National Biographical Dictionary of Swedish Women: a renaissance of becoming visible

This article demonstrates some of the possibilities of the structured database, National Biographical Dictionary of Swedish Women (Svenskt Kvinnobiografiskt Lexikon, www.skbl.se, hereafter SKBL) for research in women's and gender history. SKBL is a digitally published biographical dictionary of articles with data on 2,000 Swedish women living from the Middle Ages to the present, published in both Swedish and English. The article examines how the Dictionary aims to make visible the contributions of women, often overlooked previously, with emphasis on their contributions to societal development. However, both interface and tagging entail classifications that are governed by principles decided in accordance with present-centred values and technological and cataloguing systems. These principles enable certain advanced searches in SKBL on historical social conditions, demonstrated here by a discussion of the group, 'pioneers'. Despite all the difficulties and obvious limitations of SKBL, this article argues that the project of making visible women's contributions in the past continues to remain necessary.