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
Foundation
In 1988, the International Archives for the Women's Movement (), the Documentation Centre for the Women's Movement (), and the journal Lover merged to form the International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's Movement (, 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.
At the end of 1993 the IIAV moved to the former Catholic church of Gerardus Majellakerk, built in 1924 in Byzantine Revival style, Obiplein in Amsterdam-Oost. On 11 August 2009, the organization was renamed the Aletta Institute for Women's History, in honor of Aletta Jacobs and two years later, moved back into Amsterdam, housing at Vijzelstraat 20. Aletta Institute merged with the E-Quality Information Centre for Gender, Family and Diversity Issues on 28 January 2013 to form the Atria Institute on Gender Equality and Women's History. Atria, the brightest star of the Southern Triangle, is always moving and has variable magnitude. The star's characteristics represent why it was chosen as a symbol of the organization, which focuses on "both the inequality and the variability of the relationship between men and women in society".
Background
IAV had been formed in 1935 by prominent feminists from three different eras of the Netherlands' 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, as the repository for documents of the Netherlands Women Council, 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 () at Keizersgracht 10, when IAV moved into the space with them. After cohabitating for seven years, the three organizations merged in 1988.