You all remember the Schlesinger Library as the place where we studied, researched our papers, gathered (quietly) after class and found respite from the hurly burly of the Harvard campus.

In the past decades, since the Hilles Library was constructed on the Radcliffe Quadrangle, the Schlesinger Library has become a nationally treasured archive of women's history and personal papers, including those of Radcliffe graduates whose work contributed to women's lives, and the largest extant repository of cookbooks in the world!

Recently, the Schlesinger was entirely remodeled both to house new collections and to reflect the permanence and significance of women's history. There will be time at our Spring '07 reunion to visit the library.

Because the Schlesinger Library resides both in our memory and in the future of women's history research, your gift committee has designed the Radcliffe Class of 1957 Schlesinger Library Fund for our 50th reunion gift.

Unlike other class gifts, designated for a particular collection or the purchase of some new one, our class gift will support the core work of the library—acquisitions, processing, preservation, and digitization of collections that have been acquired but are not yet organized and indexed.

Our gift will also be a memorial to classmates who have died.

Any collection processed with our fund will acknowledge our class in catalogues and on labels within the library. Processing, while an unglamorous term, comprises the crucial labor-intensive steps necessary to turn a mass of unsorted papers or records into a clearly ordered, accurately described, easily used collection.

Many of the collections awaiting processing document the transformation that women's lives were undergoing in post-WWII America in the areas of health and reproductive rights, education, the work place, and politics. These collections have the potential to change the way we look at the world.

Our gift fits prominently into the work of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, headquartered in Radcliffe Yard. Founded in 1999 after the merger of Radcliffe College and Harvard, the Institute fosters ground-breaking work and transformative experiences for fellows in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. The Radcliffe Institute also sustains a special commitment to the study of women, gender, and society.

During the months leading up to the reunion, classmates will be calling one another to discuss contributions to the Class Gift Fund. Direct contributions, bequests, gift annuities and other opportunities for planned giving are available. For more information about planned giving, view this page and contact Diane Mercer at the Radcliffe Institute, 617-496-4166.

[ 50th Reunion Photos ] [ Class Survey Report ] [ Our Class Meeting ] [ Our Class Notes ] [ Class Gift ] [ Who Came ] [ "The Art of the Mind" ]
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