Mobile Library

Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture

in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

About the Center

Overview
History
Holdings
Access
Outreach
Internships
Support
Contact

Overview

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture in Duke University’s Rubenstein Library acquires, preserves and makes available to a large population of researchers published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women, past and present.

History

In 1988, as a result of a gift by Sallie Bingham, the Women's Studies Archivist position was created to coordinate the acquisition, cataloguing, reference, and outreach activities related to the Rubenstein Library's holdings on women and gender. The center was permanently endowed in 1993 and named the "Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture" in 1999 in honor of author, playwright, teacher and feminist activist Sallie Bingham. The Center is charged with acquiring, preserving and providing access to published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women past and present. In 2011, the Center's directorship was endowed by and named in honor of journalist, activist and women’s health care pioneer Merle Hoffman. Currently the staff consists of a director, research services librarian, technical services archivist, graduate intern, field experience students, and volunteers.

Holdings

While the Bingham Center is a broad-based women’s history archives, our main collecting areas include the following. A more detailed description of our holdings may be found on the Collections Overview page and through our Subject Guides.

Southern women
girl culture
domestic culture
women authors and publishers
lay and ordained church women
women artists
the history of feminist theory and activism
women's sexuality and gender expression
women of color

Access

The Bingham Center staff works to make women's archival collections and rare print materials more accessible to potential researchers by:

creating guides and bibliographies highlighting collection strengths
collaborating with Duke faculty to devise class projects that incorporate the use of primary source materials
offering a competitive research grant program to provide support for emerging scholars who need to use our unique collections for their projects
providing a remote reference service for researchers around the world
developing digital exhibitions of our manuscript and print materials

Outreach

The Bingham Center promotes its collections to a wide audience by:

Mounting exhibits that feature materials from the Center
Publishing a newsletter twice a year
Offering presentations to school, community, and professional groups
Offering public programming such as academic symposia, dramatic readings; and film festivals. Please see our News and Events page

Internships

The Bingham Center has been a training ground for numerous students who want to gain experience working with rare materials that focus on women and gender. Internships are created on a case by case basis as we try to devise meaningful projects that capitalize on and complement students' academic interests while providing them with valuable work experience.

Support

The Bingham Center depends upon the generosity of private benefactors. Most of its holdings have been received as gifts or acquired with support from donors. Its staff welcomes inquiries from individuals or organizations interested in contributing to the Center’s holdings or supporting its programs in other ways. For more information, please see the Rubenstein Library's Guide to Donating Materials.

To make a financial contribution to support our unique collections, programming, and providing access to materials, you can donate online. We appreciate your support!