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The Schlesinger Library is launching a four-year project to process a portion of the Radcliffe College archives in July, opening the door for researchers to learn more about the history of women’s higher education.
The collection documents 120 years of Radcliffe College’s history, from its founding in 1879 to its incorporation into Harvard College in 1999. Owned by Schlesinger Library, the archives include over thirty collections of administrative records and around 3,700 linear feet of material.
In preparation for Radcliffe College’s 150-year anniversary in 2029, a team of two full-time archivists and two part-time students will catalogue 600 linear feet of archival material, including administrative documents and records of student life at Radcliffe College.
The Institute aims to raise $1.5 million for the initiative, according to the Radcliffe Institute’s fundraising department. The project has already reached 88 percent of that goal, and the Institute is continuing to fundraise for the remaining $180,000.
Kelcy Shepherd, Schlesinger’s head of archival technical services, said that the 16 percent of the archives selected for the project is composed of “essential records, but may be very hard to use in their current state without enhanced description.”
By attaching keywords to the archival materials in Harvard’s online library catalog, Shepherd hopes to make the archives more accessible for students and researchers.
“The enhanced description will help more serendipitous discovery,” she said. “Particularly around things that you might not initially think, ‘Oh, the Radcliffe College archives would be a great place for that.’”
Cat Lea Holbrook, one of the project’s lead archivists, said that processing the archives is “important for discoverability and access.”
“Inventories are available through the catalog,” she said. “But in order to get it to that point, we have to look at the material, put it in a folder, give it a title, and write all that stuff down.”
Jenny Gotwals, a curator at Schlesinger Library, said Harvard classes, external researchers, and current students have already expressed interest in using the archives to explore historical questions about women’s education.
“What was it like for early Asian students at Radcliffe?” Gotwals said. “How did different Radcliffe presidents deal with sexual assault issues on campus? How was information provided to Radcliffe students about getting an abortion?”
“In terms of the history of education, there’s a lot of opportunity for research in the archives,” she said.
In addition to the project’s goal of supporting scholarly research, Gotwals said that the initiative was primarily driven by interest from Radcliffe alumni.
“In the last ten years, Radcliffe alumni have become really interested in their own history,” she said. “They were actively excluded from Harvard, and they still feel that pain.”
She added that funding the project allows alumni “to give towards something that’s really meaningful to them in terms of their college experience.”
Mathea Falco ’65, a Radcliffe alum and former member of Radcliffe’s Board of Trustees, said that she donated to the project to support further research into the women’s college.
“The whole history of women at Harvard really starts with Radcliffe,” she said. “It seemed to me a vital priority to capture our history by making it fully accessible to researchers and whoever wants to access these archives.”
Falco also hopes that processing the archives would ensure Radcliffe College remains “alive in people’s memories.”
“I have three little granddaughters who are five, three, and one,” Falco added. “I want them someday to be able to walk through these doors and learn about the world of Radcliffe, which made so much possible for so many women.”
—Staff writer Wyeth Renwick can be reached at wyeth.renwick@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @wzrenwick.
—Staff writer Nirja J. Trivedi can be reached at nirja.trivedi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @nirjatriv.
