The Worcester Women's Oral History Project (WWOHP) is privileged to announce that the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University is the new repository for its 150 oral histories of Worcester's women. The Schlesinger Library maintains collections relating to a wide range of American women's activities, providing rich material for research-ers and historians from around the world. Charlene Martin and Maureen Ryan Doyle, Co-chairs of WWOHP, hand-delivered the documents to the Schlesinger Library in October. Upon receipt of these files, Kathryn Allamong Jacob, Curator of Manuscripts at the Library, offered these words.
"The Schlesinger Library is honored to be chosen as the repository for the documentation of the remarkable Worcester Women's Oral History Project. These interviews with 150+ Worcester women cover broad topics of work, education, health, politics and community involvement, and family, and help to tell a piece of the story of the history of women in America, which is the Library's mission. An Auschwitz survivor, a minister born in Nigeria, a business owner, a home-maker, a nun, a professor, an activist, these and all of the other voices included in the project tell warm and funny, fright-ening and bitter stories of the detail of individual women's lives. Together they help to tell the story of post-World War II America."
The work of WWOHP is ongoing as it continues to create an inventory of oral history projects; collaborate with institu-tions of higher education; hold community workshops to instruct others about oral history; and ensure the preservation of these histories at their permanent site at the Schlesinger Library.
Many transcripts are available for viewing on the WWHP website, and more are being added on a regular basis. Please visit this site, and read the stories of Worcester's women. Their voices give a richer and fuller understanding to the past, allow-ing readers to appreciate history from a deeply personal, and often profound, perspective.
