Women's Manuscript Collections

Welcome to the women's manuscript collections at the Booth Family Center for Special Collections!

Please feel free to dive in and start exploring. There is no particular order to the contents of each page -- just follow your interests and don't forget to scroll all the way to the bottom!

This guide will be edited and added to as new information surfaces and as new collections are acquired; so please visit often!

Information about the women's collections can be found via hot-linked finding aids* or by contacting Lisette Matano, Manuscripts Archivist. 

Access to collection materials is by appointment.

* Note: Updates to finding aid links may be in progress. If you cannot link to a finding aid, please contact Lisette Matano.

Frances Patterson and friend, nineteenth-century women travelers

A Spring Poem, color etching, 1906, by Helen Hyde (1868-1919)

Lisa Sergio and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Important American women in journalism and publishing. Finding aids available on Digital Georgetown. (Note: Collection identifier in parentheses.)

Aimee Ernesta Drinker [Bullitt] Barlow (1892- ?), writer and broadcaster. (GTM011118)

Anna Brady (1901-1999), Vatican journalist (GTMGamms330)

Dorothy Day (1897-1980), Catholic journalist, pacifist and social activist. Letters, publications and photographs located in numerous collections. (Search Manuscripts Repository @ Digital Georgetown.)

Marguerite Tjader Harris (1901-1986), editor (GTM781231)

Julie Kernan (1901-1981), editor (GTMGamms181)

Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987), journalist (GTMGamms265)

Lisa Sergio (1905-1989), journalist, radio broadcaster (GTMGamms172)

Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961), journalist and radio broadcaster; named by Time, in 1939, the most influential woman in America second to Eleanor Roosevelt. Letters, publications and photographs located in numerous collections. (Search Manuscripts Repository @ Digital Georgetown.)

Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967), editor; John L. Brown papers 1 (GTMGamms167)

Katherine Biddle (b 1890-1977), American poet (GTMGamms250)

Clinch Calkins (1895-1968), American poet, novelist (GTM000622)

Shirley Hazzard (1931-  ), American novelist (GTMGamms421)

Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001), British poet (GTMGamms 173 and GTMGamms136)

Mary O’Hara (1885-1980), American children’s novelist (My Friend Flicka) (GTMGamms166)

Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) British poet, critic (GTM820630 and GTM851119)

Antonia White (1899-1980), British author; and Carmen Callil, founder and editor of Virago Press (GTM120607)

See also notable women novelists in the following collections --

Beatrice Harradan (1864-1936), British writer and suffragette; Sheila Kaye-Smith (1887-1956), British writer; Ethel Mary Savage (aka E. M. Dell) (1881-1939), British romance novelist (in Sir Newman Flower papers, GTMGamms300)

Esther Neira de Calvo (1890-1978), educator and women's rights activist. Calvo was the first woman to serve as deputy to the Panamanian National Assembly, and was Panama ambassador to the Organization of American States.  (Esther Neira de Calvo papers, GTM071217

Beatrice Harradan (1864-1936), British writer and suffragette. (Sir Newman Flower papers, GTMGamms300)

Edith Houghton Hooker (1879-1948), suffragist. (James Brown Scott papers, GTM660503)

Janet Richards (1859-1948), Washington, D.C. journalist, advocate of women's rights and education, and intrepid traveler; she was also a friend of suffragists Susan B. Anthony ((1820-1906) and Clara Barton (1821-1912). Letters from both suffragists are among Richards' papers (GTM540129).

Doris Stevens (1892-1963), suffragist. (James Brown Scott papers, GTM660503)

National Woman's Party founded in 1916 by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to advocate for women's voting rights.  (James Brown Scott papers, GTM660503)

Madeline Vinton Dahlgren (1825-1889), anti-suffragist. (GTMGamms122)