Research Guides: Romance and Courtship: Home

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Start your archival research on Romance and Courtship with this guide. Highlighted in this resource are archival collections and published material revealing attitudes, expectations, and realities of courtship and dating in the United States from the 19th century to the present as well as highlights from the Schlesinger's extensive collection of romance fiction.

The material in this guide was found by performing a "keywords anywhere" search in HOLLIS, Harvard University's Library catalog, for phrases such as "Courtship" and "Dating." Additionally, subject searches were performed for relevant headings like "Courtship," "Love," "Love Letters," "Courtship -- United States," and "Dating (Social customs)." For information on how to search our romance fiction collection, see the corresponding page in this guide.

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Many of our collections are stored offsite and/or have access restrictions. Be sure to contact us in advance of your visit.

This guide was originally posted by Francesca Scaraggi and later expanded by Rachel Greenhaus.

Archival Collections

The collections below have been selected to demonstrate the range of personal experiences reflected in the Library's collection. In addition to the selected resources below, please visit the Love Letters in the World War II, Wartime Correspondence research guide for further archival material relating to courtship and dating.

Rosamond Randall Beirne (1984-1969)
Writer Rosamond Randall Beirne graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1912 and actively participated in the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. Her collection includes a scrapbook documenting her social life as a debutante. Included are invitations, programs, clippings, calling and dance cards, drawings, photographs, souvenirs and similar ephemera from 1905-1918; Also included is her "Book of the Bride Elect," containing list of Beirne's wedding gifts from 1919.
Louise Marion Bosworth (1881-1982)
A 1907 graduate of Wellesley college, Bosworth worked in settlement houses. She conducted several surveys related to this work: The Living Wage of Women Workers (1907-1909); Housing Conditions in Main Line Towns (1911); 1914 survey of living costs by the Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation. The collection contains romantic correspondence with Ethel Sturtevant, a classmate, until the demise of their relationship in 1908, as well as a 1943 diary reflecting on this relationship.
Maggie Neyland Chatman (b. 1911)
Maggie Chatman, raised primarily in Houston, Texas, eventually moved to San Francisco with her husband and two children. There she became active in the Twentieth Century Club, an African American organization that awarded scholarships and sponsored annual debutante balls. Collection contains ephemera relating to the club's debutante activity in a scrapbook, as well as other social events.
Kim Chernin (b. 1940)
Feminist, lesbian, writer, consultant, and psychotherapist, Kim Chernin was born Elaine Kusnitz in the Bronx in 1940. The collection contains significant amounts of correspondence by Chernin. She writes frequently about romantic interests and her connections to women, although she does not mention many of her long-term partners. Elements of the collection require written permission for access.
Ruth Ulam Clark (1910-2002)
Ruth Ulam Clark, born in Ohio, trained as a nurse and worked as a laboratory technician at various health facilities in New York and Ohio. The collection contains correspondence between Ruth Ulam and Harlan C. Clark, her eventual second husband, documenting their personal lives and courtship, with some correspondence predating Clark's separation in 1943. The main focus of the letters is the growing affection between Ruth and Harlan, who married in 1944.
Ada Louise Comstock (1876-1973)
Comstock graduated from Smith College in 1897 and studied at Columbia University, receiving an A.M. in 1899. Her tenure as Radcliffe College president lasted from 1923-1943. This collection contains significant correspondence with Wallace Notestein who became her husband 1943. The couple maintained a forty year friendship before marrying.
Winnifred Meyer Dow (1868-1953)
Born in Canton, Ohio, Dow graduated from Wellesley in 1893, and worked as a teacher for hard of hearing children in Ohio and New York following her graduation. She completed graduate coursework at Radcliffe College from 1904 to 1906, and married in 1912. Dow is represented in the Blech-Meyer-Dowd family collection in part by her diary, which documents her time at Wellesley, including crushes on both men and women, like her friend Emily Howard Foley.
Beth Goff (1913-2006)
Goff was born in Ossing, NY in 1913. She held various jobs for regular income while pursuing writing as a freelancer at the New York Herald Tribune, he New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post, and Time magazine. In the 1980s she focused on fiction writing, although she found limited success. Collection contains extensive diaries detailing her early romantic experiences as a teenager, including feeling inadequate as well as feeling self-conscious about often being taller than male peers. She also describes a terminated engagement and dating men as a young woman.
Helen Marcia Hart (b. 1845)
Helen Marcia Hart, sister to a Harvard professor, lived near Cleveland, Ohio during the Civil War. In her diary, of which Schlesinger Library holds a transcript, she documents her experience with courtship and marriage. Other topics include her relationship with her mother Mary Crosby Hornell Hart and Civil War news.
Izetta Jewel (1883-1978)
Born in New Jersey, Jewel studied at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City before beginning her stage debut in North Carolina in 1900. She continued performing around the United States, having a daughter in 1916. She began campaigning for suffrage after her husband's death the same year and unsuccessfully ran for congress in 1922. She held a variety of radio, writing, and public service jobs throughout her later life. This collection contains journal entires describing her courtship with second husband Hugh Miller, as well as correspondence between the couple.
