A. Collections and Libraries

The Schlesinger Library is in the vanguard of collecting on the history of women in America. Its holdings of books, manuscripts, periodicals, photographs, ephemera, oral histories, and audiovisual materials document the social, cultural, and political history of women in the United States, with an emphasis on women’s rights movements, social reform, women’s health issues, and family lives. The library is open to the public, but materials do not circulate.

The library houses nearly 4,000 manuscript collections, including the personal papers of notable women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lydia Maria Child, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy West, Julia Child, Betty Friedan, Judy Chicago, and Pauli Murray. Family papers, as well as the papers of lesser-known women, are also abundant and equally important for a full understanding of women’s place in history. The library houses the records of women’s organizations and of groups and agencies concerned with women’s issues, among them the Boston and Cambridge YWCAs, the National Organization for Women, the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, National Abortion Rights Action League, and several Boston-area settlement houses.

The approximately 130,000-volume book collection covers all aspects of the social and intellectual history of women and includes scholarly works, bibliographies, fiction, and more than 20,000 volumes on cookery and household management. The library subscribes to over 225 periodicals on a wide range of women’s issues and interests. Approximately 100,000 photographs, hundreds of oral history transcripts, videotapes, and other materials are also available to scholars.

All of the library’s manuscript collections, as well as most books and periodicals, are cataloged on HOLLIS, Harvard University’s OnLine Library Information System. Finding aids for all of the library’s manuscript collections are available on OASIS, Harvard’s Online Archival Search Information System, and nearly half of the library’s photographs are available through VIA, the university’s Visual Information Access database. The library has an active digitization program that numbers more than half a million images from the collection and hundreds of digitized books. All digital images are linked to finding aids and some may be viewed through an on-line digital delivery platform http://schlesinger.radcliffe.harvard.edu/onlinecollections.

B. Programs

The Library hosts a series of lectures, symposia, and workshops on a broad range of topics concerning gender and women’s history . During the academic year, the library sponsors a monthly film series featuring films and documentaries by and about women.

C. Publications

Library publications include the Schlesinger Library Newsletter. Other library-related publications include The Black Women Oral History Project: From the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe College (Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1991); Eva Steiner Moseley, ed., Women, Information, and the Future: Collecting and Sharing Resources Worldwide (Fort Atkinson, Wis.: Highsmith Press, 1995); Susan von Salis, compiler, Revealing Documents: A Guide to African American Manuscript Sources in the Schlesinger Library and the Radcliffe College Archives (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1993); and Susan Ware, ed., New Viewpoints in Women’s History: Working Papers from the Schlesinger Library 50th Anniversary Conference, March 4–5, 1994 (Cambridge, Mass.: Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe College, 1994).

D. Fellowships and Awards

The Schlesinger Library offers short-term research grants for those using the library’s holdings. The Carol K. Pforzheimer Student Fellowships are open to Harvard undergraduates. Dissertation grants for doctoral research, the Alice Stone Blackwell grant for work on women’s rights in the United States and abroad, and Research Support grants for postdoctoral and independent research are open to graduate students or faculty from any college or university and to independent scholars. Additionally, the library participates in the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium. For further information about Schlesinger Library grants, please consult the library’s web page.