The library's principal holdings date from the founding of the United States to the present and are especially rich in the areas of women's rights movements, feminism, health, social reform, education, professional life, volunteer and civic efforts, family relationships, and travel. Personal documents such as diaries and letters provide fascinating insights into the ordinary lives of women of all ages and pursuits and record the struggles and triumphs of women of accomplishment. Many collections—such as the papers of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Pauli Murray and the records of 9 to 5: National Association of Working Women—address political, organizational, and economic questions. Other holdings, including popular magazines such as The Ladies' Home Journal, Ebony, and Seventeen, highlight romance, domestic life, adolescence, occupations, religious observance, leisure pursuits, etiquette, and fashion.

One can find handwritten correspondence of the first professionally trained women doctors and lawyers, the baby book kept by the mother of aviator Amelia Earhart, sketches made by artist Judy Chicago, or the papers of Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West and poets Adrienne Rich and June Jordan. Organizational records cover a huge span, from the women's auxiliary of the First Methodist Church of Greenville, Mississippi, in the mid-nineteenth century to the Boston Women's Health Book Collective in the 1970s and the contemporary records of the national Association of Women Judges. The library has abundant material bearing on issues around the globe, because of American women's extensive travel and foreign residence. These include, for example, letters of early missionaries in China, reports from nurses in France during World War I, and the speeches and writings of global reformer Shirley Graham Du Bois in the mid-twentieth century.

Culinary Collection

Schlesinger Library’s holdings of culinary works include close to 15,000 titles from the United States and the world over. Begun as a collection intended to document the domestic focus and contributions of women, the collection grew around a core of cookery books transferred from Harvard’s Widener Library to Schlesinger when the latter opened. It has expanded to become an international collection covering the entire field of culinary history, the culinary professions, gastronomy, the history of domestic life and management, and the role of food in history and culture.

The holdings include books, periodicals, and microforms, and many rare titles are represented. Classic works on cuisine from the 16th century to our day are joined by hundreds of community and voluntary association cookbooks. The periodicals feature complete runs of many culinary and gastronomic titles. The culinary book collection complements Schlesinger’s significant holdings of papers of individuals in the culinary field, including Julia Child, M.F.K. Fisher, Alice Bradley, the Corner Book Shop/Eleanor Lowenstein, and Elizabeth David.

Radcliffe College Materials

The Radcliffe College Archives at the Schlesinger Library documents the history of Radcliffe College (1879–1999), its students, alumnae, and the women of Harvard University. These resources chronicle the growth of the college from an experimental program established in 1879 to provide women with access to Harvard teaching, to an institution coordinate with Harvard having its own property, endowment, students, and varied programs. Radcliffe College merged with Harvard University on October 1, 1999, thereby forming the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The records of Radcliffe College presidents and departments and the papers of students and alumnae are catalogued in HOLLIS. Finding aids for manuscript and audio-visual materials may be consulted at the Archives. Some finding aids are available through OASIS. For records of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, created after October 1, 1999, consult the Harvard University Archives.

Cover of A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David.
Portrait of M. F. K. Fisher cooking, ca. 1970.
Page of instructions from the pilot episode of "The French Chef," 1962. From the Julia Child Papers.