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SERIES Identifier: MC 890

Series II. CORRESPONDENCE, 1919-1969 (#4.9-10.9)

Scope and Contents

Series II, CORRESPONDENCE, 1919-1969 (#4.9-10.9), contains letters sent to Betty Gram Swing from a wide array of friends and professional associates: politicians, musicians, writers, artists, academics, and activists from the United States and Great Britain. Much of the correspondence dates from the late 1930s to the 1950s, when Gram Swing was living variously in Boston, Connecticut, and Vermont, and working with the National Woman's Party to advance the Equal Rights Amendment. Letters from friends in England are rich during these years, and address fears of possible war with Germany, as well as the difficult realities of life in England during World War II bombing and rationing.

Of note is correspondence with prominent National Woman's Party activists, including Alice Paul and Doris Stevens. Many of these letters describe Gram Swing's work with the National Woman's Party, the World Woman's Party, and other organizations, to secure an Equal Rights Amendment to the United States constitution and an Equal Rights Treaty at the League of Nations and then the United Nations. Most of Gram Swing's international work was in conjunction with women she met and organizations she joined while living in England in the 1920s and early 1930s; she also worked with Irish feminists on the issue of married women's right to keep their citizenship in their country of origin.

Betty Gram Swing also corresponded with a number of United States government leaders, particularly senators from Vermont and Oregon, about issues of importance to her. She was upset by Mt. Holyoke College's decision in 1937 to hire a male president, and worked with novelist Maude Meagher and others to voice opposition. She wrote to the presidents of a number of women's colleges urging each to create a class on women's history.

Personal correspondence ranges from brief postcards to long, chatty letters from friends. Letters often discuss books, politics, and music concerts attended. Some later correspondence addresses Gram Swing and others' (including her friend Rebecca Reyher) reactions to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. Also included are letters from several men identified by Sally Swing Shelley as Betty Gram Swing's lovers while living in England.

Betty Gram Swing kept much of her correspondence in alphabetical files by correspondent surname; this organization has been retained, although separate folders were created by the archivist for those correspondents with significant amounts of letters. Correspondence is mainly incoming letters, with some carbon copies and handwritten drafts of Gram Swing's outgoing mail. In addition to the alphabetical files, Gram Swing kept other folders for correspondence relating to the National Woman's Party and the Inter-American Commission for Women (#13.9-13.13); these are included in Series IV. There is a great deal of overlap between the two sets of files. Family correspondence can be found in Series V.

Dates

  • Creation: 1903-2013
  • Creation: Majority of material found within 1920-1969

Language of Materials

Materials in English.

Access Restrictions:

Access. Collection is open for research.

Extent

13.38 linear feet ((26 + 1/2 file boxes, 1 folio box, 1 folio+ box) plus 1 folio folder, 1 folio+ folder, 1 supersize folder, 11 photograph folders)
412 Megabytes (1 file)

Creator

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.

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