February Happenings in the Archives

February has been a busy month in the College Archives.  Class presentations to students in archeology, sociology, american studies, first year writing seminars, and exercise sport studies makes for opportunities to excite students about primary research.  Topics for student papers include: women explorers, scholarship offerings, racial tensions, queer identity, women writers, sports and physical culture at Smith, labor unrest, housing issues–to name a few.

I enjoyed the warmth of Palm Beach, FL for 32 hours when I gave a talk to the Smith Club of Palm Beaches about the history of women of color at Smith.  This past Monday, as part of our Rally Day kick-off events, I gave a talk on Smith Traditions to a standing room only crowd (120+) of students, along with Dan Horowitz who spoke about Betty (Goldstein) Friedan’s (Class of 1942) student experiences at Smith and subsequent life-long activist work.  Those presentations, plus a few House History talks on Friday afternoons are rounding out my days and nights.  Who says archivists are stuffy people hidden away in dark corners of buildings??!!