Women's and gender materials Haverford Special Collections (HC)

The Aimwell School was founded in 1796 by Anne Parrish and its mission was to provide educational opportunities for poor girls in Philadelphia. This collection primarily consists of minute book records and various documents related to the operation and administration of the school.

In this collection is the correspondence of two Quaker sisters—Mary H. Lewis and Alice Lewis Pearson—that tell of their time as students at Bryn Mawr College and of their lives as teachers and educational missionaries at Friends Girls School in Tokyo. Alice also served as principal of the school.

This collection contains letters detailing a woman’s struggle to go to Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania even though her mother considers being a doctor “outside of a woman’s mission in life.”

In this collection are the correspondence and materials of two women—Ermina Jones Totah and Eva Marshall Totah—who were both teachers at the Friends Girls and Boys Schools in Ramallah, Palestine. Their letters provide detail on the life and work at the Friends Schools.

Alice Whittier Jones (1873-1960) was a Quaker educator who worked in the Middle East for much of her life. This collection is composed primarily of her diary. Diary entries discuss the history of the Friends School in Ramallah, religious reflection
and discussions concerning the divides between Muslims, Jews, and Christians in Palestine, and discussions concerning the politics within Palestine.

This collection is composed of the single volume typed autobiography of Willa E. Ballard, a Quaker teacher. The autobiography describes Willa's early life, her parents and siblings, her experience growing up as a Quaker, her training as a teacher, and her experiences teaching in Moorestown and Atlantic City, New Jersey, and at the Mekusukey School in the Seminole Nation, as well as her time as a teacher and later a Principal at various schools in California.

Includes letters and documents relating to Joan Countryman's work in education, particularly with mathematics, writing, and gender, along with her own writings on gender dynamics

Contains the unpublished research and writings of Jean Straub, an educator an educational historian, on the William Penn charter School from 1960 to 1980

Sarah Wilt's diaries document, in great detail, her family's visits to numerous educational institutions in Pennsylvania, including the Franklin Institute, Girard College, and the Pennsylvania Female College.

This specific section of the Haverford College Archives contains information related to Incorporation and the Haverford Corporate Advisory Committee. Haverford became co-ed between 1976-1985, and therefore there are minutes related to this process included in this section of the archives.

The majority of debates surrounding coeducation at Haverford occurred during John Coleman's presidency. These documents are records from Coleman's administration regarding the process of admitting women.

These documents are contained within the documents related to the former astronomy professor, Louis Green. Green was a part of the Haverford community for over 50 years, and these documents offer a record of the decision to both expand and become a coeducational institution.

This part of the Haverford Archives includes minutes, publications, and photos dating back to the original foundation of the group. The Women's Center is still active today.

A student-written publication, this series of newspaper articles provides several pieces related to coeducation. Some of the relevant date ranges include: 1980-1982, 1982-1984, and 1984-1986. The class of 1984 was the first coeducational class at Haverford.

These audio recordings were made by Henry Joel Cadbury in 1963, and are broken into several separate segments. The series discusses the general history of Haverford and Bryn Mawr and their relationship to each other. Their interactions were drastically changed by Haverford's decision to become coeducational.

These documents served as a report from the Committee on Women at Haverford to President John Coleman, published in June of 1977. This report offered both critiques of the current status of women at Haverford and also included suggestions for improvement.

MC.910A: This collection contains the notes used by Robert Bocking Stevens to convince the Board to admit women at Haverford and the reports used by the College Committee on Women at Haverford College that describes issues affecting women and making recommendations.

This thesis was written by Christopher Ptomey in 1991 as a part of the Philosophy department. It examines Descartes' idea of body and mind using a feminist lens to critique a field of study largely dominated by men.

Written by Jennifer A. Neisner in 1990, this senior Political Science thesis analyzes Hannah Arendt's argument regarding the consequences of modernity on political action. She also looks into the general patriarchal worldview that dictates much of the modern political atmosphere.

Written by Serge Delcampo-Dering in 2003 as a part of the English department, this thesis analyzes the relationship between literature's ability to capture the socioeconomic climate of a particular era, and the emergence of the female novelist.

Written by Sara Ansell in 2005, this History thesis critically examines the events leading up to and directly following Haverford's process of coeducation. Ansell looks at the administrative influences as well as the relationship between Bryn Mawr and Haverford to evaluate the long-term effects of the transition.