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MC 498

Lerner, Gerda, 1920- . Papers, 1941-2001: A Finding Aid

Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America

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Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
February 2003

© 2003 President and Fellows of Harvard College

Descriptive Summary

Call No.: MC 498
Repository: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
Creator: GERDA LERNER, 1920-
Title: Papers, 1941-2001
Quantity: 25 file boxes, 1 carton
Abstract: Papers of historian and feminist Gerda Lerner reflecting her professional career, writings, and lectures.

Processing Information:

Processed: April 2003
By: Jane Knowles and Patrick Otton

Acquisition Information:

Accession numbers: 97-M163, 99-M138, 2002-M11, 2002-M103
These addenda to the papers of Gerda Lerner were given to the Schlesinger Library by Gerda Lerner between December 1997 and July 2002.

TERMS OF USE :

Access. With the exception of folders (#4.25, 6.2, 7.6, 7.7), which are closed until Jan.1, 2027, the collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions:

Copyright. Copyright is held by the President and Fellows of Harvard College for the Schlesinger Library except that during the donor's lifetime the Schlesinger Library will not authorize publication of extensive quotations from the papers without her prior written permission; brief quotations (250 words or fewer in any one work) may be made with the permission of the director of the Schlesinger Library. Within four years after the donor's death, her literary executors may select from the collection any material they deem appropriate for publication, and may copyright any resulting published work; the original documents will remain the property of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright in other papers and recordings in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns. Researchers must obtain the written permission of the holder(s) of copyright and the director of the Schlesinger Library before publishing (in any medium) quotations from materials in the collection.
Copying. Researchers may obtain photocopies of unrestricted files in accordance with the library's usual procedures.

Preferred citation for publication:

Gerda Lerner Papers, 1941-2001; item description, dates. MC 498, folder #. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

BIOGRAPHY

Gerda Lerner, historian, educator, and author, was born in Vienna, Austria, on April 30, 1920, the daughter of Robert Kronstein and Ilona (Neumann) Kronstein. She escaped to the United States in 1939 where she married first, Bernard Jensen and second, the filmmaker Carl Lerner in 1941. They had two children, Stephanie and Daniel.
GL worked first as a translator and writer. She wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, No Farewell (1955), describing life in Austria from 1934 to 1938, before and during the Anschluss. She also wrote film scripts, "Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom" (1957), Black Like Me (1964), and Home for Easter (n.d.) In 1959, she resumed her education which had been interrupted by war and exile, and received her A.B. from the New School for Social Research (1963) and M.A. and Ph.D from Columbia University (1965 and 1966). In the course of her studies she decided to become a historian.
GL lectured on women's history at the New School in 1963. She was assistant, then associate, professor at Long Island University (1965-1967). She was professor at Sarah Lawrence College from 1968 to 1979. She was also a member of the Seminar on American Civilization at Columbia University and a co-founder of the Seminar on Women. In 1980 she was appointed Robinson-Edwards Professor of History and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Senior Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with the mandate to found the university's Ph.D. program in women's history. She became emerita in 1990.
One of the earliest proponents of women's history as a field of study, GL has made lasting contributions to the development of the discipline by her distinguished research and writing, by developing curricular material in women's history, by preservation and publicizing of women's history sources, and by upgrading the status of women in the historical profession.
Her research has explored abolitionism, slavery, African American women's history, and 19th century women's history. Later she wrote on the history of patriarchy going back to the second millennium B.C. and worked on medieval European women's history. Her writings include The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels against Authority (1967), The Woman in American History (1971), Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (1972), The Female Experience: An American Documentary (1976), The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (1979), and Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (1982). The Creation of Patriarchy (1986) and The Rise of Feminist Consciousness (1993), the first two volumes of Women and History, broke new ground in gender studies. Her teaching and lecturing at colleges and universities, in the U.S. and abroad, her leadership of the American Council on Education Conference on Graduate Training in Women's History (1989), and her pamphlet, Teaching Women's History (1981) have helped to shape women's history courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Like her role model Mary Beard, GL has also been instrumental in preserving and improving access to women's history sources. She served on the committee that launched Women's History Sources, edited by Andrea Hinding, and served on its advisory board. She also served on the advisory board of Notable American Women, and launched and directed the FIPSE project on Black Women's History, co-sponsored by the Organization of American Historians and the Association for Black Historians She organized an oral history project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to interview and document the Midwestern founders of the modern feminist movement. She led efforts to establish National Women's History Week and to publicize and promote programs on women's history in the media, and served on editorial boards of women's history journals and the Schocken Books project to publish source books on the women's movement. She has also consulted and advised on many other women's history projects.
Finally, as a feminist historian and founding member of the National Organization for Women, she has been a model for women historians and a dynamic leader in the effort to raise the status of women in the profession. She was a founder of the Coordinating Committee on Women in the Historical Profession, president of the Organization of American Historians (1981-1982), member of the American Historical Association and the Radical Historians' Caucus, and active in the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women since 1973.
GL described her husband's death movingly in A Death of One's Own (1978). Other autobiographical writing includes Why History Matters (1997) which weaves together her life, her profession, and her philosophy of history, and Fireweed: a Political Autobiography (2002) which covers her first 40 years, as a survivor in fascist Austria, an immigrant to the United States, a mother and community activist, and a socialist with a husband working in the film industry during the McCarthy era. For further biographical information and a full bibliography through 1995, see earlier accessions.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

