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The Gerritsen collection is the largest source in the world for the study of women’s history. It contains 133 magazines and more than 4,000 books in a variety of languages, dating from the 16th century through 1945. The International Information Centre and Archives for the Women’s Movement (IIAV), located in Amsterdam, has purchased this collection together with the University of Groningen (RUG).

With the acquisition of this collection, which is officially known as The Gerritsen Collection: Women’s History Online, a wealth of material on the history of women’s emancipation becomes available online. The books, pamphlets and magazines about women and the women’s movement that comprise the collection are digitized and provide full text accessibility.

Gerritsen: the husband of Aletta Jacobs
Carel Victor Gerritsen (1850-1905), a prominent freethinker at the end of the 19th century, who also served as an alderman in Amsterdam and later a member of the Dutch House of Representatives, originally assembled and owned this collection. He was the husband of Aletta Jacobs, who is well known for being the first Dutch woman to complete a university education. From a young age, Gerritsen was extremely interested in the women’s movement, and this motivated him, long before he knew Jacobs, to collect everything that he could find about women, including both feminist and anti-feminist literature. Aletta Jacobs, who had a broad national and international network of contacts, also made contributions to the collection around 1900.

A journey through the United States
The collection was sold in 1903 to a public library in the United States, and in 1954 it was sold to a university library in Kansas. Over the years, the collection grew and developed there.

Unique online material
Until now, the collection was only available in the Netherlands on microfilm at the National library of the Netherlands in The Hague. With the purchase of the collection by the IIAV and RUG, the material now becomes available online. It offers a wonderful resource for scientists, researchers and students.

Access to the collection
The Gerritsen collection is accessible from the computers in the IIAV’s library in Amsterdam. For anyone interested in accessing the collection from home, it is possible to apply for an IIAV library membership. This can be done by sending an e-mail to info@iiav.nl. International researchers can also take advantage of this opportunity.

The collection is also available to students and staff of the University of Groningen and for visitors to the University of Groningen’s library.

IIAV acquires the online Gerritsen collection