Research psychologist, author, and public speaker Rosalind C. Barnett was born in 1937. She received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University in 1964. She is the author of several books, many of them co-written with Caryl Rivers. She has held senior research positions at the Henry A. Murray Research Center at Harvard University, the Wellesley College Centers for Women, and the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. Much of her work focuses on gender roles, particularly related to women in the workplace and the impact of work on family life. Collection consists primarily of Rosalind C. Barnett's speeches and conference materials. Topics include "To Work Reduced Hours or Not," "Work and Family Experiences and Psychological Distress in Dual-Earner Couples," and "Gender, Job Conditions, and Psychological Distress." Articles by and about Barnett are also included, as are awards she received, grant applications and reports, and videotapes. Also included is Barnett's web site, which is being captured periodically as part of Schlesinger Library's web archiving program.

Linda Maxine Worthington was born in 1932 in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, the daughter of Hazen Joseph and Burtriece Iris Warner Crandall. She graduated from Kalamazoo College in Michigan and received a master's degree in theological studies from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. She was married twice and had four children. Paul Worthington was in the United States foreign service, serving in Vietnam, and Worthington lived there in the early 1960s. Worthington traveled widely, visiting and working in countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, and Europe. She worked for a variety of organizations focused on women, faith, hunger, and poverty. She served as senior editor of the biodiversity magazine Diversity and worked as a reporter, writer and editor for the United Methodist Church's Baltimore-Washington Conference. She also worked at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, focusing on hunger issues; and coordinated a large multi-country nutrition project in Senegal. She was involved with the World Hunger Service for many years, eventually joining the organization's board of directors. She was the co-director and eventually the alumni association vice president of International Voluntary Services, an overseas development organization; and worked at Pax World Foundation promoting social investment. Worthington died on October 20, 2019. Collection consists of the diaries Linda Worthington kept from 1962 to shortly before her death in 2019. The diaries document her personal life and also her work for social and economic justice and her involvement in significant cultural and political events in the many places she lived, worked, and traveled. Events described include her experiences while living in Vietnam from 1962 to 1965, including being evacuated from Saigon with her young children via French freighter; meeting with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1972 as part of relief efforts for Bangladesh; and traveling through China shortly before the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Issues of a family newsletter, The Worthington Wanderer, are also included.

The Clearinghouse on Femicide, also known as Berkeley Clearinghouse on Femicide, was created in 1989 and run by feminist activist Chris Domingo in Berkeley, California. A small non-profit organization, its aim was to raise awareness about and popularize the term "femicide," the gender-based killing of women, and to encourage activism against it. The organization grew from a small study group Domingo had organized in 1980, Women Against Femicide, formed in response to a number of murders of young women in the Bay Area. At that time, Domingo had hoped to raise funds to support an international conference on femicide, but was unsuccessful. Animated by the 1989 massacre of women students in Montreal, and the work of academic Diana E.H. Russell, Domingo created the Clearinghouse to gather and disseminate information, raise awareness, and support victims of femicide-related crimes. The Clearinghouse published a newsletter, Memory and Rage, from 1990 to 1992. Domingo was unable to sustain the organization financially and after 1993 the organization essentially ceased to exist. Clippings files on related subjects were added to the collection after that date by Clearinghouse friends and supporters Laura X and Danielle Pauley. Collection includes administrative files from the Clearinghouse on Femicide and its precursor, Women Against Femicide. Correspondents include activists, academics, feminist organizations, and members of the public interested in the topic of femicide. Grant applications detail Clearinghouse's goals and financial situation. Collection also includes petitions the Clearinghouse disseminated and collected to create a national day of remembrance in Canada for the1989 Montreal massacre of women students. Several files highlight specific California cases involving femicide or women incarcerated for attacking or killing batterers. Also included are Domingo's article drafts, meeting notes, and mock-ups of Memory and Rage newsletter. While mainly focused on the United States and Canada, the Clearinghouse clippings files also include articles about international femicide cases.

