The Historical Archive occupies a central place in the project Women’s and Gender History Portal. International and national women’s movements have represented a political driving force in the struggle for the equal political, social, economic and legal status of women at the end of the 19th and during the 20th century. As the idea of the importance of women’s collective historical memory grew within their circles, since the 1930s the first women’s history archives have been established, special collections acquired, and consequently libraries and museums opened. Each of us who ventured into researching women’s history has encountered a lack of documents, unsystematic, non-existent or destroyed archive funds, even when it comes to women’s organizations and associations which had a long tradition in Serbia and Yugoslavia in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Therefore, the main goal of our Portal is to collect, preserve and make available miscellaneous historical materials of different origin: archival records (by agreement with the competent institution), articles in magazines and publications of special, discursive importance for gender history, periodicals, publications and photographs. These materials represent sources for the legal, economic and political status of women in the 19th and 20th centuries; ideas and stereotypes about gender roles, female education, labor, the feminist movement, participation in international women’s organizations, women’s magazines, marriage and family.
