Overview
Research files, family documents, photographs, and correspondence of Margaret Zarudny Freeman.
Dates
- Creation: circa 1883-2007
Language of Materials
In English, Russian, Chinese, and French.
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.
Retrieval requires permission of curator.
Extent
8.5 linear feet (9 boxes)Materials chiefly relating to the writing of Russia and beyond, published in Russian in 2002 and in English in 2006, including original and photocopied family papers; her father's engineering papers; photographs; genealogical material; drawings; and subject files.
Biographical / Historical
Margaret Zarudny Freeman was born in Russia. In 1919, her father, an engineer and steel factory director, went into self-exile in Manchuria. In 1922 Freeman and the rest of the Zarudny children set out to join their father, east across Russia to flee the Soviet Union, a trip she chronicled in her book, "Russia and Beyond: One Family's Journey, 1908-1935." Then in 1931 she immigrated to the United States where she received her SM in mathematics in 1934 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although Freeman wanted to continue her education, the arrival of her four younger sisters in Boston, Massachusetts led her to find work instead as a designer of steam turbines for General Electric. In 1938, Freeman returned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working as an applied mathematician in the remarkable Wiener-Rosenblith electroencephalography project. In the 1960s Freeman introduced Russian language instruction to Massachusetts Institute of Technology by volunteering to teach the language. She later led MIT's "language lab".
Arrangement
Collection is minimally processed. Materials are loosely arranged into five series: Correspondence; Family Papers and Research; Personal Documents; Photographs; and Research for Russia and Beyond.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Special equipment or surrogate required; consult Houghton staff.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2008M-53. Gift of from Edward Freeman in 2009 December.
Separated Materials
Born-digital material has been separated: Am3194BD
General note
Includes audiovisual and/or other digital media: audiocassettes; floppy disks; audiotapes; and CD-Rs.
Processing Information
Accessioned by Melanie Wisner, 2009.
Processed by Magdaline Lawhorn, 2018.
Genre / Form
- Title
- Zarudnai︠a︡-Friman, M. (Margarita), 1908-. Margaret Zarudny Freeman papers, circa 1883-2007 (MS Am 3184): Guide.
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard University.
- Date
- August 22, 2018
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02995
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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