Students from my COMM 5950 class on strategic feminist communication and I had the opportunity to check out some of the women-and-gender-oriented archival holdings at the University of Utah’s Special Collections Library earlier this semester. We loved parceling through a sample of the library’s amazing collection of third and fourth wave zines, several of which are featured below.
Marriott Library Zine Collection (ACCN 2949), Unveiling Intersectionality (Box 23, Fd. 28).Marriott Library Zine Collection (ACCN 2949), Fallopian Falafel #1 (Box 1, Fd. 25).We also saw some older first-wave artifacts as well, such as this history of the women’s “militant” suffrage movement, entitled The Suffragette, written by British suffrage advocate E. Sylvia Pankhurst in 1911. It was really exciting to see that the library owns a rare copy of Sojourner Truth’s Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Boston, 1875). To ensure that we saw second-wave material as well, we gained access to some of the Sonia Johnson papers, including this letter summoning her to be reviewed by leaders in her church for her Equal Rights Amendment advocacy. Special thanks to Allie McCormack for not only hosting us in-person in one of the beautiful Special Collection classrooms (check out those stately busts to each side of her!) but for also running a corresponding Zoom class for those who needed to participate remotely. She is a champion of the archives in every possible way.
