Records of Battered Women's Directory Project, 1975-1985

The records of the Battered Women Directory Project include material received by Betsy Warrior during her work publishing Working on Wife Abuse and the Battered Women's Directory.

This collection originally consisted of about two cubic feet of papers of three main types: orders and requests for publications; letters, brochures, etc., conveying information about individuals or agencies wishing to be listed in the directory, or to update or correct a listing; and a smaller number of miscellaneous letters, some relating personal experiences with battering, others discussing projects pertaining to battered women. The orders/requests for publications came from three major groups: those running or about to start shelters for battered women; students (at every educational level) writing about wife abuse; and such other people as clergy, authors, physicians, legislators, and police and other government officials with an interest in the subject.

Nearly all of the first two types of letters or forms were discarded at the time of the initial inventory in 1985. Information for the directory was retained only if it did not bear the note "on index"; if it did, the information is available in one or another edition of the directory. Only a few of the more unusual requests have been retained (e.g., from the National Library of Medicine and from various Army officials). The great bulk of requests came from women (and a few men) involved in running shelters. It is clear from these communications that during the years covered (1975-1985) the issue of battered women was receiving widespread attention in most of the fifty states but that resources to address the problem were generally meager. It is also clear that the directory, Working on Wife Abuse, and the other publications Betsy Warrior had produced were very useful in these people's work. The directory was later published as Battered Women's Directory (Cambridge, Mass.: B. Warrior, 1982).

Of the letters retained, those containing sensitive personal information have been copied; names, street addresses, and cities have been deleted on the copies. The originals are closed to research until January 1, 2030. These include correspondence from and about women prisoners in Georgia, Indiana, and Illinois. In 2015, the collection was rehoused for preservation reasons. Material is arranged alphabetically by geographic location.