Overview
Notebooks containing published and unpublished articles, photos, clippings, and notes on women and correspondence of Marjorie White, collector.
Dates
- Creation: 1930-1970
Creator
- White, Marjorie, 1894-1972 (Person)
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Access Restrictions:
Access. Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright in the papers created by Marjorie White is held by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for the Schlesinger Library. Copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.
Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.
Extent
19.06 linear feet (44+1/2 file boxes, 1 card file)This collection consists primarily of over one hundred loose-leaf notebooks filled with published and unpublished articles, newsclippings, photographs and notes on women throughout history and prehistory and on various subjects related to women, with an extensive section on North American Indian women. Marjorie White collected this material at a time when information on women was scattered and spotty; Mary R. Beard gave recognition to its usefulness in the Acknowledgments to Woman as Force in History (1946).
To a great extent the notebooks reflect an interest in prehistoric woman as priestess, midwife and originator of culture. This interest was stimulated by Marjorie White's association with Mary Milbank Brown, who evolved a theory of a matriarchal period preceding the post-Platonic patriarchy; she believe that men had redefined originally "matristic" words in an esoteric, "patristic" code, still in use by "initiated" philosophers and scientists. Correspondence with Mary Milbank Brown, and notes and outlines by her, are found mainly in folder 157 some of her unpublished writings appear in 143-145 and 147, and correspondence about her and her work in 151 (including letters by Dr. Bruno Oetteking and copies of letters from Pearl Buck to Jane Grant).
There is a good deal of correspondence with Mary Ritter Beard, as well as some of her writings. This material, found mainly in 150a-e, 154 and 155, concerns itself with the World Center for Women's Archives, a proposed Woman's Research Institute, Mary Milbank Brown's work, the Encyclopedia Britannica (often referred to as "CB"), and Collier's Encyclopedia. There were projects afoot to correct the treatment of women in these two encyclopedias, and Marjorie White contemplated an Encyclopedia of Women, but none of these was ever completed. The World Center for Women's Archives also met with failure, due to World War II and lack of funds, but gave an impetus to the collecting by other institutions of papers by and about women.
Other correspondents include Herma Briffault, Dora Edinger, C. Esther Hodge (editor of the English periodical, Women Speaking), Miriam Y. Holden, Inez Haynes Irwin, Dr. Blanche Christine Olschak, and Doris Stevens. These women and others shared a concern for correcting the general view of woman's role in history and thus pioneered and foreshadowed the more widespread interest manifested a quarter of a century later.
Correspondence in the Marjorie White Collection was written between 1936 and 1967; the articles and newsclippings were collected from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Materials have been transferred from notebooks to folders, retaining the original numbering.
BIOGRAPHY
Marjorie White was born on January 24, 1894, in Seattle, Washington, and died February 20, 1972. She lived in Forest Hills, New York.
Physical Location
Collection stored off site: researchers must request access 36 hours before use.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Accession numbers: 73-71, 81-M54, 97-M107
The papers of Marjorie White were given to the Schlesinger Library in June 1973, February 1981, and August 1997 by her daughter, Zalmar Perlin.
Related Material:
There is related material at the Schlesinger Library; see Papers of Zalmar Whitworth Perlin, 1930?-1980 (81-M12--81-M54).
SEPARATION RECORD
The following items have been removed from the collection and returned to the donor:
- Schreiner, Olive. Woman and Labor
- Langer, Suzanne K. Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling
- La Follette, Suzanne. Concerning Women
- Kelly, Amy. Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Penny, Virginia. The Employments of Women
- Sheerwood, Mrs. John. Manners and Social Usages
- Farber, S.M., and Wilson, R.H.L., eds. The Potential of Woman
- Stetson, Charlotte Perkins. Women and Economics
- National American Woman Suffrage Association. Victory, How Women Won It
- Neff, Wanda Fraiken. Victorian Working Women
- Landes, Ruth. The City of Women
- Rothery. The Amazons in Antiquity and Modern Times
- Williams, H. Noel. Five Fair Sisters
- Putnam, Emily James. The Lady
- Pinchbeck, Ivy. Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution
- Wolfson, Theresa. The Woman Worker and the Trade Unions
- Gamble, Eliza Burt. The Sexes in Science and History
- Walsh, Correa Moylan. Feminism
- Beauvoir, Simone de. The Marquis de Sade
- Reik, Theodor. Masochism in Sex and Society
- Woolf, Virginia. Three Guineas
- Reik, Theodor. Sex (in Man and Woman, etc.)
- Dickenson, Ellen Key. The Woman Question
- Freud, Sigmund. On Creativity and the Unconscious
- Beard, Mary R. America Through Women's Eyes
- Reik, Theodor. The Creation of Woman
- Deutsch, Helene. The Psychology of Women, 2 vols
- Kinsey, et al. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
- Vaerting, Mathilde and Mathias. The Dominant Sex
- Klein, Viola. The Feminine Character
- Swiney, Frances. Woman and Natural Law
- Malinowski, Bronislaw. Sex and Repression in Savage Society
- Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1954: "Women in Public Life."
