Ruth MacKay-Scott was the wife of Andrew MacKay-Scott, a wealthy stockbroker in Evanston, Illinois. In the late 1920's the family lived for several years in California, where many Jarvis relatives lived. (They also had a summer home on Cape Cod, where RMS was isolated during the 1938 hurricane.) This collection consists of correspondence, newsclippings, and other printed materials, the bulk of which was collected in 1936-1939 while RMS was an officer of the Woman's Club of Evanston.
RMS focused her civic interests on social service and mental health programs, such as the Infant Welfare Society, Evanston King's Daughters (an organization for dependent girls and women), juvenile justice, and venereal disease education. In 1930 she was Secretary of the Southern California Society for Mental Hygiene and in that capacity was a member of the Committee on Organization of the First International Congress on Mental Hygiene. She was also on the Board of the Los Angeles Woman's Health Center.
She joined in sponsoring cultural activities in Evanston and took an interest in current political issues. The personal correspondence indicates that she entertained in her home lecturers, musicians, physicians, and other notables who participated in programs she organized and/or helped sponsor.
RMS' immediate family, referred to in these papers, includes her husband, Andrew Scott (Mac); daughter, Jean Margaret (who married Joseph Earl Sample in October 1940); son, Andrew MacKay, Jr. (Andy); and her mother, Emily Little Jarvis.
From the guide to the Papers, 1928-1941, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