This collection follows the original order of GL's files and is arranged in the following seven series:
Series I, Biographical and Personal (#1.1-#2.8), includes honorary degrees, memberships, fellowships, awards; clippings, articles and student papers written about GL; and radio and television interviews.
Series II, Correspondence, 1964-2000 (#2.9-#5.5), is with GL's colleagues in the historical profession.
Series III, Professional Activities (#5.6-#7.23), is divided into two subseries:
Subseries A, Early activities, 1941-1965, (#5.6-#5.17), arranged chronologically, includes GL's community involvement, civil rights activism, activities with her children's schools, service on PTA, radio talk shows, and participation in the League of Women Voters.
Subseries B, Professional activities, 1966-2000, (#5.18-#7.23), arranged alphabetically by name of organization, document GL's participation in the historical profession, her advisory roles on editing and publishing projects.
Series IV, Conferences and Lectures, 1966-2000 (#8.1-#14.28), arranged in chronological order, documents GL's lecture and conference schedules and includes texts of lectures and papers, correspondence with conference organizers, publicity, and news releases.
Series V, Writings, (#15.1-#23.9) is divided into four subseries:
Subseries A, Reviews, 1964-1999, (#15.1-#15.9), includes book reviews and related correspondence.
Subseries B, Articles, 1963-2000, (#15.10-#17.21), includes texts and correspondence about GL's articles.
Subseries C, Books, 1944-2000 (#18.1-#23.4), includes drafts, editorial correspondence, publicity, readers' responses to GL's published books.
Subseries D, Miscellaneous correspondence, 1972-2000 (#23.5-#23.9), includes correspondence re: royalties and with literary agents.
Series VI, Grants and Fellowships (#23.10-#24.14), includes "Documenting the Midwestern Origins of the Twentieth Century Women's Movement," an oral history and archival project, 1988-1993, directed by GL; an associated conference, "Bridges that Carry Us Over," 1992; and a documentary, 1996. Also other fellowship proposals.
Series VII, Research Materials (#24.15-#26.35), includes bibliographies, notes, transcribed and photocopied primary source material for the Creation of Patriarchy and GL's works on the Grimké sisters. It is divided into two subseries:
Subseries A, Creation of Patriarchy (#24.15-#26.4), source material.
Subseries B, Grimké sisters (#26.5-26.35), source material.
GL's academic and teaching files, course outlines, and the books and articles dedicated to her are at the Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

INVENTORY

Additional catalog entries

The following catalog entries represent persons, organizations, and topics documented in this collection. An entry for each appears in the Harvard On Line Library Information System (HOLLIS) and other automated bibliographic databases. THIS IS NOT AN INDEX.

Authors

Subjects


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