Selected Life Writing (primary)
Slave narratives:
Gitenstein Library:
Behind the Scenes - Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House by Call Number: E457.15 .K26 1988ISBN: 9781604598087Publication Date: 2009-08-01
Slave Narratives by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 1883011760Publication Date: 2000-01-15
HathiTrust:
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. JacobsCall Number: HathiTrust E-BOOKsearch and read the first edition (1861)
Internet Archive (IA):
IA is a non-profit library. Create an account to read these e-books.
All My Trials, Lord: Selections from Women's Slave Narratives by Call Number: Internet Archive E-BOOKISBN: 0531112195Publication Date: 1995-09-01
Silvia Dubois, a Biografy of the Slav Who Whipt Her Mistres and Gand Her Fredom by Call Number: Internet Archive E-BOOKISBN: 0195052390Publication Date: 1988-04-14For context, see "Slavery" in Black Women in America (c2005), Oxford University Press. A summary of Dubois's harrowing narrative appears in a sub-section titled "Tasks, Skills, and Punishment of Women Slaves."
Six Women's Slave Narratives by Call Number: Internet Archive E-BOOKISBN: 0195052625Publication Date: 1988-04-14also available in print, call # E444 .S59 1988
Women Pioneers (Anglo/Colonial Settlers):
Gitenstein Library:
Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1879-1903 by Call Number: F591 .C79 1993ISBN: 0803273002Publication Date: 2000-09-01- God’s Galloping Girl: The Peace River Diaries of Monica Storrs, 1929-1931 by Call Number: General Collection F1089.P3 S8 1979ISBN: 0774801107
- Ho for California! : Women’s Overland Diaries from the Huntington Library by
The Isthmus of Panama, 1849: A diary kept by Mrs. Jane McDougal.--The California trail, 1850-1959: A journal of Mary Stuart Bailey, 1852. Carpenter, H. A trip across the plains in an ox cart, 1857.--The Southwestern trails, 1869-1870: Bunyard, H. Diary of a young girl 1869. Shrode, M. Journal, 1870.
Call Number: F593 .H6ISBN: 0873281039Publication Date: 1980
- Plains Woman: The Diary of Martha Farnsworth, 1882-1922 by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 0585019576Publication Date: 1986-01-01
- Wilt Thou Go on My Errand? Journals of Three 18th Century Quaker Women Ministers: Susanna Morris, 1682-1755; Elizabeth Hudson, 1722-1783; Ann Moore, 1710-1783 by Call Number: BX7793 .W55 1994ISBN: 9780875749211Publication Date: 1995-01-01
- Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Call Number: F593 .W65ISBN: 9780805237740Publication Date: 1987-01-01
Internet Archive (IA):
IA is a non-profit library. Create an account to read these e-books.
Emily, the Diary of a Hard-Worked Woman by Call Number: Internet Archive E-BOOKISBN: 0803228724also available in print- On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894. by Call Number: Internet Archive E-BOOKPublication Date: 1962Describes the sights and events a frontier family encounters travelling from South Dakota to the Ozarks. This book is also available in print.
Find More Books (primary + secondary)
Search our discovery service and WorldCat to find autobiographies (i.e., primary sources) and secondary criticism. Leverage the power of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to find precisely what you need.
Genre Headings:
- Autobiographies and Biographies are used as genre headings to identify, respectively, autobiographies and biographies. Your best bet for generating a list of autobiographies (primary).
- Autobiographical is a modifier (e.g., Autobiographical fiction but also Autobiographical memory).
Subject Headings:
- Autobiography is used as the main subject heading to find criticisms (i.e., secondary sources) about autobiographies.
- Biography, diaries, memoirs, and personal memoirs are used as subdivisions to find primary sources (see below). "Biography" here identifies autobiographies (primary) and biographies (secondary).
- Similar in concept is personal narratives, another subdivision that identifies eyewitness accounts of wars and other historical events (e.g., World War, 1939-1945 — Personal narratives). Additional subdivisions include correspondence, interviews, letters, manuscripts, oratory, and speeches. All reveal primary sources.
- Terms not used in LCSH but worth searching for are life story(ies), life narrative(s), life writing (particularly useful), and testimonies.
