Remembering the Women: Manuscript Reference at the Schlesinger Library

Abstract

The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a noncirculating research library open to the public. A department of Radcliffe College, the library was founded as the Women’s Archives in 1943 with the donation of alumna Maud Wood Park’s extensive collection of manuscript and published materials on the campaign for woman suffrage in the United States. 1 The Woman’s Rights Collection, as Park’s gift was named, was soon augmented by documents from historian Mary Beard on her unsuccessful attempt to establish a World Center for Women’s Archives. Beard also directed to the Women’s Archives the papers of other women and organizations originally promised to the World Center. In 1949, the Women’s Archives was opened to the public. Over the next twenty years, the archives acquired collections of individual women, families, and organizations representing a wide variety of occupations, ideas, and issues.