Mary Lily Research Grants at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture

The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, announces the availability of Mary Lily Research Grants for research travel to our collections.

The Sallie Bingham Center documents the public and private lives of women through a wide variety of published and unpublished sources. Collections of personal papers, family papers, and organizational records complement print sources such as books and periodicals. Particular strengths of the Sallie Bingham Center are feminism in the U.S., women's prescriptive literature from the 19th & 20th centuries, girls' literature, zines, artist's books by women, gender & sexuality, and the history and culture of women in the South. An overview of our collecting areas can be found here: http://bit.ly/BinghamOverview.

Mary Lily Research grants are available to any faculty member, graduate or undergraduate student, or independent scholar with a research project requiring the use of materials held by the Sallie Bingham Center. Grant money may be used for travel, photocopying, and living expenses while pursuing research at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Applicants must live outside of a 100-mile radius from Durham, NC. The maximum award per applicant is $1,000.

The deadline for application is January 31, 2012 by 5:00 PM EST. Recipients will be announced in March 2012. Grants must be used between April 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013.

For more information and to download a copy of the application form, please visit: http://bit.ly/ResearchGrants.

Applicants are encouraged to contact Kelly Wooten, the Bingham Center’s research services librarian, before submitting their application. In our experience, those who spoke with a staff member about their projects produced stronger applications. Contact information is listed below:

Kelly Wooten

Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Box 90185

Duke University

Durham, NC 27708-0185

Phone: 919-660-5967

E-mail: kelly.wooten@duke.edu

Website: http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/bingham

Categories:

Women & the Civil War: Exhibit, Symposium, and CFP

Paper proposals are invited for a half-day symposium entitled “Women and the Civil War,” to be held April 27, 2012, at the University of Maryland, College Park. The symposium in being organized in connection with an exhibit at the university’s Hornbake Library, Women on the Border: Maryland Perspectives of the Civil War, which draws on materials in the University Libraries’ Special Collections. The exhibition focuses on the lives and experiences of ordinary women living in Maryland during the Civil War, using letters, diaries, photographs, sheet music, rare books, and other special collections materials as sources. A digital version of the physical gallery exhibition is being planned and will launch within the next few months. To learn more about the exhibit please visit: http://www.lib.umd.edu/mdrm/gallery/index.html

The symposium will provide a forum for discussing the multitude of roles women played in the war and the many ways in which the war affected them. The keynote speaker will be Thavolia Glymph, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Duke University. The symposium committee is especially interested in scholarship relating to Maryland women and the Civil War or to women’s experiences in the border states. Proposals relating to these topics will be given preference, but proposals relating to other aspects of the topic of women and the Civil War will also be considered. The committee welcomes proposals from graduate students as well as more experienced scholars. Papers should be no longer than twenty minutes when delivered. Paper proposals (500 words or less) and brief presenter bios should be e-mailed to Elizabeth Novara at enovara@umd.edu.

Submissions deadline is November 15, 2011, and the program committee expects to notify successful applicants by December 15, 2011.

Categories: call for papers, exhibits, repositories, symposia, Women

WCRT Minutes from SAA Annual Meeting 2011

Women’s Collections Round Table

Annual Meeting 2011

Chicago, IL

August 24, 2011

1. Co-Chairs for 2011-2012 were installed:

   1. Virginia Corvid, University of Wisconsin-Madison

   2. Kathy Hertel-Baker, Sisters of Charity of Nazareth

2. Co-Vice Chairs for 2011-2012 were elected:

   1. Alex Krensky, Duke University

   2. Elizabeth Novara, University of Maryland

3. Report from 2012 Program Committee

   1. Theme is ‘Beyond Borders’, focusing on collaboration

   2. Session proposals are due October 3^rd

   3. WCRT can endorse two proposals

4. Discussion of WCRT Blog and website

   1. Will look into having e-mail sent to members when the blog is updated

   2. List of potential session topics

   3. “State of Women’s Collections” – discuss on the blog, at the meeting, session proposal?

   4. How do we get repositories to submit news for the website?

   5. Do we need a newsletter or just the blog?

   6. Agreement that e-mail notifications are needed for blog/website updates and as reminders to submit stories

   7. Question was asked about members posting directly to blog – Leadership will discuss.

5. Discussion of 2012 meeting and potential Session topics

   1. Audio/visual equipment requests for the WCRT meeting need to be submitted by April 1, 2012

   2. Possible session topics:

      1. Institutional Cooperation

         1. between Educational institutions and the orders that founded them – what happens when the records of Women Religious end up in institutions outside the Order?

      2. How Women’s collections are displayed online 9and in other media)

         1. Can we use traditional tools or do we have to be innovative?

         2. Is there a clearing house for information on Women’s Collections?

      3. Gender and Race

         1. Focus not just on white women

         2. Pull women’s stories/collections out of ethnographic collections and take an ethnographic look at Women’s Collections

      4. WCRT should work together with other Round Tables and Sections that deal with under-represented communities and look at the pros and cons of ‘identity specific archives’.

6. New Business

   1. Discussion of SAA trading cards and observation that there are ‘a lot of dead white guys’ represented, and very few women are represented in the collection

Categories:

Chicago 2011: Working Women's History Project book lists

The Working Women's History Project preserves and promotes the stories of historical and living Chicago women who have made significant contributions toward achieving justice and equality in the areas of labor, women’s, human and civil rights.

Check out their webpage for all their activities such as collecting oral histories.

They've also got a great book list and children's book list.

I highly recommend the second book on the list: Exploring the Dangerous Trades: The Autobiography of Alice Hamilton, MD. One of my (Cassie's) favorite historical figures!

Categories: SAA 2011

Chicago 2011: Women's History Tour

If you want to explore while in Chicago, check out the Women's History Bus Tour, information provided by the Jane Addams Hull House Museum.

Can't make it to Chicago this year? Check out the Women's History Virtual Tour to see and learn from where ever you are.

Categories: SAA 2011

Chicago 2011: Women and Progressive Area Collections at UIC

Check out some of the great collections relating to Chicago women at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Collections highlight women's activism during the progressive era.

Categories: conferences, repositories, SAA 2011

Chicago 2011: 75 Years of International Women's Collecting: Legacies, Successes, Obstacles, and New Directions

Don't forget to check out the WCRT sponsored session!

75 Years of International Women's Collecting: Legacies, Successes, Obstacles, and New Directions
Saturday, August 27, 2011, 8:00am-9:00am
Room: Columbus C/D

A retrospective analysis of three international women's collecting projects across 75 years illuminates the projects' successes and obstacles, which speak to the historical, national, professional, and interpersonal contexts of their founding. Panelists also chart out the projects' legacies and their transmutations into the digital realm. Under examination are the World Center for Women's Archives in New York, Aletta Institute for Women's History in Amsterdam, and International Museum of Women in San Francisco.

Danelle Moon (Chair)
Director, Special Collections & Archives
San Jose State University
From Paper to Bytes: Creation of the International Museum of Women (IMOW)

Anke Voss, MSLS , MA
Director
The Urbana Free Library
Salvaging Their History: Initiatives and Challenges in the Early Development of Women's Archives and Documentation

Rachel Miller, MLIS
Processing Archivist
Center for Jewish History
Kick Her in the Shin for Me: The International Women's Archives Projects of Two Warring Suffragists in the 1930s and Their Digital Footprints in the 2010s


Big thanks to Rachel for organizing and proposing this panel!

Categories: conferences, SAA 2011