Examples:
- Autobiographies [primary]
- Autobiography—Women authors [secondary]
- Autobiography—Women authors—Bibliography [tertiary]
- Autobiography—Women authors—History and criticism [secondary]
- Morris, Susanna, 1682-1755 [autobiographer or diarist as subject]
- Quaker Women—United States—Diaries [primary]
- Slave narratives—United States—History and criticism [secondary]
- Slaves’ writings, American—History and criticism [secondary]
- Women slaves—United States—Biography [primary/secondary]
- Women pioneers—West (U.S.)—Biography [primary/secondary]
- Overland journeys to the Pacific [primary]
Note: Select the "Books, Media & More" radio button and then re-execute your search to include online journal articles in your results set.
The Auto/biographical I: The Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/biography by Call Number: PR788.W65 S7 1995ISBN: 0719046491Publication Date: 1995-12-07
Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women's Self-Representation by Call Number: PN98.W64 G55 1994ISBN: 0801480612Publication Date: 1994-01-11
De-Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography by Call Number: HQ1185 .D4 1992ISBN: 0816619921Publication Date: 1992-07-01
The Female Autograph: Theory and Practice of Autobiography from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century by Call Number: CT25 .F45 1987ISBN: 0226771210Publication Date: 1991-09-05
Feminism and Autobiography: Texts, Theories, and Methods by Call Number: HQ1185 .F45 2000ISBN: 0415232023Publication Date: 2000-11-30- From the Promised Land to Home: Trajectories of Selfhood in Asian-American Women's Autobiography by Call Number: PS366.A88 L44 1998ISBN: 9780866632201Publication Date: 1998-05-01
Life-Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography by Call Number: HQ1185 .L54 1988ISBN: 0801495202Publication Date: 1988-01-01- A Poetics of Women's Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions of Self-Representation by Call Number: PR756.A9 S65 1987ISBN: 0253345057Publication Date: 1987-11-01
Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives by Call Number: CT25 .S595 2001ISBN: 0816628831Publication Date: 2002-01-02- Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body: Women's Autobiograhical Practices in the Twentieth Century by Call Number: CT25 .S6 1993ISBN: 0253207894Publication Date: 1993-06-01
The Tradition of Women's Autobiography From Antiquity to the Present by Call Number: CT25 .J45 2003ISBN: 1413405541Publication Date: 2004-03-01
Traditions of Victorian Women's Autobiography: The Poetics and Politics of Life Writing by Call Number: PR 788 .W65 P47 1999ISBN: 0813920604Publication Date: 2001-07-29
Women's Lives into Print: The Theory, Practice and Writing of Feminist Auto/biography by Call Number: HQ1185 .W67 1999ISBN: 0312223528Publication Date: 1999-10-29
Selected Criticism (AA women's autobiography)
Belabored Professions: Narratives of African American Working Womanhood by Call Number: PS366.A35 S26 2005ISBN: 0807829811Publication Date: 2005-10-31
Black Women Writing Autobiography: A Tradition Within a Tradition by Call Number: PS366.A35 B73 1989ISBN: 0877226393Publication Date: 1989-11-29
Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Call Number: E444.T82 H86 2003ISBN: 0299191206Publication Date: 2003-11-19
A History of African American Autobiography by Call Number: CT21 .H58 2021ISBN: 9781108835541Publication Date: 2021-07-22
Maya Angelou by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9781682171127Publication Date: 2016-10-30
Reading African American Autobiography: Twenty-First Century Contexts and Criticism by Call Number: Gitenstein Library E-BOOKISBN: 9780299309831Publication Date: 2017-01-10
Rhetoric and Resistance in Black Women's AutobiographyCall Number: PS366.A35 S75 2003ISBN: 0813026768Publication Date: 2003-11-30
Speaking Power: Black Feminist Orality in Women's Narratives of Slavery by Call Number: PS366.A35 F85 2006ISBN: 079146637XPublication Date: 2006-01-05
Words of Witness: Black Women's Autobiography in the Post-Brown Era by Call Number: PS153.N5 A84 2015ISBN: 9780299305048Publication Date: 2015-10-30
More Online Life Writing
See the Primary Sources Online page of my English libguide to access digitized primary sources written by and about women. Pay particular attention to the sources listed under the following tabs:
- African Americans
- Women's History
- Literary Works