Women's History

Fourth National Women’s Music Festival program cover, 1977

Getting In Tune: Women's Summer Music Festivals

June 18, 2013

Summer can evoke images of friends, music, freedom, and the outdoors. Although people don’t generally associate libraries with music and the outdoors, some collections of personal papers currently held by the Schlesinger Library contain materials from open-air events, such as women’s music festivals. Many of these music festivals began in the 1970s, and women who attended them often experienced them as a form of fellowship. The events provided a supportive community for those who may have felt isolated in the larger society.

Marietta Tree, ca.1945. Photo courtesy of Schlesinger Library

Marietta Tree: More Than Just a Pretty Face

April 18, 2013

Manuscript Collections

Politics and Government

Women's History

A celebrity in her own right among politicians and public figures of the mid-20th century, Mary (Marietta) Endicott Tree’s (1917–1991) life was defined by glamour, public service, and political pursuits. Her life was also characterized by the limitations and opportunities of being a woman in elite and powerful circles.

In Honor of Women's History Month: The Things We Carried

March 14, 2013

Feminism

Suffrage

Women's History

Manuscript Collections

In the course of the past 150 years, women’s efforts in behalf of social justice (including suffrage, equal rights, fair labor laws, peace, and civil rights for African Americans and gays and lesbians) have been well documented in diaries, speeches, correspondence, and meeting minutes—some passionate and intimate, others written for a public audience. But what happens to those ephemeral pieces left behind in dresser drawers or rolled up at the back of a closet, forgotten once the march was over or the election won?

Louise Walker, aboard a ship about to sail for Europe, 1935

They Call It Love

February 4, 2013

Women's History

Manuscript Collections

Love letters

Hundreds of love letters and diary entries about love, heartbreak, marriage, divorce, and family relationships spanning four generations are among the materials in the Louise Walker McCannel Papers, which the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute received between 2008 and 2012.

Experimenting in the Archives

October 12, 2012

Digital Collections

Women's History

Book Postings

October 12—the Day of Digital Archives—and every day at the Schlesinger Library is dedicated to finding new ways to use technology in manuscript processing. The library began an Experimental Archives project in 2011 with a team of archivists working collaboratively to brainstorm and then test new approaches.