Search
Account
Search
Account
Below are some tips and resources for researching women and sexual and gender minorities at MIT. If you have any questions or would like the advice of a member of our reference team for your research, please feel free to contact us we are always happy to help!
Archival collections use the language of their creators, which means that some materials may use language that is not contemporary. You may find outdated or offensive or incorrect terminology used in materials related to minoritized people in archives all over the world. The following are lists of terminology that may be useful in your research. (More information on why archives use creator's terminology can be found here. If you encounter harmful language or images in your research, we encourage you to alert us so we can add a content warning to the collection for future researchers.)
Language related to people of color has changed throughout history, reflecting accepted racist views of the past and changing as our cultures have changed. Outdated and offensive terms related to a person's race may be used to describe nonwhite people, including terms like "Negro," "Colored(s)," "Blacks," or "African-American" for Black people; "Indian" or "Eskimo" for Indigenous people; "Spanish," or "Hispanic" for Latinx people; "Oriental" for Asian people; and "illegal aliens" for undocumented people. Other terminology that may have been used in collections include "minorities,""nonwhites," and "colored." (More information on changing terminology for people's ethnic and racial identities can be found here.)
As our understanding of human identities has grown, our terminology has grown as well. Historic records regarding LGBTQIA+ people may use the following terms - "gay," "queer," "homosexual," "homophile," "lesbian," "dyke," "fairy," "female/male impersonator," "transsexual," "ladyboy," "crossdresser," "bulldagger," "LGBT," "LBGT," "queen," "bisexual," or "sodomite." (More information on changing terminologies in terms of queer identity can be found here and here.)
Language related to women has also changed over the years - some additional terms to search include "dame," "wife," "lady," and "girl."
Historically most American women changed their last names at the time of marriage until the 1970s, which can make researching women challenging. Legal name changes are listed in local newspapers in the legal notices, but casual name changes will not be. (Learn more about the history of women's last name changes, and coverture laws here and here.)
Some people may go by a different name than they were born with (this is of course not limited to trans or nonbinary people). Searching by last names or initials may be useful if you do not know somebody's birth name.
Below are some tips that may help in your research.
Search married and birth names of the woman - e.g. "Ellen Swallow," "Ellen Henrietta Swallow," "Ellen Swallow Richards," "Mrs. Richards," and "Mrs. Robert H. Richards"
Search the husband's name (or the father's name) - in the past, women's records have been consolidated with the records of their male relatives. Sometimes "hidden collections" of a woman can be found by looking through their family's records.
Search names with and without quotation marks - "Ellen Swallow Richards" AND Ellen Swallow Richards
Search names with last name first - "Richards, Ellen" for listings in membership catalogs or phone books
Students with names in other languages may be listed in various ways in MIT's records. For instance Li Fu Lee (Chinese: 李勵紱; pinyin: Lǐ Lìfú) should be searched for as "Li Fu Lee," "Lee Li Fu," "Lee Fu Li" etc.