Phillis, Lizzy, Jenny, Laura, Esther and Leah were enslaved women and girls living in South Carolina in 1833. The women were sold by James Pouncey to Isham Watson on February 22, 1833. Collection consists of a handwritten receipt documenting the sale of six enslaved African American women and children: "Phillis, Lizzy, Jenny, Laura, Esther and Leah the first being about forty nine years old the second about twenty three the third about two the fourth about five the fifth about three and the sixth about one..." The receipt states that the women and girls were purchased from James Pouncey by Isham Watson for $1125. The sale occurred in Marlborough District, South Carolina, on February 22, 1833. Includes signatures of two witnesses.

May Laidley lived in New Richmond, Ohio, in the 1860s. The May Laidley letter consists of a letter from May Laidley to Mrs. G. W. Summers of Kanawah County, West Virginia, dated March 16th. The letter describes Laidley’s visits with an unnamed African American woman who is an acquaintance of the Summers family and may have been enslaved by them. Laidley writes that the woman misses the Summers family and she "says she does wish she was a slave again." Laidley also describes the woman's unhappiness with life in Ohio and discrimination faced there by African Americans.

Barbara Wilson, a white woman, lived in Bath County, Virginia, in the 1820s. She appears on the 1820 United States federal census as the only free person in a household holding 11 enslaved people. According to the Virginia court ruling in the case Henry v. Bollar, Wilson had freed fourteen enslaved people in 1822, but was declared incompetent and the individuals were re-enslaved. The enslaved individuals filed suit on the grounds that "that they were in fact white persons, and therefore could never have been lawfully held in slavery, and that Barbara Wilson had, for the purpose of restoring them to the enjoyment of their rights, executed the deeds of emancipation of January 1822." The ruling also stated that the defendants in the case maintained that the enslaved individuals were of mixed Black and white heritage, and that Wilson had been attacked by Native Americans as a child and as a result had not been of sound mind when she signed the deeds of emancipation. However, the court ruled in the favor of the enslaved individuals and they were granted their freedom in 1836. The collection contains a manumission document for Jane, an enslaved girl, and is signed by "Barbary Wilson" and four witnesses. The document states "Being upon principle opposed to holding any person in slavery, and for other good causes…by these presents liberate, emancipate and quit claim to and discharge from my service my white girl slave named Jane aged about nine years." The document includes a signed note by the Bath County clerk.

Dorothy Johnson owned and operated a bookstore, Common Reader Bookshop, in New Salem, Massachusetts, between 1977 and 2000. She and her partner, Doris Abramson (1926-2008), became friends with poet Adrienne Rich and writer Michelle Cliff when Rich and Cliff lived nearby in Western Massachusetts in the early 1980s. When Rich and Cliff moved to California, they corresponded regularly. Abramson and Johnson were partners for 40 years and married in 2004. Collection includes letters to Dorothy Johnson and Doris Abramson from Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff. Most letters are addressed to both Johnson and Abramson and signed by Rich and Cliff, no matter in whose hand they are written. Some letters were written and signed by Cliff only, these have been foldered separately. Rich and Cliff write from and of their travels, about their health and that of mutual friends, books read, television, films, and cats. Also included are a few flyers of Rich events, and poems that were probably originally enclosed with letters, but had been separated before transfer to the Schlesinger Library. Several letters to Doris Johnson from Tillie Olsen are also included.

