Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏

The Schlesinger Library had its origins in the gift of the Woman's Rights Collection (WRC) by Maud Wood Park '98 to Radcliffe College in 1943. Organized as the Women's Archives in 1948, it was renamed the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America in 1967 in recognition of the Schlesingers' strong support of the Library and the College. The WRC was originally housed in Longfellow Hall and the Women's Archives in Byerly Hall and moved in 1967 to the old Radcliffe College Library, left vacant after the construction of Hilles Library.

The Schlesinger Library is a national resource for women's history. It collects published and unpublished materials, the latter including manuscript collections of individual women, family papers, records of women's organizations, photographs, motion pictures, oral history transcripts audio and videotapes that document the history of American women from about 1800 to the present. The manuscript collections provide source material on women's rights, suffrage, social welfare, pioneers in the professions, family history, women in politics, the labor movement, government service and post 1920s feminism. Among the notable women whose papers are in the Library are Julia Child, Betty Friedan, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Alice Hamilton, Elizabeth Holtzman, Esther Peterson and Harriet Beecher Stowe, but many of its collections document the lives of typical rather than notable women. In addition, the Library is the official repository for the records of the National Organization for Women and other activist organizations. The book collection covers all aspects of the social and intellectual history of women, including women in other countries, and includes cookbooks, etiquette books, vertical files and women's periodicals. The library also maintains biographical, organizational and subject files on issues of historical and current interest.