Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University

Schlesinger Library Newsletter Fall 2012

Photo by Bettye Lane. Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard UniversityPhoto by Bettye Lane. Courtesy of Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Featured Newsletter Article

Bettye Lane, Photographer of the Women’s Movement

Photojournalist Bettye Lane recorded women's efforts, triumphs, and defeats for more than 30 years.

Insight into the Lives of Southern Working Women

Elizabeth Higginbotham has donated to the Schlesinger Library materials from her study, "Social Mobility, Race, and Women's Mental Health," focused on 200 professional and managerial women, black and white, living and working around Memphis.

Republican Feminists

A number of collections at the Schlesinger remind us that Second Wave feminism was not a partisan movement: feminists came in many different stripes. It is hard today to remember that the Republican Party once supported women's issues and that in 1970 a Republican introduced the Senate's first bill to legalize abortion.

Fall 2012

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Photo courtesy of Catherine AllgorPhoto courtesy of Catherine Allgor

In the Company of Women

Former Radcliffe fellow Catherine Allgor worked on a political biography of Dolley Madison, the wife of James Madison, who created the role of what would be known as First Lady. The book would be the first full-length scholarly treatment of her life.

Dorothy West, photo by Judith Sedwick from the Papers of Dorothy West, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard UniversityDorothy West, photo by Judith Sedwick from the Papers of Dorothy West, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Now Digitized: Papers of Dorothy West

In great demand by researchers, the Dorothy West Collection features drafts and documentation of West's travels and her extensive correspondence, including letters from Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Fannie Hurst, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Weldon Johnson.

The Fragment Society, Nantucket, a painting by Janet L. Munro, who was inspired to paint this image of charitable women by her own family’s history in Massachusetts. The original painting hangs in her gallery in Osterville, on Cape CodThe Fragment Society, Nantucket, a painting by Janet L. Munro, who was inspired to paint this image of charitable women by her own family’s history in Massachusetts. The original painting hangs in her gallery in Osterville, on Cape Cod

The Fragment Society Turns 200

The Fragment Society of Boston—its original purpose "to assist in clothing the destitute, more especially destitute children"—celebrated its 200th anniversary this fall. Since 1981 the library has been honored to house the society's records, which are open for research.