June Jordan (1936-2002)
Award-winning author, poet, and social and political activist, June Jordan was born in Harlem, New York. Jordan spent her youth in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and at the Northfield School for Girls in Massachusetts. In 1988, Jordan became Professor of African American Studies and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). This collection includes correspondence from many men and women with crushes on Jordan, who was bisexual. She often engaged in intense but short-lived intimate relationships with admirers. Collection also contains correspondence from long-term partners, her closest friends, and some of her lovers.
Kristin Luker (b. 1946)
Professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, Luker collected material from pro-life and abstinence-focused groups seeking to educate teenagers while conducting her own research.
Henry L. Nowak (1921-2012)
Nowack, who worked in the automobile and cosmetics industries, began exchanging letters with women mostly from Germany, Austria, and Yugoslavia, seeking a wife. This collection contains letters from women to Nowack as well as many photographs of the potential wives.
Pat Parker (1944-1989)
African American feminist lesbian poet Pat (Cooks) Parker was born on January 20, 1944. Parker grew up in Houston, Texas. In addition to her work as a poet, Parker Parker became director of Oakland's Feminist Women's Health Center and founded the Black Women's Revolutionary Council. Collection contains correspondence and journals reflecting Parker's romantic relationships.
Helen Jones Rich (1898-2000)
Rich was born in North Carolina, although her family relocated soon thereafter to Atlanta, Georgia. She studied piano at the Peabody School in Baltimore, Maryland (now the Peabody Institute of Music of Johns Hopkins University), becoming a composer and concert Pianist. She met her future husband Arnold Rice Rich in 1915, and they began corresponding the following year. Their courtship lasted a decade, and the majority of correspondence in the collection documents their relationship.
Gertrude Neumark Rothschild (1927-2010)
Professor of materials science and engineering, Rothschild was born in Nuremberg, Germany to a Jewish family. After the Neumarks fled Germany in 1935, they lived in Italy and Cuba before coming to the United States in 1939. A Ph.D in chemistry, Rothschild worked at Sylvania Research Laboratories and at Philips Laboratories before joining the faculty at Columbia in 1985. Collection contains correspondence reflecting her insistence on balancing dating and a professional career.
Hortense Carter Saxon (1902-1989)
Hortense Carter Saxon was an African American woman who worked as a servant and housekeeper in New York City during the 1920s. Originally from Hatfield, Connecticut, she relocated for work. Carter Saxon maintained romantic relationships with multiple men throughout her time in New York, some of whom were married. Around 1930, she married Robert Saxon. The couple then moved to Queens with their son Howard. Hortense Carter Saxon eventually returned to Hartford and lived the rest of her life there. The material in this collection documents the daily life and relationships of working-class African Americans in Connecticut and New York, including Black family life. Correspondence provides glimpses into social life and courtship.
Mary Kingsbury Simkovich (1867-1951)
Settlement worker and housing reformer, Simkhovitch received a B.A. from Boston University in 1890 and did graduate work at Radcliffe, the University of Berlin, and Columbia. The collection contains correspondence between Simkhovitch's parents, Laura Davis (Holmes) and Isaac Franklin Kingsbury. Their letters from 1858-1864 offer a detailed picture of the couple's courtship and of their reactions to the Civil War.
War Brides Revisited (1983-1984)
This collection, from the War Brides Revisited Project, contains newsletters and a questionnaire among other material documenting spouses of American military personnel. These marriages occurred during their spouses' service overseas between 1942 and 1952.
Margaret E. Whisenhunt (b. 1913)
This collection contains a single diary chronicling June 9 - September 29, 1923 in the life of a fourteen year old girl. Whisenhunt, from Jackson, Mississippi, describes her social life, including her love for her female friend, Gladys.
Elizabeth Winship (b. 1921)
WInship graduated from Radcliffe College with a B.S. in psychology in 1943. She began writing "Ask Beth," an advice column for teenagers in 1963 at The Boston Globe. The column directly tackled sexuality for teens. In 1970 the column started syndication in over 70 publications. Winship's daughter began to assist in the 1980s, and Elizabeth retired in 1998. The column ceased production in 2007. Collection consists of letters to Winship for "Ask Beth" regarding teenage sexuality and other issues.
Woman to Woman Videotape collection (1983-1984)
The format of Woman to Woman included host Pat Mitchell moderating a conversation with women (five to ten at a time) about relevant issues in womanhood, including sexuality, dating and love. This collection contains 100 out of 169 episodes.
Winnifred Wygal (1884-1972)
Most noted for her YWCA work, Winnifred Wygal was an author, theologian, and lecturer. She began her YWCA career in 1911. Additionally, Wygal was a founding member of the Fellowship of Socialist Christians and was in ivolved in the transnational Student Christian Movement. She maintained several long-term relationships with women, documented in this collection through journal entries.
Marjorie Cyril Wynn
Marjorie Cyril Wynn was a young woman (probably Jewish) who lived in the Forest Hills section of Queens, New York. Collection consists of three diaries containing brief mentions of a trip to California, a World Series win by the New York Giants, and descriptions of her dates, including what movies, restaurants, or entertainment they attended, etc. Also included is a list of her "likes" and "dislikes" concerning one of her boyfriends and a list of men dated (how many times, possibly in graded order), and one photograph.