This paper briefly describes the author's dissertation research covering the history of women as visual and audiovisual educators (1920-1957), outlining her historical methodology and tracing sources for such research. The methodology used was a discourse analysis of selected audiovisual textbooks and audiotapes of founders in the audiovisual field. Because there is no standard methodology for a discourse analysis of historical audiovisual texts, working concepts of texts, reader, author, subjectivity, sex, and gender were drawn from a number of sources: social reader theories, critical feminism, and discourse as informed by post-structural concepts. Early audiovisual texts and oral history tapes were analyzed to determine the rhetorical direction the authors/founders took in shaping the knowledge base constituting audiovisual education and gender equity issues within the field. A prominent source of information for the research was the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Archives, housed at the University of Maryland, College Park. Types of items found in the AECT Archives include: conference reports, audiovisual guides, software and hardware manuals, film catalogs, private correspondence to and from founders in the field, and reel-to-reel oral history tapes. (Contains 14 references.) (AEF)