Message-Id: <199905141615.JAA45878@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 12:10:59 -0400 From: Peter Nelson <mailto:pnelson@mtholyoke.edu> Subject: Five College Archives Digital Access Project announces completion To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
The Five College Archives Digital Access Project has passed its second major milestone, the digitization of eighteen archival and manuscript collections selected at Smith College. These core collections documenting the history of women's education comprise approximately 12,000 page items and are now available for viewing on the project Web site (http://clio.fivecolleges.edu). They complement collections from the Mount Holyoke College Archives already online since September.Seventeen of the collections are from the Smith College Archives, while one is from the Sophia Smith Collection of women's history manuscripts. Researchers can browse item-level inventories to identify materials they want to view, or use the search feature to locate keywords. The eighteen Smith collections are organized into three groups: "Key Founding Documents," "Opening and Early History," and "Other Collections." "Key Founding Documents" includes correspondence and writings of Smith College founders Sophia Smith, her pastor John M. Greene and the College's first trustees. These collections extensively document the establishment of Smith College in 1875 in Northampton, Mass., at a time when higher education of women as something comparable to that of men was still very much a controversial proposition.
The second group, "Opening and Early History," brings together collections related to the College's development during its first half-century under Presidents L. Clark Seelye and William Allan Neilson. Among the collections you may find here are College Circulars and President's Annual Reports, 1872-1910; the unpublished manuscript of William Allan Neilson's "Smith College: The First Seventy Years"; and a wide variety of early published writings about Smith College as seen from outside observers.
The last group includes one selection from the Sophia Smith Collection of women's history manuscripts: the correspondence of Zilpah Grant Banister, 1846-1874. Banister was a pioneer in women's education who worked closely with Mary Lyon before Lyon went on to found Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. (This collection complements Banister's other papers at Mount Holyoke, also available online.) The rest of the collections in this group are from the Smith College Archives. These include the papers of Senda Berenson, an instructor in Physical Culture at Smith who introduced the first rules of women's basketball and organized the first women's college basketball game in 1893; records of the Faculty Planning Committee, 1967-1971, charged with the task of considering coeducation at Smith; selected College publications related to coeducation; and the Smith College postcard collection, over 800 images documenting campus buildings and events.
We are very pleased to announce the availability of these mutually complementary historical collections and encourage interested researchers to visit the project Web site (http://clio.fivecolleges.edu).
Other URLs: Smith College Archives: http://www.smith.edu/libraries/ca Sophia Smith Collection: http://www.smith.edu/libraries/ssc
..................................................................... Peter Nelson mailto:pnelson@mtholyoke.edu Five College Archives Digital Access Project c/o Mount Holyoke College Archives http://clio.fivecolleges.edu South Hadley, MA 01075 (413) 538-3020 ......................................................................