Reference: Women’s Political Speeches and Ads Available Through Online Archive From Iowa St. University

From Iowa State University:

The [Women’s Political Communication Archives created by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women & Politics at Iowa State University contains] nearly 2,000 speeches and political ads for more than 300 women candidates that are easily accessible through the online archives. All include a transcript of the text and many also feature video.
“We have a bank of speeches and advertisements from women who have run previously, such as Carol Moseley Braun, Pat Schroeder, Sarah Palin and Elizabeth Dole,” Winfrey said. “We’ve worked to build these databases so we can look back and see how have women candidates for the presidency and vice presidency communicated in their campaigns and their advertisements.”
[Kelly] Winfrey, [a lecturer at the Catt Center] who studies differences between men and women political candidates, says the uniqueness of being a female candidate has changed with time and that’s reflected in their campaign messaging. There is a greater focus today on the issues as opposed to a candidate’s gender. The Catt Center’s archives provide a great source for comparison between candidates and a candidate’s past campaign.
“Now that Hillary Clinton has announced her candidacy, we can look back at her speeches and campaign ads to see what she did during the 2008 campaign and what went wrong in terms of messaging. We can compare that to what she’s doing now to see if there are aspects that are more successful for female candidates,” Winfrey said.
[Clip]
The collection also includes speeches by Carrie Chapman Catt from the extensive collection at the Iowa State University Library, as well as other women political leaders from the United States and throughout the world. Speeches are continually gathered from women political leaders as well as other archives.
The Archives of Women’s Political Communication is made possible through a generous gift from Richard and Mary Jo Stanley of Muscatine, to develop a significant research collection focusing on women’s political leadership in the United States and throughout the world.

You can access the archives at: http://www.womenspeecharchive.org/.

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News