Who were the women who campaigned for women's policies and politics during the Habsburg Monarchy and the interwar period in Austria? In which women's associations and organisations did they engage for women's rights and interests? When and where did activists and women's organisations emerge? What relationships existed between activists? What networks were formed? Which periodicals and papers were published by women’s associations? What was published with regard to the question of women's rights? How was the history of the women's movement‘s already reflected in the early 20th century? These and similar questions are answered in ‘Women in Motion 1848-1938’.

In this online documentation and digital collection, the history of the women's movements in the Habsburg Monarchy and the interwar period in Austria from 1848 to 1938 is presented in the form of texts, images, digitised documents, references to sources and secondary literature. The web portal of Ariadne, the women's and gender documentation centre of the Austrian National Library, has been online since 2009. The aim was to make these historical documents and sources visible and online accessible. A comprehensive inventory was developed not only for the holdings of the Austrian National Library, but also for those of other relevant libraries, archives and collections in Austria, in order to make lesser-known women and their networks visible. Sources from other regions of the Habsburg Monarchy were included in part, and in any case if they were available in the Austrian National Library's holdings.

The online documentation follows categories of women's movement historiography: people, women's associations/organisations and documents. Key biographical data on individuals is presented. The relevant associational contexts in which they were active are described. A short biography and references to publications, secondary literature, archive materials and image documents were collected from and about the person in question. Data and information on women's organisations have been organised in a similar way. Links lead to digital copies of historical documents from the holdings of the Austrian National Library, as far as copy rights permit. Extensions and updates as well as the expansion of the full-text documents will continue. The time frame was defined from the revolutionary year 1848 till the end of the first World War and the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918 as well as the end of interwar period in Austria 1938. Geographically, the Habsburg Monarchy – with main focus on the German-speaking area - formed the area from which documents, associations and persons were recorded.

The database contains more entries than are publicly accessible on the website: currently almost 700 people and 400 associations. Of course, data that is not publicly available in the web version can also be queried by sending a request to Ariadne. Substantial to the web presentation is the crosslinking among persons, between persons and associations and between persons/associations and women's magazines. A network visualization displays connections between actors and associations in dynamic graphics.

"Women in Motion" is a central web portal that offers users comprehensive references to data, documents and sources on the women's movements between 1848 and 1938 in Austria and the Habsburg Monarchy.