NEWS FROM THE ARCHIVES

With this issue, we are publishing a new section that will become a regular feature of the Women and Social Movements website. Edited by Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Associate Professor and Head of the Special Collections Department and University Archives at Iowa State University, this section will provide readers news concerning the U.S. Women's History from archives and repositories with collections and projects of interest. If you are affiliated with an archive or repository and would like to submit an announcement that you feel would be of interest to our readers, please contact Tanya Zanish-Belcher at tzanish iastate.edu .

Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (Abilene, Kansas)
Submitted by: Valoise Armstrong

Bertha Sheppard Adkins papers. Adkins was an educator, political activist, Under Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and, in her later years, an advocate for the elderly. For a PDF version of the full finding aid, please see:
http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/listofholdingshtml/listofholdingsA/ADKINS_BERTHA_S_Papers_1907_1989.pdf

Margery Somers Foster Center, Rutgers University (Rutgers, New Jersey)
Submitted by: Ferris Olin and Jesse Traquair

The Foster Center is responsible for a number of projects related to women s history, such as the New Jersey Women s History Website( http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/njwomenshistory/ ) and the Women in Leadership Database ( http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/wild/ ). For more information, please visit our website at http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/foster/foster.shtml .

Texas A & M Cushing Library (College Station, Texas)
Submitted by: Dr. Charles Schultz

The collection of Mrs. Rita Crocker Clements, wife of Governor William P. Clements, Jr. and prominent long time active member of the Republican Party at the localDallas area, Texas, and national levels was recently processed. The papers document her long and active role in the activities of the party from her entry intopolitics when she rang doorbells for Dwight Eisenhower's campaign forthe presidency through the end of Governor Clements's second term in1992. Although she first became politically active in the early 1950s anddiscontinued political activity in 1992, her collection containsmaterials as early as 1932 and continue to 2001. Mrs. Clements was alsoactive in women's social and cultural organizations and in educationissues all of which are also documented in her papers. She was alsovery active in historic preservation.

The finding aid can be viewed at the Texas A&M University Libraries website at http://library.tamu.edu . There select collections from the menunear the top of the page and then click on Special Collections andArchives and select Modern Politics. Finally click on Rita CrockerClements Papers and choose any one of the several series.

Texas State Library and Archives Commission (Austin, Texas)
Submitted by: Liz Clare

The Texas State Library and Archives Commission is proud to announce the launching of "Votes for Women!," a digital exhibition using historical photographs and research collections contained in the state archives. The exhibit, located at http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/suffrage , paints a colorful picture of the subjects and events that led to women winning the vote in Texas, from the first stirrings of a women's rights movement in the 1830s to the final winning of the vote in 1919.

"Votes for Women!" uses primary-source materials held by the Texas state archives to tell the stories of Minnie Fisher Cunningham and the many other women activists who fought to overcome societal attitudes and entrenched power that denied them the rights to full citizenship.

Says Clare, "Most of us take women's right to vote for granted today, but there were many people who opposed it at the time. This exhibit tells the story of the anti-suffrage movement too, because without understanding who was opposed to suffrage and why, you can't really understand what the final victory meant." Nor does the exhibit neglect the stories of African American and Tejano women, whose quest for civil rights continued for decades after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment that made women's suffrage the law of the land.The exhibit was designed to be entertaining and easy to read, and includes images from diaries and letters of Texas women, political cartoons, government documents, and photographs and postcards.

University of Louisville (Louisville, Kentucky)
Submitted by: Katherine B. Johnson

The University of Louisville Archives and Records Center is happy to announce the recent completion of the arrangement and description of two collections that document women and social change in Kentucky: the Pro-Choice Coalition of Kentucky Records, 1989-2000 (1.75 linear feet) and the National Organization for Women (NOW), Jefferson County Chapter Organizational records, circa 1989-2001 (5.875 linear feet). The finding aids are available through their catalog records ( http://minerva.louisville.edu ) or via the University of Louisville Archives and Records Center website ( http://library.louisville.edu/uarc/findkyvl.htm /)

The Pro-Choice Coalition of Kentucky was an umbrella group which rallied to protect the reproductive rights of Kentucky women with help from groups such as the American Association of University Women, the American Civil Liberties Union, Business and Professional Women, and the League of Women Voters, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Organization for Women, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Planned Parenthood, and many others. After coming together in 1989 as a direct result of the U.S. Supreme Court s Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services decision, the 28-member organization had strong and active participation from its various state affiliate groups and actively lobbied state legislators on issues of reproductive rights. The Pro-Choice Coalition of Kentucky disbanded in 2005. This 1.75 linear foot collection consists mostly of financial records with a small amount of correspondence and published materials concerning the beliefs and bylaws of the organization.

The National Organization for Women (NOW), Jefferson County Chapter was organized in 1974 as an offshoot from local activist women s liberation groups and in response to the activity of the national NOW. Women s issues addressed by the NOW group included equal pay; promotion and treatment on the job; rape prevention, medical and police treatment of rape victims, including counseling thereafter; and abortion availability and counseling. This almost 6 linear foot collection contains organizational records (minutes, financial records, and correspondence) publications, reference files, newsletters, and memorabilia.

Women Artists Archives National Directory:

Call for Participation: All archival repositories holding primary source material about women visual artists active in the U.S. since 1945 are invited to be includedin WAAND - the Women Artists Archives National Directory - an innovativeWeb directory under development by Rutgers University Libraries and onthe Web at http://waand.rutgers.edu/ . Please sign up now to receive our online repository survey form, due to be released in September.

WAAND is designed as a research tool for scholars, artists, curators,students, and collecting institutions around the world, as well as researchers in cultural and intellectual history, American studies, material culture, and women's and gender studies. It will direct users to primary source materials of and about contemporary women visualartists active in the U.S.

Participating repositories will be asked to complete an online survey form about the institution and one or more collections that compriseprimary source materials on eligible artists. WAAND users will be able to access data through artist name, collection subject, or repository name. The directory will also be structured for fielded searching on such access points as art genre, artist's ethnicity, and geographic regions of the artist's activity. The development of WAAND has been funded by the Getty Foundation.

For further information or to partner with WAAND, please contact:
Nicole Plett, WAAND Project Manager (Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey)
E-mail: WAAND rci.rutgers.edu
Web: http://waand.rutgers.edu/

Women s Collections Roundtable (Society of American Archivists)

The roundtable is composed of archivists who have holdings concerning or created by women and also promotes the preservation and research use of records documenting women.

http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/womenscoll/index.asp

Women s Archives Mapping Project Directory
(Sponsored by Women and Leadership Archives, Loyola University)

Initiated in 2001, this directory is an ongoing effort to map archival repositories with collections relating to women. This directory is intended to provide both potential donors and researchers with information on repositories that collect women's history.

http://www.luc.edu/wla/wla_donordirectory.shtml

 

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