Deborah Ann Coleman was born in 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, to Louis J. and Gloria (Bryskier) Coleman. She grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. She attended Radcliffe College (B.A., 1973) and Harvard Law School (J.D, 1976). Coleman was the first female partner at the business law firm Hahn Loeser & Parks, where she worked from 1976-2013. In 2013, she established her own firm, Coleman Law, in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Coleman is married to Dan A. Polster, a United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of Ohio; they have three children. Coleman's father, Louis J. Coleman, attended high school in Chicago and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. He served with the United Sates Army Air Corps during World War II, and was stationed at several Army Air Corps bases around the United States. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949. The collection of Deborah Ann Coleman contains menus from the Passavant Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, where her mother Gloria was a patient following her birth. There are menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinners; one menu for dinner features choices such as sauteed pork chop with applesauce, roast prime ribs of beef, buttered potato, and cherry tapioca pudding. The menus include notes and her mother's selections. The collection also contains forms from the hospital and Coleman's pediatrician, Sidney E. Epstein, providing instructions for her care and feeding, including amounts of formula and notes on breast feeding; necessary baby supplies like clothing and medicines; and checkup schedules. Several forms include notes by Coleman's mother or the pediatrician. In addition, the collection contains a blank "Safety First Guarantee Certificate" which probably belonged to Louis Coleman. The form is for females to sign prior to consenting to sex: "This is to certify that I, the undersigned female, about to enjoy sexual intercourse with...I am of legal age of consent, and am in my right mind, and not under the influence of any drugs or narcotics. I am in no fear of him whatsoever, neither does he have to use force, threats, or promises to influence me. I do not expect to marry him, do not know whether or not he is married, nor do I care. I am not asleep or drunk, and am entering into this relation for the satisfaction which I expect. I am very willing to play a return engagement soon, and agree never to appear as a witness against him or to prosecute him under the MANN WHITE SLAVE ACT. Signed before jumping into bed this...."

Elsie Stuart Clark Carpenter, daughter of Edmond and Mary Stuart Field Clark, was born September 27, 1906, in Brooklyn, New York. She received an AB from Radcliffe College in 1928 and from 1928 to 1932, worked as a laboratory assistant at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1929, she married Russell LeGrand Carpenter; they had two children. Carpenter died January 20, 1998, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The papers of Elsie Stuart Clark Carpenter contain programs, publications, a gym suit, and other materials documenting her experience as a Radcliffe College student and alumna. Also included is a cash book documenting her expenses during her sophomore year at Radcliffe.

Pamela C. Berger is an art historian, filmmaker, and professor of art history and film at Boston College. She has a B.A. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from New York University. Berger was active in the Boston-area women's liberation movement during the early 1970s. She participated in Bread and Roses, a socialist feminist group and collective, and was a founding member of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective (later Our Bodies Ourselves). She contributed to the organization's early publications, particularly in the areas of alternative modes of healing. Berger is the author of several books including The Insignia of the "Notitia Dignitatum" (1981); The Goddess Obscured: Transformation of the Grain Protectress from Goddess to Saint (1985); The Crescent on the Temple: The Dome of the Rock as Image of the Ancient Jewish Sanctuary (2012); and Hebrew Psalms and the Utrecht Psalter: Veiled Origins (2020). Her films include Sorceress (1987); The Imported Bridegroom (1989), and Killian's Chronicle: The Magic Stone (1994). The papers of Pamela C. Berger contain essays, speeches, printed material, and bibliographies on topics related to women and labor, standards of beauty, health, the environment, sexuality, and feminism. Included in the essays are "On Day Care" by Louisa Gross and Phyllis MacEwan; "How Things Could be Different" an essay about working conditions for women by Meredith Tax of Bread and Roses; and "Dear Sisters," a letter and essay by Nancy Hawley about the history of the women's movement in Boston and the work of Bread and Roses. In addition, there are phone trees and membership lists (by collective) for Bread and Roses, as well as printed material from Female Liberation, a women's liberation group in Somerville, Massachusetts. There is also a petition by Female Liberation to the state of Massachusetts advocating for childcare.

