Atria Institute on gender equality and women's history

Atria, view of the public library on the ground floor, Vijzelstraat 20, Amsterdam

Atria, institute on gender equality and women's history is a public library and research institute in Amsterdam dedicated to research and policy advice on gender equality and to the documentation and archival of women's history. Its previous names were International Information Centre and Archive for the Women's Movement (IIAV) (1988-2009) and Aletta, Institute for Women's History (2009-2013).

History

Rosa Manus by "J.H. Sp." (Koos Speenhoff). Rosa Manus (1881-1942) was a coworker of Aletta Jacobs and a feminist and pacifist activist.

Foundation

In 1988, the International Archives for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IAV)), the Documentation Centre for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Informatie en Documentatie Centrum (IDC)), and the journal Lover merged to form the International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Internationaal Informatiecentrum en Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging (IIAV), with the goals of making information available for study and cooperation across the broad spectrum of women’s activities, covering both historic and contemporary aspects of their lives. In ongoing efforts to collect materials, they set a goal to acquire at least one periodical from each country throughout the world.

Background

IAV had been formed in 1935 by prominent feminists from three different eras of the Netherand's women's movement: Rosa Manus, Johanna Naber and Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot. The three women wanted their collected materials about the First wave of feminism, which included the personal papers of Aletta Jacobs, to be available for research and study. To that end, they negotiated with the International Institute of Social History (IISG) to allow them two rooms in the IISG building located at Keizersgracht 264 to establish a library. During World War II their archival materials were stolen by Nazi plundering and the library remained closed until 1947. Posthumus-van der Goot was the only founder who survived the war. She became president of the IAV and headed the effort to reclaim their stolen property. In 1947, a small number of boxes of materials were returned and then in 1966, Ivo Krikava, a librarian in Hradec Králové, Czechoslovakia found and returned four books with the IAV stamp in them. This collection, with later acquisitions, was accommodated in the 1950s within a building at Herengracht nr. 262-266. When the IAV obtained a substantial government grant during the International Women's Year 1975, the collection had grown beyond the capacity of the building.

IDC was founded in 1968 and focused on collecting contemporary information on the Second feminist wave. In 1973, the Man Vrouw Maatschappij founded and began publishing the feminist cultural magazine Lover. These two organizations were sharing space with the Foundation of Women in the Visual Arts (Dutch: Stichting Vrouwen in de Beeldende Kunst (SVBK)) at Keizersgracht 10, when IAV moved into the space with them. After cohabitating for seven years, the three organizations merged in 1988.

Archive retrieved

In 1992 a specialised and automated Women's thesaurus for library documentation was published. At the end of 1993 the IIAV moved again, now to the former church building of Gerardus Majellakerk in Byzantine Revival style, Obiplein in Amsterdam-Oost. Since 4 October 2011, the institute resides at Vijzelstraat 20, Amsterdam. In 1992, the Moscow correspondent Marc Jansen, for the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, accidentally discovered part of the original IAV archive in Russia, a Special Archive, untouched since 1945-1946. After protracted diplomatic negotiations, the papers were returned to Amsterdam in May 2003. However, the complete archive has not yet been restored.

External links

• Atria website

• 
  Jean de Marconville: Der vrouwen lof ende lasteringe, 1578, an early Dutch translation of De la bonté et mauvaistié des femmes, 1563. The oldest book in the Atria library collection.
• 
  Johanna Naber (1859-1941) around 1898, Dutch feminist and cofounder
• 
  Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot (1897–1989), Dutch feminist and cofounder
• 
  Quote of Belle van Zuylen on a wall at the office of Atria. "I lack talent for subservience", translation of Je n'ai pas les talents subalternes (letter to James Boswell).
• 
  Atria library
• 
  Atria library. Lockers with a portrait of Aletta Jacobs

References

Bibliography

• Best, Jan; de Vries, Nanny, eds. (1994). "Announcements". Thamyris. 1 (2). Amsterdam, The Netherands: Najade Press: 213–214. ISSN 1381-1312. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• de Haan, Francisca (2004). "Getting to the Source: A "Truly International" Archive for the Women's Movement(IAV, now IIAV): From its Foundation in Amsterdam in 1935 to the Return of its Looted Archives in 2003" (PDF). Journal of Women's History. 16 (4). Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press: 148–172. ISSN 1042-7961. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 April 2017. Retrieved 28 April 2017. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mevis, Annette (2012). "The Aletta Institute in Amsterdam and Its International Collections". Women and Social Movements International. Alexandria, Virginia: Alexander Street Press, LLC. Archived from the original on 5 June 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2017. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)