The Sophia Smith Collection

The Sophia Smith Collection

The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, is an internationally recognized repository for manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history. It was founded in 1942 to be the College library's distinctive contribution to Smith's mission of educating women. Under the inspired leadership of its first director, Margaret Storrs Grierson, the Sophia Smith Collection was developed into a strong historical research collection of material documenting the lives and activities of women. In 1946 it was named in honor of the founder of Smith College.

Today, the collection consists of over five thousand linear feet of material in manuscript, print, and audio-visual formats. The holdings document the historical experience of women in the United States and abroad from the colonial era to the present. Subject strengths include birth control women's rights, suffrage, social reform, the contemporary women's movement, U.S. women...