- President's Commission on the Status of Women. American Women
- Young, Louise M., ed. "Women's Opportunities and Responsibilities." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1947
- Annals... "Women in the Modern World." 1929
- Christense, C.L. Man and Woman in Prehistory
- Henry, Alice. Memoirs of Alice Henry
- Daedalus, Spring 1964. "The Woman in America." 2 copies
- Bebel, August. Woman in the Past, Present and Future
- Bebel, August. Woman and Socialism
- Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo
- Brown, J.A.C. Freud and the Post-Freudians
- Ellis, Havelock. The Dance of Life
- Bachoffen, J.J. Myth, Religion and Mother Right: Selected Writings of
- Jung, Carl G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections
- Borgese, Elisabeth Mann. Ascent of Woman
- Goodsel, Willystine. A History of Marriage and the Family
- Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Man-Made World, or Our Androcentric Culture
- White, E.M. Woman in World History: Her Place in the Great Religions
- Ellis, Albert, and Abarbanel, Albert. Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior
- Edinger, Dora. Bertha Pappenheim, Freud's Anna O.
- Veblen, Thorstein. The Higher Learning in America
- Engels, Frederick. The Origin of the Family
- Smith, W. Robertson. Kinship and Marriage
- Taylor, G. Rattray. Sex in History
- Stern, Karl. The Flight from Woman
- Reik, Theodor. Of Love and Lust
- Rogers, Katherine M. The Troublesome Helpmate
- Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique
- Millet, Kate. Sexual Politics
- Hays, H.R. The Dangerous Sex
- Parsons, Elsie Clews. The Old-Fashioned Woman: Primitive Fancies about the Sex
- Preedy, George R. This Shining Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin)
- Parsons, Elsie Clews. The Family
- Hall, Gladys Mary. Prostitution in the Modern World
- National Manpower Council. Womanpower
- Stopes, Marie. Married Love
- Greenwald, H., and Krich, Aron. The Prostitute in Literature
- Bachofen, Johann Jakob. Das Mutterrecht. 2 vols
- Brown, Mary Milbank. The Historical Approach to the Theory of Relativity. 2 vols
- Brown, Mary Milbank. The Secret History of Jeanne d'Arc
- Elephas (pseud. of Mary Milbank Brown). The Fabulous Ass
CONTAINER LIST
- Box 1: 1-4b
- Box 2: 5-8a
- Box 3: 9-12a
- Box 4: 13-16a
- Box 5: 17-20a
- Box 6: 21-23Bb
- Box 7: 24-27a
- Box 8: 28-31a
- Box 9: 32-36a
- Box 10: 37-40a
- Box 11: 41-44a
- Box 12: 45-48a
- Box 13: 49-52a
- Box 14: 53-56a
- Box 15: 57-60a
- Box 16: 61-64a
- Box 17: 65-69a
- Box 18: 70-74a
- Box 19: 75-78a
- Box 20: 79-82a
- Box 21: 83-87a
- Box 22: 88-92a
- Box 23: 93-96a
- Box 24: 97-10b
- Box 25: 102-105a
- Box 26: 106-109a
- Box 27: 110-112a
- Box 28: 113-117a
- Box 29: 118-121a
- Box 30: 122-125a
- Box 31: 126-130
- Box 32: 131-135a
- Box 33: 136-140
- Box 34: 141-146a
- Box 35: 147-149e
- Box 36: 149f-152
- Box 37: 153-159a
- Box 38: 160-163b
- Box 39: 164-166a
- Box 40: 167-173
- Box 41: 174-177
- Box 42: 178-180
- Box 43: 181-184
- Box 44: 185-189
- Box 45: 190-191
- Card Box 46: 192
Processing Information
Processed: September 1973
Folder #172 was added to the collection in August 2021.
Creator
- White, Marjorie, 1894-1972 (Person)
Subject
- Askanasy, Anna H. (Person)
- Beard, Mary Ritter, 1876-1958 (Person)
- Briffault, Herma (Person)
- Brown, Mary Milbank (Person)
- Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973 (Person)
- Edinger, Dora (Person)
- Gillmore, Inez Haynes, 1873-1970 (Person)
- Grierson, Margaret Storrs, 1900-1997 (Person)
- Hodge, C. Esther (Person)
- Holden, Miriam Young (Person)
- Inter-American Commission of Women (Organization)
- Lucy Stone League (Organization)
- Lutz, Alma (Person)
- Oetteking, Bruno, 1871- (Person)
- Olschak, Blanche Christine (Person)
- Schwimmer, Rosika, 1877-1948 (Person)
- Stevens, Doris, 1888-1963 (Person)
- White, Leslie A., 1900-1975 (Person)
- World Center for Women's Archives (Organization)
- Yust, Walter, 1894-1960 (Person)
- Title
- White, Marjorie, 1894-1972. Papers of Marjorie White, ca.1930-ca.1970: A Finding Aid
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- sch00963
Repository Details
Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository
The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.