The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at Harvard Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director, it is "the largest and most significant repository of documents covering women's lives and activities in the United States".
In 1905, Andrew Carnegie gave Radcliffe College $73,900 to build a library. [1] Henry Forbes Bigelow, a Boston architect, was hired to design the library which was built in 1906. [1]
On August 26, 1943, the Radcliffe College alumna Maud Wood Park '98, a former suffragist, donated her collection of books, papers, and memorabilia on female reformers to Radcliffe. [2] This grew into a research library called the Women's Archives, [2] It was renamed in 1965 in honor of Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger (1886-1977) and her husband Arthur M. Schlesinger (1888-1965), as they were strong supporters of the library's mission. [2] [1]
Arthur was a noted historian and author who had taught at Harvard University for thiry years (1924-1954). Elizabeth was a noted feminist who active in civic affairs and served on the library's advisory board.
The Schlesinger Library exists to document women's lives and endeavors. Its wealth of resources reveals the wide range of women's activities at home in the United States and abroad from the early 19th century to the present day.
The library's holdings include manuscripts; books and periodicals; and photographic and audiovisual material.
While its focus for collecting is American women, the library has an abundance of print and manuscript materials bearing on issues around the globe as a result of American women's extensive travel and foreign residence. Some examples are letters of early missionaries in China, activists' accounts of the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice, and the world-spanning speeches and writings of Shirley Graham Du Bois.
Detailed records for the library's manuscript collections as well as books and periodicals can be found in HOLLIS. The catalog record gives a description of the item or collection and provides other important information such as offsite location or access restrictions. Researchers can learn more about the manuscript collections by consulting the Schlesinger Library's Research Guides. [3] Research Librarians can be reached through Ask a Schlesinger Librarian. [4]
There are more than 2,500 unique manuscript collections from individuals, families, and organizations. Women's rights movements past and present, feminism, health and sexuality, social reform, and the education of women and girls are core manuscript holdings. Ordinary lives of women and families and the struggles and triumphs of women of accomplishment are richly documented in diaries and other personal records. Many collections, such as the papers of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Pauli Murray, and the records of the National Organization for Women, feature political, organizational, and economic questions. In 1972 the National Organization for Women chose the Schlesinger Library as the archives for its records; the collection has grown to be one of its largest (300 linear feet of manuscripts and growing as of 2013) and one of its most heavily used by researchers. [5]
More than 80,000 printed volumes include scholarly monographs as well as popular works. These cover topics including women's rights; women and work; women's health; women of color; comparative material about women in other cultures; works on women in the arts and in music; women and family; feminist and anti-feminist theory; and lesbian writings. Hundreds of periodical titles, including popular magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal , Ebony , Seventeen , highlight domestic concerns, leisure pursuits, etiquette, fashion, and food.
The library has two distinguished special collections. A culinary collection of over 15,000 books — spanning five centuries and global cuisines — is one of the world's most significant. This collection also includes the papers of several famous chefs and foodwriters such as M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, and Elizabeth David. The archives of Radcliffe College, 1879–1999 — including papers of college officers, students, and alumnae — richly record the history of women in higher education.
More than 90,000 photographs, ranging from casual snapshots to the works of professional photographers, create an unparalleled visual record of private and public life. Audiotapes, videotapes and oral history tapes, and transcripts add the soundtrack to the story of women's lives.
The Schlesinger Library is home to the Black Women Oral History Project, recorded between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. [6]
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard College. The college was named for the early Harvard benefactor Anne Mowlson and was one of the Seven Sisters colleges.
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, is an institute of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, and professions. It came into being in 1999 as the successor institution to the former Radcliffe College, originally a women's college connected with Harvard.
Harvard Library is the network of libraries and services at Harvard University, a private Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Library is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection holds over 20 million volumes, 400 million manuscripts, 10 million photographs, and one million maps.
Charlotte Anne Bunch is an American feminist author and organizer in women's rights and human rights movements. Bunch is currently the founding director and senior scholar at the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She is also a distinguished professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers.
Philinda Parsons Rand Anglemyer (1876–1972) was an American English-language teacher in the Philippines. She was among the pioneering five hundred Thomasites who landed on the shores of the Philippines in August 1901 on board the United States Army Transport Thomas.
Mary Ingraham Bunting was a bacterial geneticist and an influential American college president; Time profiled her as the magazine's November 3, 1961, cover story. She became Radcliffe College's fifth president in 1960 and was responsible for fully integrating women into Harvard University.
Eleanor Flexner was an American independent scholar and pioneer in what was to become the field of women's studies. Her book Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, originally published in 1959, relates women's work for the vote to other 19th- and early 20th-century social, labor, and reform movements, most importantly the push for equal education, the abolition of slavery, and temperance laws.
The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history.
Ruth Edmonds Hill was an American scholar, oral historian, oral storytelling editor, journal editor, educator, historic preservation advocate. Her oral history office is part of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is an iconic figure among oral storytellers, particularly in the United States but also abroad, and has advised storytellers' organizations. Her spouse is Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill who is also known as Brother Blue. Ruth Edmonds Hill is sometimes known as Sister Ruth. Ruth Edmonds Hill is the daughter of Florence Edmonds of western Massachusetts, whose life story is chronicled and has been critically analyzed as part of African-American oral history. Hill has degrees from Simmons College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Catherine Shipe East was a U.S. government researcher and feminist referred to as "the midwife to the women's movement". She was a powerful force behind the founding of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and held several influential federal government positions throughout her career.
Ida Mary Inman (1894–1985), known as Mary Inman, was an American political activist and writer. Inman is best known for her 1940 book, In Woman's Defense, which was a pioneering effort to legitimize the domestic labor associated with homemaking as worthy and respectable field of human endeavor.
Bettye Lane was an American photojournalist known for documenting major events within the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, and the gay rights movement in the United States. She joined CBS television in 1960, and from 1962 to 1964 she was with the Saturday Evening Post. Her work has been published in the National Observer, Time, Life, and the Associated Press.
Maud Wood Park was an American suffragist and women's rights activist.
The Black Women Oral History Project consists of interviews with 72 African American women from 1976 to 1981, conducted under the auspices of the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College, now Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Susan Ware is an American independent scholar, writer and editor who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Hopkinton, New Hampshire. The author of eight biographies, two edited collections, and co-editor of a textbook, Ware is a specialist on 20th-century women's political and cultural history, and the history of popular feminism.
Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger was an American suffragist, civic leader, feminist, and pioneer in the field of women's history.
Rosalyn Baxandall was an American historian of women's activism and feminist activist.
Elizabeth M. Cushier was an American professor of medicine, and one of New York's most prominent obstetricians for 25 years before her retirement in 1900.
Pauline Dorothea Goldmark was American social reformer, focused on equal pay and the health aspects of women's work.
Susan Schechter was an American feminist and activist against domestic violence. She wrote three books on the subject and helped found one of the first women's shelters.
42°22′32.7″N71°7′23.2″W / 42.375750°N 71.123111°W
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