The history of Aletta
The goal was to build an archive and library to collect and preserve the heritage of women and also to encourage and publicize scholarly research. The collection began with a gift from Rosa Manus: the archive, including books and letters, of Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929), the first female physician in the Netherlands and a famous participant in the campaign for women’s suffrage.
founders IIAV
1935 - The founding
The International Archive for the Women's Movement (IAV) was founded on December 3, 1935 by the feminists Rosa Manus (1881-1943), Johanna Naber (1859-1941) and Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot (1897-1989). |  |
The three feminists had a number of reasons for founding the IAV. They believed that the cultural heritage of women and information about the women's movement needed to be preserved. Many women who had been active in the women's movement around 1900 were either elderly or had died. Younger feminists, who were for the most part academically trained, needed well-documented information from the past in order to resist the frequent attacks on women's right to paid employment that since the 1920s had been mounted by the government.
 |  |
The IIAV around the time of the Second World War
In July 1940, the two rooms housing the IAV – at the time located in the building of the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam – were plundered by the Germans. After the war, only about 10 percent of the collection was recovered. In 1947, the archive was reopened, with virtually empty shelves. In 1992, part of the IAV archives which were believed to be lost were discovered in Moscow. After 10 years of negotiations, the IIAV finally recovered the stolen archives. Click here for the exciting history of this old IAV archives..The 1970s - The second wave of the feminist movement
During the 1970s, the IAV - then located on the Herengracht - grew substantially as a result of the second wave of the feminist movement. In 1975, during International Women's Year, the organization received a significant grant from the government and was able to hire more paid staff. |  |
 |  |
1981
In 1981, the IAV moved into a building at Keizersgracht 10 together with other organizations including the Informatie- en Documentatiecentrum voor de Vouwenbeweging (IDC) [Information and Documentation Centre for the Women's Movement], which collected contemporary materials, and LOVER, magazine of feminism, culture and science www.tijdschriftlover.nl. The IDC had been established in 1969 by the Nederlandse Vrouwen Comité [Dutch Women's Committee] (which in 1975 became the Nederlandse Vrouwen Raad [Dutch Women's Council]) to collect principally contemporary materials. The magazine LOVER had been founded in 1973 by the activist group Man Vrouw Maatschappij [Man Woman Society]. The IDC, LOVER and the IAV joined together in 1988 to become the International Information Center and Archives for the Women's Movement (IIAV). |  |
The 1990's - computerization
The end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s was a time of further professionalization, integration, and computerization for the organization and its collections. In 1992, the computerization of the catalogues was completed. The ability to search and retrieve material by subject was modernized. In 1992, the Women's Thesaurus, a list of terms for cataloguing information about women and women's studies, was completed.
1993 - IIAV moved again
End of 1993, early 1994 IIAV moved to the Gerardus Majella churchbuilding on the het Obiplein in the Indische buurt.(Special neighberhood in Amsterdam, where a lot of former immagrants famillies live.) This restored church offers a beautful roof for the unic collections of the IIAV.
1996 - IIAV - website online
At the end of September 1996, the IIAV's website went online: www.iiav.nl. Since then, the amount of information available online via the website has increased enormously. In recent years, digitalization of the cultural heritage of the women's movement and providing services online has been a central element of the IIAV's strategy. |  |
In company of the minister of Sociale Security and Work, Ad Melkert and Ina Brouwer, director of the Directie Coordinatie Emancipatiebeleid, is the launch of the website.
1995: Greater awareness of black, migrant and refugee women
Midway
through the 1990s, the IIAV formally decided to give priority attention
to making information about black, migrant and refugee women available.
This decision was driven by the goal of ensuring that the IIAV’s
collections would reflect the diversity of the women’s movement.1998: Expanding international contacts
The Know How
Conference of Women’s Information Services took place at the IIAV in
August 1998. Three hundred information specialists from 83 different
countries took part and shared their knowledge and expertise about how
to make information about women more accessible. This conference was
the first of many important international projects.Read on