Court was a teacher and writer on the subjects of religious education for children and parent education. Her 1923-1930 study focused on the family as a factor in religious education. After graduating from Teachers College, Columbia University, she returned to her home city of Nashville where she helped plan and conduct a comparative study of black and white mothers, write articles on parent and religious education, and taught parent education and Japanese culture at Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The collection includes material related to Court's research on family life, race relations, religious training, and child development. Also featured are reports of parent education in Tennessee, and the notes and drafts for an unfinished comparative study of child development and family relations, as well as discussion guides for home and parent-teacher work.

Writer and editor Clara Littledale was the first woman reporter of the New York Evening Post, head of the press section of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and associate editor and war correspondent from France for Good Housekeeping. She was also the first editor of Parents' Magazine. The collection details her personal life including her marriage, children, divorce, and experience as working mother. It also exhibits her work for Parents' Magazine, including correspondence with publishers, readers, and listeners, her advice to parents on child rearing, etc. The business files of Parents' Magazine are not included. Schlesinger Library holds issues of Parents' Magazine.

Writer and journalist Ludtke graduated from Wellesley College, and drew national attention in 1977 when, as a reporter for Sports Illustrated, she sued major league baseball to gain women reporters equal access to athletes' locker rooms. She worked for CBS News and Time, and held a number of fellowships at Harvard and Radcliffe (1992-1995) before publishing On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America (1997). This collection contains research material for that book, including interview transcripts with single mothers.

Kathryn Packe was a Vassar Colege graduate and world traveler. Her first husband, George Smail, worked for the Shell Oil Company. While the family lived in Cairo, Packe had two children: John and Virginia. Packe fell in love with their tutor, Michael St. John Packe, but with the Second World War looming, Kathryn Packe and her two hildren left for England and later, Connecticut. In 1947, Kathryn Packe divorced George Smail and married Michael Packe in 1948. They settled in the Channel Islands. This collection consists primarily of letters from Kathryn Packe to her son John, covering the time John was nine years old through adulthood. Throughout are details about her daily life. Of particular interest are Packe's opinions and assessments of her children and grandchildren, as well as her parental advice and guidance.

The wife of William Whipple Purnell and the mother of Lee Julian Purnell, Theodora Lee Purnell was an officer of the Maria Baldwin Chapter of the American War Mothers, organized on February 8, 1922. It was the first chapter of Colored War Mothers in the United States. The collection consists of a printed pamphlet entitled "Paper Read by Mrs. Theodora Lee Purnell on the Spirit of the American War Mother at the Fourth Annual State Convention of American War Mothers, Santa Cruz, June 20th, 1923."

Bonnie Spanier received her doctorate in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University in 1975, and from 1978 to 1980 she was a fellow at the Bunting Institute (now the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program) at Radcliffe College. While a fellow, she conducted a series of interviews with women scientists to look at their experiences as women within a male-dominated field. The collection includes audiocassettes of the interviews as well as transcripts and summaries, notes, and printed material. The interview subjects describe the obstacles they faced and the support or lack thereof they received. Many women also discuss the difficulties of balancing childcare and private life with their professional lives, as well as their parents' attitudes towards their pursuits of higher education, among other topics.

The Council was founded in 1930 by a small group of professional and volunteer social agency administrators to bridge the gap between scientists studying child development and parents who wanted information on normal child growth. It disbanded in 1938. The collection includes minutes, committee records, correspondence, and mimeographed and printed material include information on the 1930 White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and emergency education programs, the Massachusetts Department of Education, and Council-sponsored events concerning children.

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective began in 1969 when a small group of women gathered after a workshop on women and their bodies at a Boston-area female liberation conference to talk about some crucial health issues and to confront a medical establishment viewed as paternalistic and condescending. Perhaps best known for their pioneering handbook Our Bodies, Ourselves, the Collective also published a number of books related to parenting including Ourselves and Our Children, Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships, among others. The records concerning Ourselves and Our Children contain the materials related to Joan Ditzion's writing of the book and the related parenting group within the Collective. There are a number of other collections containing BWHBC material, including the Additional Records of the BWHBC and the Audiotape Collection of the BWHBC,

The Association was founded in 1943 and campaigned in the state of New York for funds to maintain and expand child care centers for children of working mothers. The collection contains minutes, correspondence, statements, programs, newsletters, bulletins, and clippings concern the Association's campaign. There is related material in the Papers of Edythe Lutzker, president of the Association.

One of the first child care referral centers in the United States, the Child Care Resource Center was formed in November 1971 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to facilitate the expansion of parent-controlled child care. Founded by Heidi Urich, Magdalene Sears, Quaker Case, and Mavourneen Valvo, the Center provided information about federal, state, and local licensing requirements, fundraising, early childhood education, and people who could provide expertise. It also actively worked for desegregation and the development of multi-cultural programs. Funded initially by the City of Cambridge, the Center served as the model when the state of Massachusetts created a system of child care resources and referral agencies in 1984. It published Labor Pains, a newsletter. The Center closed in 2012.

Incorporated in 1960, the American Society for Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics (ASPO) grew from the experiences and beliefs of two women, Marjorie Karmel and Elisabeth Bing, and their personal experiences with "natural childbirth"—methods of delivery which used little or no medical interference and focused upon the joy of childbirth as a natural life process. Both women were influenced by the teachings of French obstetrician, Ferdinand Lamaze, who advocated that women be active participants, employing psychosomatic practices, controlled breathing techniques, and mental preparation to cope with pain in labor and facilitate delivery without drugs. Bing and Karmel united to teach the Lamaze method to women in New York City and formed the ASPO. There is related material in the Audiotape Collection of Lamaze International and the Moving Image Collection of Lamaze International.

The Maternal Association in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, was founded in June 1835 by thirty-one women to assist them in bringing up their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The collection consists of a volume containing the Maternal Association constitution and list of founding members (and their children), minutes of annual meetings, and, for later years, minutes of monthly meetings and lists of speakers and lecture topics.

Founded in 1902 by Mrs. Augustus Hemenway as the Senior League and the Mothers' League, the group became the Parents League in 1916. Its aim was to promote high standards of education and social behavior, and to provide information on cultural and recreational opportunities to schools and parents and to foster relationships among parents, schools, children, and their communities. Committees recommended suitable entertainment, sought to coordinate school vacations, monitored legislation pertaining to education and young people, compiled information regarding summer opportunities for children, and promulgated information in the form of publications, lectures, and panels. The League was dissolved in 1988. The collection includes minutes from 1915-1976, bylaws, correspondence, publications, and membership records.