durban, johannesburg
- My possible search statements:
- anti-apartheid and women and south africa
- winnie mandela
- dulcie september
- ANC and women
- African National Congress and women
- Locate the items you find in the UW Libraries. If you are need a book that is not available at the UW Libraries (or is checked out), first search the Summit Catalog and request the book be sent to the UW. If the book isn't available in Summit, request it via Interlibrary loan. Articles not available at the UW can also be requested via Interlibrary loan.
- Finding academic secondary sources
- African Women's Bibliography
Searchable database to citations to a wide range of publications dealing with African women including African and western journals, conference papers and books. To find out if the UW owns the item, do a title search in the UW Libraries Catalog for the journal or book title. Conference papers are not likely to be available.
This is the best database to find articles dealing with modern world history (1450 onward) excluding American and Canadian history.
This is a good general beginning database to find articles on all subjects. Proquest includes current newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals.
Small database covering journals and books on all aspects of women's studies. To find out if the UW owns the item, do a title search in the UW Libraries Catalog for the journal or book title.
- Finding primary sources
In addition to the previously mentioned sources for locating primary sources dealing with South African history, here are some other tips and tools.
- Use a secondary source (either an academic article or book) to lead you to primary sources. Just skim through the footnotes or bibliography for published primary sources such as articles and books. Then look these titles up in the UW Libraries Catalog to see if we have them. You can also identify other secondary sources on the topic this way. See example from Professor Thomas' article "The Modern Girl and Racial Respectability in 1930s South Africa."
- Southern African Freedom Struggles website included digitized versions of more than 40 South African political magazines and newsletters dating from the 1950s to the late 1980s. Searching is a bit clunky and sometimes deadends. Another possible website of interest: ANC Historical Documents.
- Use a printed bibliography (the precursor of databases) that lists other works on South Africa. Examples include:
- The status of women in South Africa; a select bibliography
Suzzallo - Z7165.A45 D8- Women of eastern and southern Africa: a bibliography, 1976-1985
Suzzallo Reference - Z7964.A337 B84 1989- South Africa under apartheid: a select and annotated bibliography
Suzzallo - Z3608.R3 K34 1987- Index to literature on race relations in South Africa, 1910-1975
Suzzallo Reference - Z3608.R3 P67 1979- Coloured education; a bibliography
Suzzallo Reference - Z5814.N3 T37
Image: photograph by Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin, "Bakgatla" in Surviving the Lens: Photographic Studies of South and East African People, 1870-1920.
History Subject Page | Chicago Styleguide | Research 101 tutorial
3 October 2007
Theresa Mudrock