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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) (-2009) and Aletta, Institute for Women's History (2009-2013).
Contents
Foundation
On 3 December 1935 the International Archive for the Women's Movement (Dutch: Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging, IAV) was founded by prominent Dutch feminists from the First-feminist wave: Rosa Manus, Johanna Naber and Willemijn Posthumus-van der Goot. The archive included a library and was intended to document the women's history and to facilitate academic research. The founders donated the archives of their activities, including the personal archive of Aletta Jacobs. The IAV was located at the Keizersgracht 264, in the former building of the International Institute of Social History (IISG).
Second World War and restart
After the invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi-Germany the Sicherheitsdienst plundered the IAV in June 1940 and transported the documents on 12 July 1940 to the Frauenamt in Berlin. In 1944 it was moved to Sudetenland for security reasons. After the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, the archive was moved to Moscow where Stalin deposited it as "spoils of war" in a Special Archive. In 1947 a small fraction of the original archive, that had been captured by US troops, was returned to Amsterdam. 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.
Merger and rehousing
In 1981 the IAV moved to a larger space at Keizersgracht nr. 10 and merged with the Dutch Information and documentation centre for the women's movement (Informatie- en Documentatiecentrum voor de Vrouwenbeweging), that focused on collecting contemporary information on the Second feminist wave and published the feminist cultural magazine Lover of the movement Man Vrouw Maatschappij. 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.
Archive retrieved
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.