Shirley Sue Carriere Armstrong (known as Susan), a white woman, was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1933. She graduated from Woodlawn High School in 1951 and attended business school. In 1952 she married Vernon McRaney, a Greyhound Bus driver. They had two children, Linda and Forrest. Armstrong was unhappy in her marriage, finding it sexually and intellectually unfulfilling. In 1960 she met Thomas Hall, a Southern Baptist minister who became a lifelong friend; with his encouragement, she began taking classes at Louisiana State University. In 1962 she begain psychotherapy with a Southern Baptist minister who initiated a sexual relationship with her. Armstrong and McRaney divorced in 1964 and she married Ed Armstrong, a biology professor and ornithologist, later that year. In 1975 she underwent an abortion and separated from Ed Armstrong. The following year she met Joe Bass, a Black multi-millionaire and owner of a computer company; they embarked on an on-and-off sexual relationship which lasted for several years. She also had a series of relationships with other Black men, many considerably younger than herself. In 1981 Armstrong began working for Mary Kay Cosmetics, where she soon became a director. She entered Radcliffe College's Radcliffe Seminars Program in 1984 and then enrolled at Smith College, where she was admitted to the Ada Comstock Scholars Program. In 1987 she was appointed a Smith Scholar. She graduated from Smith in 1988. In 1993 she began work as a lecturer and grant writer at Warren Wilson College, retiring in 1997. She then worked as a grant writer and lecturer for various organizations and businesses. In 2001 she moved to the Givens Estates retirement community in Asheville, North Carolina, where she served on the Wellness Committee. Armstrong began writing at an early age though she did not show her work, much of which was autobiographical and highly sexual in nature, to anyone until she was fifty years old. She received encouragement for her writing while studying at Smith and eventually began work on a pseudonymous memoir, which was published in 2016 under the name Jasmine Carriere as Desire Makes the Difference. The papers of Susan Armstrong include biographical information, including detailed timelines of her life created by Armstrong; schoolwork, including papers from her studies at Louisiana State University and Smith College; diaries; correspondence; a photograph album documenting an Outward Bound trip Armstrong took when in her sixties; and a DVD of her son's memorial service. Correspondents include family members and friends and lovers. Copies of Armstrong's side of the correspondence is often included, with her letters to lovers often describing her admiration of their bodies and the pleasure she took in being intimate with them and in particular in performing oral sex. Material related to Armstrong's sexually explicit memoir is also included. The memoir chronicles Armstrong's conflicted relationship with her mother, her marriages, and her platonic, romantic, and sexual relationships with several men. The Schlesinger Library books collection includes a copy of the memoir.

Ednah Helene Nelson Allbright was born in Kansas in 1895, the daughter of Nels and Hannah Nelson, Swedish immigrants. She had two brothers. She grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where the family worked as cultivators of high quality strawberries. In 1918 or 1919 she married Thomas Allbright. In 1921 they had a son, London, named in honor of the writer Jack London. Thomas Allbright abused Ednah Allbright physically, emotionally, and sexually, and she divorced him in 1923. Ednah Allbright eventually settled in Burbank, California, where she followed the family business of strawberry cultivation, also growing other fruits and selling jams and preserves. She also began raising chickens, which improved her financial situation, but she struggled financially throughout her life. She also suffered from various medical ailments, some caused by Thomas Allbright's abuse. London Allbright was hit by a car in 1928 and suffered serious injuries, taking two years to fully recover. Perhaps because of the strain this placed on Ednah Allbright, her relationship with her son became very controlling, with her frequently being critical of his life decisions. In April 1944 London Allbright married Barbara Lee. Ednah Allbright was strongly opposed to this marriage, believing that Lee had tricked her inexperienced son into marriage. London Allbright filed for divorce in June 1944, charging among other things that his bride had given him a "social disease," neglected preparing his meals, and persisted in smoking and drinking despite his opposition to these habits. After serving in World War II, London Allbright met Sybil Oudin Walker, a widow with a young daughter. They married in 1947. Ednah Nelson Allbright died in 1970 and London Allbright died in 1992. The collection includes Ednah Nelson Allbright's diaries, as well as a diary kept by London Allbright, in which he describes school activities and reflects on personal relationships, including his difficult relationship with his mother; courtship letters exchanged between Ednah and Thomas Allbright; correspondence between Ednah and London Allbright, with Ednah Allbright expressing her displeasure with London Allbright's first marriage and detailing the many ways in which he was a disappointment to her. Her deep devotion to him is also evident in these letters. Ednah Allbright's letters also document her medical ailments, financial hardships and other disappointments, and her strong socialist leanings. Her correspondence with friends and associates is also included, and in a letter to a friend, she describes in detail the abuse she experienced while married to Thomas Allbright, including when about to give birth to their son. Other correspondents include Ednah Allbright's parents, brothers, and sister-in-law. London Allbright had a number of male and female pen pals and his correspondence with them is included in the collection. Some letters written and received by Thomas Allbright are also included, as are London Allbright's divorce petition and Barbara Lee's response to it.