This vast collection surveys the opportunities, contradictions, and successes of Seattle’s pioneering feminist press. The editors navigated race, criticism by contemporary feminist publishers, and the excitement and frustration of their writers.
See the Project
“You were made of the stuff that makes legends”: The life and legacy of Ellen H. Johnson (1972-1992)
This collection explores art history professor and curator Ellen H. Johnson’s contributions to Oberlin’s department and museum, and the larger American and European contemporary art world. She emphasized access, public art, and sculpture as methods to promote women artists as well as deconstruct elitism in art spaces.
See the Project
Consciousness-Raising at Oberlin College During the Second Wave: Gender and Sexuality Conferences and Workshops (1972-1988)
This collection explores the different conferences and workshops at Oberlin during the 1970s and 80s. Drawn from the Dean of Students papers, the documents show changing priorities, methods of activism, and administrative responses to issues of gender and sexuality on college campuses.
See the Project
Frances Walker-Slocum’s Brilliance and Advocacy: Bringing Black Classical Composers to the Forefront of Oberlin Conservatory (1975-1992)
As Oberlin College’s first black woman tenured, Frances Walker-Slocum stands tall among the most important figures in the institution’s history, let alone classical piano notaries. Walker-Slocum mastered classical works, always including black composers in her repertory of each performance.
See the Project
Scrapbooks and Social Awareness: A Self-Curated History of the Oberlin YWCA (1940-1947)
The Oberlin YWCA reprioritized their activities during World War II, adjusting to national demands of Civil Rights and international calls for peace. This collection explores the transition from YWCA’s emphasis domestic skills to political discussions with faculty and action for racial equality.
See the Project
“We cannot change the world but we can change the people in it”: The Eleanor Bumstead Stevenson Papers (1922-1987)
After returning from service with the Red Cross in Europe and North Africa, Eleanor “Bumpy” Stevenson joined her husband, Bill, at Oberlin College where he would be president. Bumpy’s speeches and writings reflect her progressive activism, which was rooted in both gender essentialism and a vision of a utopian future.
See the Project
Evelina Belden Paulson (1921)
Unlike many of her Oberlin peers, Evelina Belden Paulson pursued social work in the United States before undertaking health and humanitarian aid overseas in Poland after World War I. Her long letters to her family and fiancé provide insight into the fulfillment she enjoyed and challenges she faced.
See the Project
Chipmunks and Children: The Photography and Life of Ruth Alexander Nichols (1917-1953)
Nichols supported herself as a photographer of idyllic, white, suburban children with their mothers, while she supported herself as a widowed mother. Even as Nichols had a successful professional career herself, she crafted an image of postwar motherhood that contributed to the prevailing viewpoint that a woman’s place was in the home with her children.
See the Project
The Oberlin Mutual Improvement Club (1913-1915)
Through two of the Club’s yearbooks scrapbooks reveal the interconnectedness of the Oberlin community, which was dedicated to service and empowerment. The Mutual Improvement Club walked the line between traditional studies of home economics and investigations into the role of Black women in fighting for racial justice.
See the Project
“You Can’t Keep Her Out”: Mary Church Terrell’s Fight for Equality in America (1911-1949)
This collection concerns Mary Church Terrell’s fraught relationship to Oberlin and larger commitment to justice for black women. Terrell admired early Oberlin abolitionists and the historic precedent the founders set for equality, never letting future administrations forget their legacy.
See the Project
