Valley Women's History Collaborative
Newsletter
We are in desperate need of someone with desk-top publishing skills to create a quarterly or even bi-annual newsletter. Could this be you? If so, contact Joyce Berkman right away! In the meantime, here is a past newsletter.
Spring 2000 Newsletter
Meeting and Events | Archivists on Board | Goals | Oral History
Grant
Sparks Documentation Project
Many of you, over the last two years, have shown, sent or told us about
photo albums, posters, newsletters, T-shirts, memoirs and organizational
files recording your part in the Valley lesbian or feminist history. We
have also found three area archives with relevant material who are willing
and eager to house more. Thanks to new funding in 2000 we can finally
get back to all of you to figure out together how to preserve and/or make
accessible all these records.
In Feb. 2000, VWHC received an $8,100 Documentary Heritage funded in part by a grant from the Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin, the Massachusetts Historical Records Advisory Board, and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. This one-year planning grant will allow us to assess the current state of documentation so that a long-range strategy may be developed.
Open
Meeting
You are invited to an open meeting Tuesday May 9, 2000, from 7-9pm at the
Northampton Unitarian Society for more information on our plans. This is
a chance to meet other interested community members, archivists and historians.
We welcome your input on what should be documented, records you have or
know about, and opinions on the issues involved in making this history public.
Plans for the first phase of this multi-year project include: putting what we know into usable form, broadly identifying the communities to be documented, sample surveying those who have any records (in private and public hands) determining what is needed to preserve and/or make them accessible, identifying gaps as well as problems and opportunities, and prioritizing which areas to begin working on.
Upcoming Events
Sat. Apr 8, 2000 from 10-4, Interviewer Training, Hampshire College Amherst.
Call Susan (413) 253-9516.
Wed. May 3, 2000 at 7pm, Research Meeting, 66 Cottage St. Amherst. Call Joyce (413) 549-0659.
Tue. May 9, 2000 at 7pm, Documentation Presentation, Northampton Unitarian Society. Call Marla (413) 545-4256.
Archivists
On Board
Two area archivists have joined the VWHC coordinators to begin the documentation
project: Linda Seidman, head of the UMass Archives and Special Collections
and Sherill Redmon, head of Smith College's Sophia Smith Collection. With
Marla Miller as Project Director the workgroup will hire a consultant and
a 1/4-time worker for specific tasks and work with the newly forming advisory
board for greater input at various stages. Marla is a new professor in the
History Department at UMass, after working for two years in the Sophia Smith
Collection.
Goals
for Coming Months
At the end of the year 2000, we would like to have some concrete products:
a preliminary list of those area archives interested in donated material,
the various donor options, and info on what to keep and how to keep it
safely even if you donÕt want to donate it now, a list of records that
need to be housed as well as any concerns or suggestions the community
may have as to making them accessible, the specific location of various
documents as well as a list of research still needing done, and a problem
statement for future planning.
Oral History Project Begins Second Year
We thank all of you who've let us know you are willing to be interviewed.
We need many more interviewers and have had to prioritize interview subjects.
We are focussing the oral histories on those of you who've been part of
the first decade ('68-'78) or represent some aspect in most danger of
being lost.
We were able to establish an oral history project in 1999 through grants from the MacArthur Foundation awarded by Hampshire College and from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. We arranged to do our first interviewer training at HC and get our tapes and equipment through HCÕs Media Services. We have trained fifteen volunteer interviewers and have a solid workgroup of eight who have conducted twenty interviews with thirty-eight women. A modest number of those interviews have been transcribed.
We have interviewed or are the process of interviewing feminists who offered abortion counseling pre-Roe vs. Wade, lesbian musicians and DJ's, pioneering therapists, several politicians, a rural lesbian "matriarch" and early women's center and softball team foremothers, among others. We will share more detail with you as these interviews are transcribed and formally released to the public. Through the new Documentary Heritage Grant we will be investigating possible housing for the gathered interviews and any other documents which might come our way.
Experience isn't necessary to become an interviewer, but the gift of gab and listening skills are helpful. Our next training for interviewers is on Saturday April 8, 2000 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Hampshire College. Anyone who is interested in joining us should call me at (413) 253-9516 or email Susan, the OHP Coordinator and a long-time Valley lesbian, softball player and historian: stracy@hampshire.edu.